# Will there ever be Mac OS XI ?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-mac-os-xi/515359
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [October 27, 2009, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-mac-os-xi/515359 "2009-10-27T22:30:52Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2009, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-mac-os-xi/515359/1 "2009-10-27T22:30:52Z")
Title says it all.
Seems like Apple just loves the Mac OS X name and doesn’t want to change it even as it substantially improves from within and out. Or maybe it’s been plotting all these years to make something truly revolutionary to justify the 10% increase in versionality.
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### Author:  [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2009, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-mac-os-xi/515359/2 "2009-10-27T22:33:09Z")
\*\*\*Ever??? \*\*\*Yes.
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### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2009, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-mac-os-xi/515359/3 "2009-10-27T22:36:31Z")
Dunno. I could see the X getting permanently incorporated so the product is "OSX’ and the next major version could be OSX 2 or some such.
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### Author:  [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2009, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-mac-os-xi/515359/4 "2009-10-27T22:37:55Z")
Just so long as they don’t do an IBM and cut it in half like OS/2. 😃
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### Author:  [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2009, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-mac-os-xi/515359/5 "2009-10-27T22:42:02Z")
> [@Mangetout](#):
>
> Dunno. I could see the X getting permanently incorporated so the product is "OSX’ and the next major version could be OSX 2 or some such.
Or they could take a left turn and make the next version OS Y.
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### Author:  [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2009, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-mac-os-xi/515359/6 "2009-10-27T22:49:03Z")
Oh, and while we’re at it, will there ever be a Linux kernel 2.8?
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### Author:  [@thirdname](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thirdname)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2009, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-mac-os-xi/515359/7 "2009-10-27T22:50:15Z")
They’ll eventually run out of cats.
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### Author:  [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2009, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-mac-os-xi/515359/8 "2009-10-27T23:00:55Z")
> [@thirdname](#):
>
> They’ll eventually run out of cats.
Cheetah
Puma
Jaguar
Panther
Tiger
Leopard
Snow Leopard
Lion
Clouded Leopard
Bobcat
Margay
Jaguarundi
Ocelot
Kodkod
Oncilla
Manul
Caracal
Serval
Canadian Lynx
Iberian Lynx
Eurasian Lynx
Eurasia Wildcat
Asiatic Wildcat
Asiatic Wildcat
African Wildcat
Andean Mountain Cat
Geoggroy’s Cat
Pampas Cat
Chinese Mountain Cat
Rusty-spotted Cat
Flat-headed Cat
Bornean Bay Cat
Iriomote Cat
Leopard Cat
Marbled Cat
Jungle Cat
Fishing Cat
Asiatic Golden Cat
Black-footed Cat
African Wildcat
African Golden Cat
Sand Cat
Oh boy. You think steve jobs will be dead by then?
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### Author:  [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2009, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-mac-os-xi/515359/9 "2009-10-27T23:22:03Z")
> [@gotpasswords](#):
>
> Just so long as they don’t do an IBM and cut it in half like OS/2. 😃
A great OS ruined by abysmal marketing. I dumped it in 99 when I got hold of the Windows 2000 preview.
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### Author:  [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2009, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-mac-os-xi/515359/10 "2009-10-27T23:45:40Z")
Apple’s official naming scheme has been OS X 10.x with x being each new release.
The 10 makes sense as a continuation from the old OS 9 (and previous numbers).
It’s entirely possible that they may go OS X 11.x for later editions so they can probably drag this out for a while if they want to, which is, IMHO, what they’ll probably do until there’s another big leap in the basic OS like there was between OS 9 and OS X.
Let’s just hope there’s never an OS XXX. Way too much potential for misunderstanding there. 🙂
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### Author:  [@Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_Dunlop)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2009, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-mac-os-xi/515359/11 "2009-10-28T01:23:05Z")
> [@thirdname](#):
>
> They’ll eventually run out of cats.
My intern from this summer felt pretty strongly that the next release should be called OS X 10.7 Albino Snow Leopard
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### Author:  [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2009, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-mac-os-xi/515359/12 "2009-10-28T01:37:50Z")
OS 11 Tabby
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### Author:  [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2009, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-mac-os-xi/515359/13 "2009-10-28T01:40:19Z")
> [@Alex\_Dubinsky](#):
>
> Cheetah
> Puma
> Jaguar
> Panther
> Tiger
> Leopard
> Snow Leopard…
>
> …African Golden Cat
> Sand Cat
Domestic Cat
Tabby
Calico
Manx
Siamese…
…Seal-point Siamese
Chocolate-point Siamese
Tabby-point Siamese…
…Fluffy\*
Smokey\*
Pud\*
Roumey\*
Jean-Pierre\*…
Maybe the next full revision should be System Eleven. 🙂
[sub]\*Names of actual cats I’ve known.[/sub]
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### Author:  [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2009, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-mac-os-xi/515359/14 "2009-10-28T04:10:03Z")
> [@dracoi](#):
>
> Let’s just hope there’s never an OS XXX.
That one will be fully internet-based.
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### Author:  [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2009, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-mac-os-xi/515359/15 "2009-10-28T04:36:21Z")
OSX is actually a double entre; it is (of course) the tenth operating system, it is also their first \*nix (Unix-like) operating system, being based on FreeBSD (via NextStep/OPENSTEP) running on top of the XNU hybrid kernel (based on the Mach microkernel modified with some BSD extensions integrated into the code). So Apple will keep using the OSX moniker as long as they continue to use a Unix-like OS (i.e. for the foreseeable future).
Right now, there is really no reason for Apple to develop a completely new OS. OSX is a highly robust, modular, and adaptable system, arguably the best general purpose operating system available, and can be improved by evolutionary developments in concert with hardware advances. The next really novel Apple operating system will likely be accompanied by an entirely new processing architecture that isn’t even on the horizon at this point.
Stranger
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### Author:  [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2009, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-mac-os-xi/515359/16 "2009-10-28T05:11:51Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#):
>
> The next really novel Apple operating system will likely be accompanied by an entirely new processing architecture that isn’t even on the horizon at this point.
Surely the next “really novel” Apple OS will be a set of UI changes, or input device innovations, rather than anything under-the-hood. (Obviously, using someone else’s kernel designed around a 40-year-old architecture doesn’t show an ambition to reinvent OS nuts and bolts.)
So the question really is, I guess, does Apple have something magical up its sleeve in terms of UI? (And you can point at the iPhone, but that’s a special case. All the applications were written from scratch. You can’t do that with a desktop OS. Not so suddenly.)
Or maybe the question is really just about marketing. Is it better to push and entrench the “OS X” brand at the cost of seeming like there’s little progress? Does not advertising “progress,” particulary major version numbers, subdue people into being better customers? (Old-school brands might slap a “new and improved” in small letters on their bottles of food and soap, but they don’t pull New Coke stunts. Their products have gone through countless revisions, of which the consumer has no recollection of.) A number of expensive CAD programs have abandoned major version numbers too, although in a different way (they increment the “major” version every year, or even every 6 months).
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### Author:  [@Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_Dunlop)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2009, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-mac-os-xi/515359/17 "2009-10-28T12:27:58Z")
> [@Alex\_Dubinsky](#):
>
> Surely the next “really novel” Apple OS will be a set of UI changes, or input device innovations, rather than anything under-the-hood. (Obviously, using someone else’s kernel designed around a 40-year-old architecture doesn’t show an ambition to reinvent OS nuts and bolts.)
Snow Leopard made some pretty drastic changes to the OS nuts and bolts, so I don’t agree with your assessment that they’re not interested in doing that. On the other hand, they sold it for $30 and most Apple users have no idea of the major changes. So for Apple’s customer base, yes I think it’s unlikely to be under-the-hood changes that would revolutionize the OS.
> [@Alex\_Dubinsky](#):
>
> So the question really is, I guess, does Apple have something magical up its sleeve in terms of UI? (And you can point at the iPhone, but that’s a special case. All the applications were written from scratch. You can’t do that with a desktop OS. Not so suddenly.)
They’ve been pretty gradual about introducing more and more of the multitouch technology on the iPhone to their Macs. They turned their laptop’s track pad into one big button to accomodate gestures more easily about 2 years ago and just released a new mouse where the entire top surface is able to accept gestures. Aside from all the nut-and-bolts changes in Snow Leopard I think it’s been the biggest little noticed change. Of course they were a lot more in-your-face about the technology when it was first introduced on iPhone when Jobs very explicitly said he thought it was revolutionary.
> [@Alex\_Dubinsky](#):
>
> Or maybe the question is really just about marketing. Is it better to push and entrench the “OS X” brand at the cost of seeming like there’s little progress? Does not advertising “progress,” particulary major version numbers, subdue people into being better customers? (Old-school brands might slap a “new and improved” in small letters on their bottles of food and soap, but they don’t pull New Coke stunts. Their products have gone through countless revisions, of which the consumer has no recollection of.) A number of expensive CAD programs have abandoned major version numbers too, although in a different way (they increment the “major” version every year, or even every 6 months).
I think most long-term Apple fans forget how dramatically Apple has grown in the past 10 years under Jobs’ return. A lot of their Mac customers have switched since the switch to Intel in 2005 and a lot switched after getting hooked on iPhone. Most have no idea there was something called OS 9. Even long term Mac users are often pretty casual and couldn’t tell you whether OS X was first released in 2005, 2001, or 1996. So from a marketing perspective I would argue that OS X is pretty much akin to Windows now. It might make sense technically to call it something new but it doesn’t make marketing sense to abandon the brand anymore than it does to call Microsoft’s new OS something other than Windows.
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### Author:  [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2009, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-mac-os-xi/515359/18 "2009-10-28T18:10:28Z")
> [@dracoi](#):
>
> Let’s just hope there’s never an OS XXX. Way too much potential for misunderstanding there. 🙂
Besides, [an “XX is just wishy-washy”](http://www.theonion.com/content/node/29713).
> [@Fuzzy\_Dunlop](#):
>
> I think most long-term Apple fans forget how dramatically Apple has grown in the past 10 years under Jobs’ return. A lot of their Mac customers have switched since the switch to Intel in 2005 and a lot switched after getting hooked on iPhone. Most have no idea there was something called OS 9. Even long term Mac users are often pretty casual and couldn’t tell you whether OS X was first released in 2005, 2001, or 1996. So from a marketing perspective I would argue that OS X is pretty much akin to Windows now. It might make sense technically to call it something new but it doesn’t make marketing sense to abandon the brand anymore than it does to call Microsoft’s new OS something other than Windows.
Looking at history, if Apple wants to innovate, they have to wait for Apple employees to leave, start [innovative](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXT) [companies](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeOS), then be bought. All their [attempts](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copland_%28operating_system%29) to [produce](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taligent) an innovate OS in-house crashed and burned.
I like OS X. I support OS X. I think OS X is the best example of putting a modern face on Unix. But, and this is the important bit, it’s a freaking forty year old OS! NeXT was the lesser of the two choices Apple had, but they went with it to acquire control of the patented _Jobs Reality Distortion Field_TM, and it has worked well for them. But let’s not pretend that 40 year old OS design concepts are state of the art.
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### Author:  [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2009, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-mac-os-xi/515359/19 "2009-10-28T18:22:05Z")
> [@gaffa](#):
>
> Besides, [an “XX is just wishy-washy”](http://www.theonion.com/content/node/29713).
> Looking at history, if Apple wants to innovate, they have to wait for Apple employees to leave, start [innovative](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXT) [companies](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeOS), then be bought. All their [attempts](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copland_%28operating_system%29) to [produce](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taligent) an innovate OS in-house crashed and burned.
>
> I like OS X. I support OS X. I think OS X is the best example of putting a modern face on Unix. But, and this is the important bit, it’s a freaking forty year old OS! NeXT was the lesser of the two choices Apple had, but they went with it to acquire control of the patented _Jobs Reality Distortion Field_TM, and it has worked well for them. But let’s not pretend that 40 year old OS design concepts are state of the art.
Realistically, though the underlying OS is of almost no concern to the average user. If I were to create a “skin” that duplicated the OS X UI perfectly on Windows, 90% of the users out there wouldn’t know the difference or care. It’s only when you get to servers and other UI-free machines that the OS really matters. That’s when you get religious wars about how Linux is better than OS X or Windows because some process call overhead is 1 cycle faster…
All the current PC OS’s are based on decades-old architecture. That’s probably a good thing, because it has given them plenty of time to mature. There probably will be some revolutionary new OS coming soon (from Google?), but it will still take many years for it to be full-featured enough to compete with the current crop.
And, BTW, UNIX itself was the result of another over-reaching failure: [Mutiics](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multics)
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### Author:  [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2009, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-mac-os-xi/515359/20 "2009-10-28T18:31:43Z")
Maybe Intel will cotton on and bring out the MCLXXXVI processor next year.
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