This is the name of the operating system, as the documents say. Initially, iOS was called "iPhone OS" (before the iPad), but I think they did not change systemName for compatibility reasons.
In the future, they may implement [UIDevice systemName] on (Mac) OS X, and on this platform it is likely to return Mac OS X or OS X
Current use of this method is rather limited, but you never know what ((partially) compatible) Apple or someone else's operating systems might produce in the future ...
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