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os 11?

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That's OK. Windows will finally hit 6.0 on Tuesday after seven years of 5.x.

All versions of Windows 2000 and XP through XP SP2 were internally labelled versions of Windows NT 5.X.

B
 
breakfastcrew said:
so is that like in 10 years or what? how long did os 9 last? or 8?
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When MacOS X 10.0 went on sale, Jobs said that it would be the basis of Apple's OS for the next 20 years. Consider this: the iPhone OS is OS X. Most reports have it pegged at OS X 10.5. I would expect this version alone to last for the next 3 years. Now with the iPhone, Apple TV, and the Mac running, OS X 10.x, I believe that we are going to see the OS around for a very long time. Remember that software version numbers are completely arbitrary. There are no standard from IEEE, ISO, MIL-SPEC, SAE, W3C, SI, or any other standards-setting body. Just for fun, check the version numbers of the TeX typesetting system for the last 30 years.
 
I don't know about everyone else, but OS XI just doesn't sound right to me! If each significant upgrade is marked by a .1 increase, that's fine with me.

:apple:
 
OS X is based on Unix which, lets face it, is about as old as it gets in terms of operating systems. OS X grows incrementally so there may not be an 'OS 11' for a very, very long time - probably not until there's a fundamental shift in computer architecture.

If it aint broke...
 
If you look at Mac OS from the original Macintosh, in 1984, then all the way through to 9.2.2 in 2001. The OS evolved but there weren't really any fundamental changes. Each new version improved and added to the preceding one.
So OS X could go on for at least 17 years like "Classic" did. As previously stated Steve Jobs did say it was the OS for the next 20 years.
 
I agree - I imagine we will see major updates every two years or so, which means we won't see OS X 10.9 till 2015 at the earliest, and that's too far in the future to predict much.

OS X is more than a version notation system - it refers to the Unix-like Mac OS (as opposed to the "Classic" Mac OS), so I don't think there will ever be an "OS XI", unless Apple completely rebuilds the whole OS again.
 
Software version numbers are not decimal increments. That is, 10.4.9 isn't followed by 10.5 necessarily, it could go 10.4.10 followed by 10.4.11 and so on. In the same way 10.9 could be followed by 10.10.

Further, the Mac OS version numbers don't actually group similar operating systems very well. When looking closely at all of them, the groupings would look like this...
  • System 0.97 to System 6.0.8
  • System 7.0 to Mac OS 7.6.1
  • Mac OS 8.0 to 9.2.2
  • Mac OS X v10.0 to 10.4.x
And even then, the fact that we are still using 10.x for version numbers is mainly marketing. Had Apple stayed with how the version numbers had worked before we would have had the following...
  • 10.0 (Mac OS X v10.0)
  • 10.1 (Mac OS X v10.1)
  • 10.5 (Mac OS X v10.2)
  • 11.0 (Mac OS X v10.3)
  • 11.5 (Mac OS X v10.4)
So staying at 10.x is artificial, done solely because the products name is Mac OS X.

And imagine how many of us in the late 90s were confused when we were told that the next version of the Mac OS after 8.x would be 10. The first product to use Mac OS X in it's name actually predates the release of Mac OS 9. And Mac OS 9 was only released because it took Apple much longer to get Carbon working than they had originally envisioned (and wasn't significantly different from 8.6 to justify jumping up a full version to 9.0).

So basically... we've already passed what would have been Mac OS 11.0, and because the product is called Mac OS X, don't expect to see either 11.x or XI any time in the near future.
 
There's no reason you couldn't have OSX 10.10, 10.11, 10.12, etc... Solaris 2.7 was known as "Solaris 7," 2.8 was "Solaris 8" and so on, so 10.10 would be "OSX 10," 10.11 would be "OSX 11" and there you go, no problem.
 
RacerX said:
Further, the Mac OS version numbers don't actually group similar operating systems very well. When looking closely at all of them, the groupings would look like this...
  • System 0.97 to System 6.0.8
  • System 7.0 to Mac OS 7.6.1
  • Mac OS 8.0 to 9.2.2
  • Mac OS X v10.0 to 10.4.x
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I would say there was a large difference between 8.6 and 9. Enough to make it a retail upgrade anyway.
 
If Apple really wanted to keep the name "OSX", why don't they just start calling it "OSX, Leopard" or something to that effect, and get rid of "10.4.8", etc. Keep OSX as a product name, like "Windows", etc. Use the "name", ie, "Leopard", "Tiger", etc, and just go with version names of the present "cat". However, when they run out of cat names, and we get "OSX Ocelot 1.0.5", it might be time to switch animals.

Eric
 
Eric374 said:
If Apple really wanted to keep the name "OSX", why don't they just start calling it "OSX, Leopard" or something to that effect, and get rid of "10.4.8", etc. Keep OSX as a product name, like "Windows", etc. Use the "name", ie, "Leopard", "Tiger", etc, and just go with version names of the present "cat". However, when they run out of cat names, and we get "OSX Ocelot 1.0.5", it might be time to switch animals.

Eric
Click to expand...

Leopard, Tiger, Panther etc are the OS's pre-release code names that Apple decided to keep as a marketing gimmick.
 
Well, they also keep it as 10.whatever because the name, while written OS X, is pronounced "Oh Ess Ten," NOT "Oh Ess Ecks." In the end it's all arbitrary, and like someone else said I doubt we'll see the X nomenclature disappear until Apple is forced to change the underlying architecture of Mac OS due to some radical development in the computer world.
 
bartelby said:
I would say there was a large difference between 8.6 and 9. Enough to make it a retail upgrade anyway.
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The difference was less than from 8.1 to 8.5 (which was also a retail upgrade).

In all actuality the primary difference between 8.6 and 9 is the ability of the system to be used for the Classic environment (which is structurally different from the Blue Box environment that Mac OS 8.x was used in, but was not compatible with Mac OS 9).

I personally own just about every OS Apple has released, and I use 8.6 as my main OS on my Pre-Mac OS X systems. Mac OS 9 exists on any of my systems strictly as Classic for Mac OS X. I surely wouldn't use it to run actual hardware (as it wasn't really designed for doing that). 😱
 
killmoms said:
Well, they also keep it as 10.whatever because the name, while written OS X, is pronounced "Oh Ess Ten," NOT "Oh Ess Ecks." ...
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Although we might quibble on the margins, RacerX is correct. The sole purpose of MacOS 9 was to transition from MacOS 8 and MacOS X. Although Apple insists that OS X be pronounced Oh Ess Ten, there is some evidence that it may really be Oh Ess Ecks afterall. This because OS X is reputed to be an abbreviation for OpenSTEP EXtended. If this is the case, then the OS which follows MacOS X 10.x will be MacOS X 11.0.
 
MisterMe said:
If this is the case, then the OS which follows MacOS X 10.x will be MacOS X 11.0.
Click to expand...

Oh, will I dance in the streets, when Steve Jobs is forced to concede to my worldview and begin saying "Oss Exx." 😀 Even if there does have to be an "eleven" after it.
 
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