“Apple is running out of big cats,” Brian Caulfield reports for Forbes.
“Ten years ago, Apple introduced the first major release of its OS X operating system, Cheetah,” Caulfield reports. “Since then, all seven new versions of the operating system have been named after big cats.”
“The problem: there are only so many kinds of cats,” Caulfield reports. “Lion — which incorporates a few tricks learned from Apple’s iPad — was released in July. Apple hasn’t said anything, publicly, about the next version of its OS X operating system.”
Caulfield reports, “First they’ll have to come up with a name. That could be hard. All of the animals Apple has used come from Felidae family in the Carnivora order of mammals… There are a lot of other cats left. None of them are particularly intimidating though. The Eurasian Lynx, can weigh as much as 66 pounds. Even less fearsome: the Eurasian Lynx’s North American cousin, the bobcat; the ocelot — the biggest of the dinky Leopardus genus; and felix catus, the domestic cat. Apple hasn’t tapped a third group of Felidae, now extinct, known as the Machairodontinae.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: What’s your OS X name of choice? Take our poll in the left column of the main site.
Mac OS X versions, names/codenames, and release dates:
• Mac OS X 10.7 Lion : July 20, 2011
• Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard: August 28, 2009
• Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard: October 26, 2007
• Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger: April 29, 2005
• Mac OS X 10.3 Panther: October 24, 2003
• Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar: August 24, 2002
• Mac OS X 10.1 Puma: September 25, 2001
• Mac OS X 10.0 Cheetah: March 24, 2001
• Mac OS X Public Beta: September 13, 2000.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
Mac OS X 10.8 Sabretooth 🙂
If 10.8 is named ocelot, Linux fans will claim that Apple is ripping off Linux once again as the current version of Ubuntu is called 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot
Hi, I’m Brian Caulfield, with Forbes. Love this discussion. I’ve written a summary of some of your suggestions, here — http://www.forbes.com/sites/briancaulfield/2011/11/30/os-x-lolcat-top-10-names-for-apples-next-operating-system/ — along with a link back to MacDailyNews. Thanks!
Mac OS X beta had a name: Rhapsody.
We discussed here last year at length all the remaining cat species. Besides ocelot I also recall lynx. Those two would take us up through 10.8 and 10.9. At that point Apple can come up with other fun working titles.
Therefore, a more fun speculation would be:
What animal, vegetable or mineral Apple will use for Mac OS X 11?!
Maybe genius names ‘Einstein’ ‘Galileo’ ‘Mozart’ or myth creatures ‘Chimera’ ‘Hydra’ bireds i don´t like it must be significant names
Why not Pussycat?
Time to morph.
My vote is for Gryphon…
I was half paying attention when scanning the headlines and thought the news was a shortage of names for pussy.
Good for us, they just meant big hairy cats…
Please not bobcat , I will never be able to use the product without thinking about Bobcat Goldthwait
Ocelot is the name of the most recent Ubuntu. Just FYI.
You forget:
OSX 11 Thunder Cat
Hoooooooo!!!!!
Mac OSX 10.8 Mountain Lion
OSXi
The Roman numeral for the number eleven is XI. Therefore to remain consistent, it would be logical for the the operating system that follows OS X , to be named OS XI. As to the nickname to go along with it, Fat Cat seems about right.
I’m holding out for OSX Smilodon
I like Cheshire , with a BIG sh*t-eating grin 😁
I would NOT suggest ANY extinct animal like the sabertooth tiger… it would only bring a bad publicity, “Apple, the soon to be extinct platform.” etc etc etc.
Change to Birds of Prey. Peregrine Falcon, Hawk.. etc.
soaring through the “clouds”