Nomenclature
Originally posted by Taft
This begs the question, what are they going to call the next major release of OS X?? And more importantly, what are they going to charge for it???
I think if we look back at the history of Apple OS naming we can get a better idea of what to expect. My analysis will cover 6-X which is what I'm the most familiar with and are most relevant.
These OS's went like this:
-End of Old-
6.0x
-Start of New-
7.0x, 7.1x
7.5x, 7.6x
8.0x, 8.1x
8.5x, 8.6x
9.0x, 9.1x
9.2x
-NeXT-
10.0x, 10.1x
?
As you can see, when Apple comes out with a radically new idea, they cange it to x.0x which is basically a public beta. Later, after they have fixed bugs, they come out with x.1x which is the first real version influenced by the users.
Apple has come out with some ideas that are not radical enough to warrant a new version, but enough to break the x.1.x initial build. The programmers are comfortable enough to develop something with confidence. For these recent OSs it has been called x.5.x.
If you look closely, you can se a trend. The only new OS to break this pattern was 9.2 which shipped with the Quicksilvers. I think at this point, Apple had made their mind to focus most of their develpoment efforts to the NeXT based X and leave any radical ideas to this new OS hence no x.5.x.
Their naming conventions have made sense and have been consistent. I think that if this trend continues with this New World OS, then the next logical step would be 10.5. This is probably the reason why Apple got pissed at the people who have been calling it 10.2. If they weren't to change it, they wouldn't have spent so much effort to quell these rumors. They basicaly said, "Leave the naming to us on this one, it'll be important".
The features (which we all know by now) are more than enough to warrant a major OS version # upgrade. Apple's programmers seem to be comfortable with X and have really cranked out some quality material.
Anything other than X will have to wait. Apple will have to come up with something clever. X is within most Unix nomenclature, and they'll have to keep it pure X. I don't see them calling it XI, they'd probably call it X v11 or something completely different.
As for price, Apple has traditionally made users pay for the x.5.x. This is now the "base" for future development, not x.1.x. Also, previous users of the same OS version had to pay, but get a break since they have paid before. But it's not free since there was enough develpoment to warrant a major version # change.
For people who want the whole thing, they'll have to pay the same as it costs now. My estimates: full will stay at $129 upgrade will be roughly half say $60-70 range.
Good catch, Taft. I wouldn't have thought of anything but 10.2 since everyone's been spewing that number without giving much thought to history.
