Apple's website hints 'OS X' to be rebranded as 'MacOS'

AppleInsiderAppleInsider
Posted:
in macOS
Adding to the evidence that Apple is intending to change the name of OS X, the company on Thursday posted an updated webpage referring to the software as "MacOS" instead.




The term can be found on an FAQ page within Apple's Environment subsite, specifically in a section about greenhouse gases and product lifecycles. The text is the only direct reference to either Macs or OS X in the FAQ -- notably, the rest of Apple's website still appears to insist on using "OS X."

In late March it was discovered that one framework in OS X 10.11.4 refers to "macOS." Employing the term in a public-facing webpage more strongly suggests this wasn't a fluke. The change was spotted by 9to5Mac earlier today.

Switching to MacOS/macOS would align the platform's branding with Apple's other operating systems: iOS, tvOS, and watchOS. Intentionally or not, it would also be a throwback to the earlier days of the Mac between 1984 and 2001.

Apple is mostly likely to announce any name change at its Worldwide Developer Conference in early June, and launch a new Mac operating system later in the year.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 32
    rogifan_newrogifan_new Posts: 4,297member
    The fact that it's listed as MacOS and not macOS makes me think not.
  • Reply 2 of 32
    retrogustoretrogusto Posts: 1,148member
    Makes sense. It soes seem odd how long it's been stuck in version ten, presumably because the last letter of "UNIX" resembles the Roman numeral for ten. It's been an endless source of confusion for people who think it's "oh ess ex."
    sockrolid
  • Reply 3 of 32
    durandal_1707durandal_1707 Posts: 363member
    This is better evidence than that stupid nib file, at least.
  • Reply 4 of 32
    sockrolidsockrolid Posts: 2,789member
    Whether it's "MacOS" or "macOS", it's definitely time for the change.
    But will it be 10.12 or 11.0?
    cornchip
  • Reply 5 of 32
    yadda yadda yaddayadda yadda yadda Posts: 23member
    My favorite option is kind of a crazy one: Not Mac OS 10.12 or 11, but Mac OS 22.

    It would make up for lost time by counting each revision of OS X as a whole number.

    The best time to do this would've been Yosemite (Mac OS 20).
  • Reply 6 of 32
    why-why- Posts: 305member
    I lost track of what they call it a while ago
  • Reply 7 of 32
    gunner1954gunner1954 Posts: 142member
    My vote is for macOS with the lowercase m, not uppercase. Doing so will indicate that it is not the same as the pre-OS X  Mac OS and will also align the verbiage with iOS, watchOS and tvOS.
    gilly017
  • Reply 8 of 32
    rogifan_newrogifan_new Posts: 4,297member
    And now they've changed the page to say OS X.
    cornchip
  • Reply 9 of 32
    misamisa Posts: 827member
    retrogusto said:
    Makes sense. It soes seem odd how long it's been stuck in version ten, presumably because the last letter of "UNIX" resembles the Roman numeral for ten. It's been an endless source of confusion for people who think it's "oh ess ex."
    It's not "version 10" in which you'd expect a version 11. It's "X" with a build number eg 10.10, 10.11, and so forth. 

    Just like Linux isn't at version 4.4 and Windows isn't at version 10. 

    Both Windows 95 and Windows NT 4 were "version 4" but Windows NT5 (2000) was "version 5" and XP, Vista and 7 were all 6.x series.

    There is no correlation between a product name and a version number. OS X was the "Windows NT" of the Apple world. New kernel, new drivers, new API's. Software for the old OS still works to a point. 

    Firefox and Chrome are at version 40-somethings, doesn't mean that their version numbers are meaningful. Apple's version numbers correlate with hardware product releases which introduce new API's and depreciate some less popular ones. Microsoft's correlate with major API changes (mainly DirectX), and tend to maintain a lot of backwards compatibility in the process.

    Linux does neither, and software based on Linux tends to have no correlation to the kernel version. Redhat is still shipping 2.6.x kernel's and current products based on it (eg CentOS 6) are based on that kernel.

    Like if it's one thing that's truely annoying in the software world, it's that version numbers are often meaningless except as a compatibility cudgel. "Chrome doesn't support Windows XP anymore"... yeah but that choice is being made by the Chrome developers, there is nothing actually stopping Chrome from supporting Windows XP except the developers unwillingness to maintain the build target. Look at ScummVM, there are literately builds for 68K Atari's, Amiga (OS4) 's and Dreamcast's, While I don't really care that Chrome and Firefox are't supplying builds to obsolete OS versions, I do care that the OS developers feel the need to increment the version numbers for no reason at all, and as a result "version number inflation" happens to "license" products. Like does anyone really need to use the current version of MS Office, doesn't Office 95 have everything you'd ever need? No, probably not, but the average person is being told they need "to upgrade" when they do not.

    And that is the entire problem. I consider OS X, any version to be "one version" for the sake of compatibility as I haven't run into anything that doesn't work on 10.11 that used to work on 10.4 except for some Java or Xwindows Unix ports of software. Windows compatibility reaches back into Windows 3.0/3.1 if you have the 32-bit OS, but if you have the 64-bit OS, forget running all 16-bit software and some Win95-era 32-bit software that has 16-bit installers.
    digital_guy
  • Reply 10 of 32
    NemWanNemWan Posts: 118member
    sockrolid said:
    Whether it's "MacOS" or "macOS", it's definitely time for the change.
    But will it be 10.12 or 11.0?
    What would be the NeXTSTEP version number is still implied by the Darwin version number 15.4 and OS X build number 15E65. OS X 10.11.4 = MacOS v.15.4. Windows skipped 9 so why not?
  • Reply 11 of 32
    durandal_1707durandal_1707 Posts: 363member
    misa said:

    Like if it's one thing that's truely annoying in the software world, it's that version numbers are often meaningless except as a compatibility cudgel. "Chrome doesn't support Windows XP anymore"... yeah but that choice is being made by the Chrome developers, there is nothing actually stopping Chrome from supporting Windows XP except the developers unwillingness to maintain the build target. Look at ScummVM, there are literately builds for 68K Atari's, Amiga (OS4) 's and Dreamcast's, While I don't really care that Chrome and Firefox are't supplying builds to obsolete OS versions, I do care that the OS developers feel the need to increment the version numbers for no reason at all, and as a result "version number inflation" happens to "license" products.
    Sorry, but this attitude kind of irks me. Supporting obsolete OS versions is quite a lot of work, actually, and often becomes impractical beyond a certain point. I don't do much development for Windows, but in each version of OS X, Apple adds new APIs that you can't use if you're targeting an old OS version, deprecates old APIs that you have to use if you're targeting an old OS version, and tweaks behaviors in ways that can break things when you're targeting old OS versions. Sometimes, Apple even adds new language features in new OS versions (hello, Swift, ARC, blocks, the modern runtime, GC, etc.). And often to be a good citizen on the new OS version, you have to take advantage of features that break compatibility with old OS versions past a certain point, so supporting the old OS requires writing tons of boilerplate and alternate code paths. And then you have to test all this stuff, so you'll need people using every combination of old software and old hardware that you can think of, because it's very easy to introduce weird bugs that only occur on older OS versions, unnoticed by the developers, who are probably on something more recent.

    Being backward compatible to ancient OS releases is very time-consuming and error-prone, and is nowhere near as simple as non-developers tend to think it is.

    Oh, and you shouldn't be using Windows XP anymore anyway. Microsoft ended support for it a long time ago. It's a security minefield.
    Like does anyone really need to use the current version of MS Office, doesn't Office 95 have everything you'd ever need? No, probably not, but the average person is being told they need "to upgrade" when they do not.
    Office 95 can't even open .docx files.
    And that is the entire problem. I consider OS X, any version to be "one version" for the sake of compatibility as I haven't run into anything that doesn't work on 10.11 that used to work on 10.4 except for some Java or Xwindows Unix ports of software.
    All Classic software won't work on Leopard or later. Lion, which removed Rosetta, breaks PowerPC OS X software. Apple's claiming that they're planning to remove libauto in the next version of OS X, so that will break all garbage-collected software as well, and sooner or later they're bound to remove 32-bit support, which will break, among other things, all Carbon apps. And then some things just break. EV Nova sadly quit working for me a few OS X versions ago.
    edited April 2016 badmonk
  • Reply 12 of 32
    baconstangbaconstang Posts: 1,162member
    I miss the puddy tats.
    cornchip
  • Reply 13 of 32
    mdriftmeyermdriftmeyer Posts: 7,503member
    NemWan said:
    sockrolid said:
    Whether it's "MacOS" or "macOS", it's definitely time for the change.
    But will it be 10.12 or 11.0?
    What would be the NeXTSTEP version number is still implied by the Darwin version number 15.4 and OS X build number 15E65. OS X 10.11.4 = MacOS v.15.4. Windows skipped 9 so why not?
    NeXTSTEP was dropped when we released the first version of OpenStep and it was OpenStep 4.0. We finished off at OpenStep 4.2 when we merged with Apple. NS doesn't stand for NeXTSTEP. NX was the prefix for NeXTSTEP. We changed the nomenclature to NS for the NeXT OpenStep Initiative. How come we never changed it to OS was probably to avoid the general term, OS long known and accepted as short-hand for Operating System. NSHost, NSController, NSAppKit, NSFoundation which later became Foundation.
    sessamoidcornchip
  • Reply 14 of 32
    9secondkox29secondkox2 Posts: 3,199member
    Um...

    there red is nothing to see here. 

    OS X is short for Mac OS X. 

    So so it's Mac OS at its core as it has always been. 

    But it it won't be the 10th iteration forever. 

    Sheesh. 
    nolamacguy
  • Reply 15 of 32
    9secondkox29secondkox2 Posts: 3,199member
    baconstang said:
    I miss the puddy tats.

    Me too. Jobs definitely knew the cool factor. 
  • Reply 16 of 32
    monstrositymonstrosity Posts: 2,234member
    I wil miss OS X. But if they do change it to MacOS they should just start at 1.0 again.
    edited April 2016
  • Reply 17 of 32
    hucom2000hucom2000 Posts: 149member
    "Evidence"? Based on a potential spelling mistake? LOL
  • Reply 18 of 32
    crowleycrowley Posts: 10,453member
    System
    Mac OS
    Mac OS X
    OS X
    macOS

    Meh, just a name.
  • Reply 19 of 32
    vanfrunikenvanfruniken Posts: 263member
    gunner1954 said:
    My vote is for macOS with the lowercase m, not uppercase. Doing so will indicate that it is not the same as the pre-OS X  Mac OS and will also align the verbiage with iOS, watchOS and tvOS.
    Moreover, it is the proper way to denote this in camelCase, as an instantiation of the same OS as the others.
  • Reply 20 of 32
    vanfrunikenvanfruniken Posts: 263member
    Remember when Apple came out with Mac OS X, how quick Microsoft was to call its next OS: "XP"? 
    They were afraid to look old fashioned without an X in the Windows version name.

    I just wonder how they will react now when Apple renames OSX to macOS.
    pcOS? surfaceOS?win, not to mention the 10 variants (Home, Pro, Enterprise, ...), and the umpteen server versions.
    Luckily, they still have the parallel NT x.x designations to fall back to, which have indicated all along that many major windows versions were only point updates.

    At least they are in sync with the OSX version numbering.
    Will Apple make them skip another version number?

    The question remains: will it be troublesome for Microsoft to select a meaningful copycat Windows name?
    badmonkcornchip
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