Internal testing of Mac OS X 10.8 increases at Apple

Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
Only months after Lion, the latest version of Mac OS X, was publicly released, evidence continues to grow that Apple is hard at work on the next version of its Mac operating system.



Throughout October, there's been a steady increase in traffic from devices claiming to run an unreleased version of Mac OS X, identified as 10.8. While it's easy to fake data like an operating system version, some of the visitors tracked by MacRumors had IP addresses originating from Apple itself. For its part, AppleInsider has seen nearly 1,900 visits from machines running Mac OS X 10.8.



The growing presence of machines running Mac OS X 10.8 suggests that employees at Apple are already using an early build of the next version of the Mac operating system. Similar traffic spikes were seen with Mac OS X 10.7 in late 2009, as Apple began to test what would later become Lion internally.



Lion was officially unveiled a year later, in October of 2010, before it was released in July on the Mac App Store for $29.99.



If Apple were to stick to its current release schedule, Mac OS X 10.8 -- whether it gains a new cat name or otherwise -- would be released in mid-to-late 2013. The latest major new releases of Mac OS X have arrived about every two years, with Snow Leopard launching in August 2009, while Leopard was originally scheduled to arrive in June of 2007, but actually became available in August of that year.



With a possible release of Mac OS X 10.8 so far out, it's unknown what features Apple could be working on for the next major version of its Mac operating system. Hallmark features of Lion include the Mac App Store, Launchpad, Mission Control, new multi-touch gestures, full-screen applications, auto-save, and auto-resume.







This August, one analyst suggested that Apple could merge its traditional Mac OS X operating system with the iOS mobile operating system that powers the iPhone and iPad. It was hypothesized that a next-generation quad-core "A6" processor could power a new iPad, iPhone and MacBook Air, replacing the Intel processors found in current Macs with an ARM-based CPU.



Similarly, in May, one report claimed that Apple had built a test MacBook Air powered by the same A5 processor found in the iPad 2 and the newly released iPhone 4S. It was said that the test machine "performed better than expected," though there was no indication that Apple planned to release such a device at any point in the near future.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 37
    Deleted- Not helpful at all
  • Reply 2 of 37
    feynmanfeynman Posts: 1,087member
    This is exciting! I always love reading about the latest news and rumors on major Mac OS updates
  • Reply 3 of 37
    dgnr8dgnr8 Posts: 196member
    I am still hesitant to migrate to 10.7 because the migration to the mobile platform.



    I dread to see what they are going to do to 10.8
  • Reply 4 of 37
    conradjoeconradjoe Posts: 1,887member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post


    Only months after Lion, the latest version of Mac OS X, was publicly released, evidence continues to grow that Apple is hard at work on the next version of its Mac operating system.




    Well, duh.



    They were "hard at work on the next version of its Mac operating system" months BEFORE Lion as well.



    Slow "news" day, eh?
  • Reply 5 of 37
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by DGNR8 View Post


    I am still hesitant to migrate to 10.7 because the migration to the mobile platform.



    I dread to see what they are going to do to 10.8



    I was a little hesitant too and waited to 10.7.2 to be released before moving one of our machines over to Lion for testing and it has been a pretty good switch with very few issues (there have been a few network issues and some of our software is not officially updated for Lion but all the Adobe stuff I have tried seems to work - but I am not a power user). It took me a day or two to get the scroll bar direction thing figured out but I am getting old and others will no doubt master it in a much short time. That said, I will hold off updating the rest till at least 10.7.3 but most likely 10.7.4 just to make sure that it is a seamless transition. I am intrigued to see what they are innovating for 10.8.
  • Reply 6 of 37
    ssquirrelssquirrel Posts: 1,196member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by samwell View Post


    Deleted- Not helpful at all .



    They did it was called 10.7 Other than occasional pinwheeling while using Safari, I don't have any issues in Lion. Then again, I bought a new Mac Mini in August as my first Mac till I get a laptop next year.
  • Reply 7 of 37
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post


    Mac OS X 10.8 -- whether it gains a new cat name or otherwise



    How many big cats are left? They can't very well call it Cougar, can they?
  • Reply 8 of 37
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by samwell View Post


    Deleted- Not helpful at all .



    Try trolling somewhere else before coming back here.



    See what I did there? I used syntactic similarity to mock your foolish statement.
  • Reply 9 of 37
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by IanRid View Post


    How many big cats are left? They can't very well call it Cougar, can they?



    Well, keep in mind that Apple will be hitting its late 30s by that point. If they rename themselves "Appletini," that will be a big hint.
  • Reply 10 of 37
    asdasdasdasd Posts: 5,686member
    10.7.2 is alright in my books.



    Anyway, where were we. Oh, yes. 10.8. Here is how it works.



    1) 10.7 is released.

    2) The next non forked build is 10.8(A1) and could be released in the same week as 10.7 GM's. It's probably just the same as the 10.7 release.

    3) There is a fork for 10.7( BNN), and later 10.72 ( C74 was the release).



    They tend to build every non-weekend day.



    The graph shows it drops off to zero at weekends. Tsk.
  • Reply 11 of 37
    dbtincdbtinc Posts: 134member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by IanRid View Post


    How many big cats are left? They can't very well call it Cougar, can they?



    if they continue to dumb down the OS then they can call the next one "pussy."
  • Reply 12 of 37
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by jamiec View Post


    Well, keep in mind that Apple will be hitting its late 30s by that point. If they rename themselves "Appletini," that will be a big hint.



    !!



    But if I hear anymore mentions of 30s being old I'm really going to be sad.
  • Reply 13 of 37
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    I think re-adding Universal architectures for Intel and ARM isn't too hard to fathom. With the 64-bit ARM version 8 expected by 2014 and the Mac App Store making Apple releasing Universal SDK should make this a pretty simple move for the future.



    Hopefully Intel will get their power requirements down considerably, but either way I look forward to a full 24 hours of usage from my devices between charges.
  • Reply 14 of 37
    blastdoorblastdoor Posts: 3,258member
    I hope they add Siri to OSX before 10.8 (or that 10.8 with Siri comes out quicker than 10.7 did).



    It would be great if Apple could add Siri to OSX before Windows 8 comes out.
  • Reply 15 of 37
    I'm sure Apple is already working on the successor to 10.9 (10.10? 11.0? Who knows?) and the successor to that.



    If they're not, you shouldn't buy Apple stock.
  • Reply 16 of 37
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by IanRid View Post


    How many big cats are left? They can't very well call it Cougar, can they?



    I have a report snippet from July 2003:



    "It appears that Apple filed a number of new trademarks in early July.

    Apple has added Lynx, Cougar, Leopard, and Tiger to their collection of trademarks, under the common category of "computers; computer software; computer operating system software".



    Maybe 10.8 and 10.9 (Lynx and Cougar) will be two last minor releases until the next major one, OS 11.
  • Reply 17 of 37
    ssquirrelssquirrel Posts: 1,196member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by tonyweston View Post


    I have a report snippet from July 2003:



    "It appears that Apple filed a number of new trademarks in early July.

    Apple has added Lynx, Cougar, Leopard, and Tiger to their collection of trademarks, under the common category of "computers; computer software; computer operating system software".



    Maybe 10.8 and 10.9 (Lynx and Cougar) will be two last minor releases until the next major one, OS 11.



    Of course, when OS X was introduced, Steve said they had their OS for the next 20 years. Also, nothing says that when they would hit 10.10 that they have to roll up to 11.
  • Reply 18 of 37
    My guess is that we'll see a refinement release for speed and optimization plus more integration with iDevices.



    My money is on "Mountain Lion".
  • Reply 19 of 37
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by rockaw View Post


    My guess is that we'll see a refinement release for speed and optimization plus more integration with iDevices.



    My money is on "Mountain Lion".



    That's what I've been betting on, too. Little change to UI, but major change to foundation, including running on ARM.
  • Reply 20 of 37
    I hope they don't wait until 10.8 to address multi-screen mission control!
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