[irishmic]

Has it already been announced? And when do you think OS 11 will come out?

[Peter Cohen]

I predict that now we're past 10.5, the next batch of Mac OS X updates will be named after sea mammals. Beginning with Mac OS X v10.6 "Manatee."

[minischneides]

irishmic said:

Has it already been announced? And when do you think OS 11 will come out?

Nobody except perhaps select Apple employees know the name of OS X 10.6. However with 5 more releases of OS X and an average of about a year and a bit between release dates OS 11 will likely come out in the range of 2013 - 1015

[Philip Michaels]

Oh silly Cohen -- the big cat metaphor will never be retired until Lion ships. You think Apple will pass on the "King of the Beasts" marketing opportunity.

Me, I favor ocelot. Or fisher cat.

[MCJ]

Philip Michaels said:

Oh silly Cohen -- the big cat metaphor will never be retired until Lion ships. You think Apple will pass on the "King of the Beasts" marketing opportunity.

I further predict that Lion will then be followed by OS XI "Sabre Tooth"; if it were alive today that pre-historic feline would eat lions for breakfast. ;-)

[Alan]

Tomcat or maybe alleycat... ; ) or maybe puddy tat....

[GCG]

How about: 'Aardvark', 'Ground Hog', 'Moose' or 'Sloth'! Obviously, speculation on this topic runs the gambit, because "only Steve Jobs' Hairdresser knows for sure"! Save your bandwidth for other topics! LOLL!

[FranksterOne]

I think "LIGER" as it's pretty much my favorite animal.

!http://www.furiousmuse.com/pictures/liger.jpg|thumbnail=true!

-Frankster One
http://www.shouldbefree.net/

[mdawson]

Apple is well past the point of releasing new versions of OS X every year—such an upgrade schedule is no longer necessary—so, there is no discussion from Apple about a version that would not even be in alpha at this point. Leopard was just released two months ago, so you are really jumping the gun here.
As to when OS 11 will be out, it has already been clarified many times over that 10 is not a version number. So minischneides statement of there being 5 more releases of OS X remaining is patently false. I do not know why people insist on continuing to erroneously believe that versioning of software is a decimal based number system; obviously when software can be numbered 10.5.1 it ought to be obvious that it is a group of numbers and not a single decimal value. There could eventually be a Mac OS X 10.18.223 just as there is now 10.4.11 (the final release of Tiger).
The next version of OS X will be 6.0 followed eventually by 7.0 and so on. The ‘10’ is the system number represented by the Roman numeral X in homage to the liberal usage of ‘X’ in all things UNIX. So unless and until the Mac OS abandons a UNIX kernel the Mac OS (System) will likely remain at 10; Jobs has already stated as much.

[Larry_Plachno]

Personally, I can never keep the names straight. I have to refer to the numbers or I get lost. However, if this is a serious question, the best thing to do is to go back and look at what criteria was used with the first six names. All of them came from: Kingdom-Animalia, Phylum-Chordata, Class-Mammalia, Order-Carnivora, and Family-Felidae. Hence, it would only be logical to assume that the next name would also come from the family felidae.

Looking deeper, we find that three of the six names so far also come from the subfamily pantherinae and genus panthera. These are often referred to as the "big cats" and are different because they can really roar. This group only includes four major names: Lion, Jaguar, Leopard, and Tiger.

Hence, the logical first choice for the next OSX would probably be LION.

My next guesses would be other members of the felidae family with names that are easily recognizable by the general public. The ones that immediately come to mind are COUGAR and LYNX. BOBCAT is a possibility, but it is considered to be a lynx.

Of course, there is also the possibility that names of domestic and house cats could also be used. The one that immediately comes to mind (tongue in cheek) is Siamese . . . because of the connection between the word "Siamese" indicating children connected at birth and the dual core processors on modern Macs.

Larry

[minischneides]

mdawson said:

Apple is well past the point of releasing new versions of OS X every year—such an upgrade schedule is no longer necessary—so, there is no discussion from Apple about a version that would not even be in alpha at this point. Leopard was just released two months ago, so you are really jumping the gun here.

As to when OS 11 will be out, it has already been clarified many times over that 10 is not a version number. So minischneides statement of there being 5 more releases of OS X remaining is patently false. I do not know why people insist on continuing to erroneously believe that versioning of software is a decimal based number system; obviously when software can be numbered 10.5.1 it ought to be obvious that it is a group of numbers and not a single decimal value. There could eventually be a Mac OS X 10.18.223 just as there is now 10.4.11 (the final release of Tiger).

The next version of OS X will be 6.0 followed eventually by 7.0 and so on. The ‘10’ is the system number represented by the Roman numeral X in homage to the liberal usage of ‘X’ in all things UNIX. So unless and until the Mac OS abandons a UNIX kernel the Mac OS (System) will likely remain at 10; Jobs has already stated as much.

Excellent point, I stand corrected.

[mdawson]

I noticed a certain pattern in Apple’s naming of OS X, particularly after recently having a roommate that is a soldier in the German army. Mac OS X 10.6 may not see the light of day until the Germans introduce their next tank.

[MCJ]

>
The next version of OS X will be 6.0 followed eventually by 7.0 and so on. The ‘10’ is the system number represented by the Roman numeral X in homage to the liberal usage of ‘X’ in all things UNIX. So unless and until the Mac OS abandons a UNIX kernel the Mac OS (System) will likely remain at 10; Jobs has already stated as much.
[/quote]
I was completely unaware of this. I had assumed that the use of the Roman numeral was just a marketing thing.

Your encyclopedic knowledge of all things Apple continues to amaze. :-)

[Rugby]

have a look at possible names at Wikipedia : Wikipedia big cats and look under species, yes Lion is very possible (is there a betting feature included in the new MCW layout ? )

me I like Cheetah or Cougar hmmm Snow Leopard is going to be tough....