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iOS vs Android: The Stack Compared

Climb the layers of both operating systems side by side. Same ARM64 chip at the bottom, completely different worlds above it.

iOSAndroidCPUARMv8 / ARM64=ARMv8 / ARM64KernelXNU (Mach + BSD)LinuxBinary formatMach-O (FE ED FA CF)ELF (7F 45 4C 46)C librarylibSystem (Darwin BSD libc)BionicLanguage runtimeObjective-C + Swift runtimeART (bytecode + JNI)IPC primitivesMach ports + XPCBinderUI frameworksUIKit / SwiftUIAndroid View systemGPU APIMetalVulkan / OpenGL ESCode signing + sandboxAMFI + Apple root + SBPLSelf-signed APK + SELinux + UIDwalls encountered so far: 0 of 8
Layer 1 / 9CPU

At the very bottom, both phones use ARM64 chips. That shared CPU ISA is the one layer where native machine instructions can look compatible before the rest of the stack diverges.

Arrow keys to climb the stack · R to reset

Tap dots to jump to any layer

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