Apple Refers to OS X as 'MacOS' in Environmental Webpage Update

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

You can expound the 'X means UNIX' hypothesis all day and all night but OS X Server came out in 1999 and was based on Rhapsody 5.3 (an OpenStep platform that could run on NT)

The use of X was just something in vogue in marketing in the late 90s. X meant 10 And that's the official line from Apple. We were even given the choice of not installing the BSD subsystem when we installed Mac OS X.

BSD not receiving "official" Unix certification until 2006 had everything to do with politics, little to do with OS computer science. BSD officially WAS Unix as far as programmers and developers were concerned and official certification was an after the fact acknowledgement of the state of the industry over more than 10 years when the blessing finally occurred.

As far as the importance to Apple that OS X be recognized as Unix - that was paramount. The fact that "X" could mean both "Ten" and "Unix" was icing on the cake.

 

[C DM]

ummm...folks..hate to break it to you but Apple changed the wording.

"

1. To model customer use, we measure the power consumed by a product while it is running in a simulated scenario. Daily usage patterns are specific to each product and are a mixture of actual and modeled customer use data. Years of use, which are based on first owners, are assumed to be four years for OS X and tvOS devices and three years for iOS and watchOS devices. More information on our product energy use is provided in our Product Environmental Reports.

And that pretty much settles that.

 

[Michael Goff]

If S. Jobs was still at Apple someone would have lost their job over MacRumors pointing this out.

I think we should make a drinking game out of this sort of thing. Whenever anyone talks about what Jobs would have done, take a shot.

 

[Altis]

I already generally refer to it as "Mac OS" out of habit since people know what I'm referring to when I say "Mac", but "OS X" doesn't ring a bell to them.

 

[the8thark]

Is this a concern for anyone?

Name it after different types of fungi and I'm still using it...

Gary

That's just as bad as calling an OS icecream sandwich (yes we all know that did happen).
[doublepost=1460754536][/doublepost]

I like it. Make total sense.

Anyways OS X was Mac OS X before, so it's not a big change.

A little history of Mac OS names.

So the order of naming of the OS over the years is (Where N is the number/name of the specific OS version):

Mac OS -> Mac OS N -> Mac OS X -> Mac OS X N -> OS X N -> MacOS (as rumoured by this article).

It looks like Apple has come full circle from Mac OS all the way back in the 1980's to today with MacOS.

 

[mildocjr]

That's just as bad as calling an OS icecream sandwich (yes we all that did happen).

I thought the naming convention was sickening after I read an article about the Android phone names, it's like naming it after that plus things kids like. Sick marketing.

 

[DHagan4755]

With Apple's California-themed OS X naming convention, perhaps Apple's going expand on this and brand all of its operating systems this way. So instead of, say, OS X Monterey, maybe they're going to have MacOS Monterey, iOS Monterey, watchOS Monterey, and tvOS Monterey. The problem with this is over time people don't exactly remember version names vs. numbers and it can get confusing as people stay on one version for awhile and forget the order or operating system releases (this happens now).

 

[thespacekid]

Sounds like they are laying the groundwork to distance it from version 10, perhaps version 11 next year? Or will they stay at version 10 always like Microsoft?

 

[NY Guitarist]

MacOS has a nice ring to it, almost like it was always part of the Apple culture.

 

[\-V-/]

MacOS has a nice ring to it, almost like it was always part of the Apple culture.

Yeah, crazy stuff.

 

[n-evo]

A little history of Mac OS names.

It looks like Apple has come full circle from Mac OS all the way back in the 1980's to today with MacOS.

No full circle. Before Mac OS 7.6 it was simply called "System". So you got System 6, System 7.

 

[George Dawes]

Interesting that there's no mac pro in that picture...

 

[bingeciren]

If they're going to go with that naming scheme they might as well change iOS to phoneOS.

Better yet, call it pOS. But it it could easily be confused with the acronym POS, which stands for something else

 

[\-V-/]

Better yet, call it pOS. But it it could easily be confused with the acronym POS, which stands for something else

You could've just left it at pOS and the joke would have explained itself.

 

[Loge]

It looks like Apple has come full circle from Mac OS all the way back in the 1980's to today with MacOS.

But we've lost the "space"

 

[briloronmacrumo]

Call it whatever you like, but please give it a better filesystem

Agreed. Don Brady ( one of the prime authors or Apple's HFS and HFS+ ) is surprised his work is still around 15 to 20 years later and says here that he would have designed it better had he know it would be around so long.

 

[Solomani]

Everything old is new again.

 

[\-V-/]

Agreed. Don Brady ( one of the prime authors or Apple's HFS and HFS+ ) is surprised his work is still around 15 to 20 years later and says here that he would have designed it better had he know it would be around so long.

They should do ZFS or some other kind of self-healing format.

 

[Benjamin Frost]

Better yet, call it pOS. But it it could easily be confused with the acronym POS, which stands for something else

Yep, point of service would be confusing.

 

[Chomp81]

OSX has been around for 15 years, right? While I'm not saying this for the sake of change ("If it ain't broke, don't fix it"), do you guys think Apple will go to OSXI (OS 11) anytime soon, or will we continue 10.12, 10.13, etc.?

I am wondering, why are we having each year iOS 8, iOS 9, iOS 10 and so on; while OS is 10.11, 10.12, 10.13?

How does Apple defines when a version changes by the integer and when a decimal?

 

[Simplicated]

LOL. Last 3 OSs as in Mavbricks, YoureSh**tingme and El Crapitan...

but please no Mac Bugs. We don't need no [more] stinking bugs.

This is so mature.

 

[n-evo]

If they're going to go with that naming scheme they might as well change iOS to phoneOS.

Except iOS runs on more than just phones.

 

[the8thark]

But we've lost the "space"

Jon Ive: We have to make the Mac OS name 15% smaller. So I guess the space has to go

 

[Mr. Dee]

The UNIX support and the 10th release a big release, but I think its time Apple move to something more progressive brand wise. With iOS 10 coming this year, it makes too. It would be strange next year iOS 11 comes out and OS X is called OS 10. So I will stick to MacOS 12.

 

[the8thark]

The UNIX support and the 10th release a big release, but I think its time Apple move to something more progressive brand wise. With iOS 10 coming this year, it makes too. It would be strange next year iOS 11 comes out and OS X is called OS 10. So I will stick to MacOS 12.

That's probably why Apple is moving away from OS X to MacOS. Because having OS X and iOS 10 at the same time could be very confusing for people new to Apple. Both are essentially an OS 10.

A lot of people would try to make iOS X jokes though.