After which cat will Apple name OS X 10.9?

“Apple is playing an interesting game when it comes to naming OS X versions. They’re all cats of one type or another, starting with Cheetah and OS X 10.0,” Jesse Mincey writes for Bohemian Boomer. “The latest is 10.8, Mountain Lion.”

“The next version, OS X 10.9, has yet to be revealed and the clock is ticking. Apple has promised more frequent updates to the Mac’s OS and the summer of 2013 is fast approaching,” Mincey writes. “Two questions float around in my subconscious. First, what will Apple name OS X 10.9? Second, what will Apple do for OS X 11. I sense a huge quake of change in OS X after the next cat name is released.”

Mincey writes, “High on the list of expectations from among the Apple punditry for the next cat is OS X Lynx, but others could show up, including Bobcat, Cougar, or Ocelot.”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Note: Vote for your OS X 10.9 name of choice in our poll in the left column of our main site.

Mac OS X versions, names/codenames, and release dates:

• Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion: July 25, 2012
• 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

Related article:
So, where’s Apple’s next OS X and what will it be named? – March 11, 2013

81 Comments

  1. Agreed. Probably already decided but I guess it gives some people fodder to chew on while they’re watching their soap operas.

    But….how about Saber? Trouble then is they’d have to buy the rights to the Pyramid tablet.

  2. Tiger Shark and then move into the shark family after that. They are powerful predators that always keep swimming that can swim in schools, packs or on their own.

  3. I’d prefer they dropped the whole cat thing entirely, and I love cats. Both Puma and Cheetah never made it out of Cupertino, and since the cheetah is the fastest cat, I’d not argue they can’t use it again, publicly this time.

    But, if they do insist upon keeping the feline, my choice is Sabertooth, extinct, yes, but awesome.

    1. Cheetah did make it out. It was the internal name (and the name used by *many* outside Apple as well) for OS X 10.0. It got the name Cheetah because it truly was soooo much faster than the public beta release (which was frighteningly slow).

    2. I’d vote for Sabetooth, but ONLY if that version had *full*, latest revision support for all the standards:
      Open GL 4.2 (or then current)
      Open CL 1.2 (or then current)
      CUDA 5 (or then current)
      WiFi 802.11ac (or then current)
      Bluetooth 4.0 (or then current)
      ZFS v28 (or then current)
      etc.
      etc.

  4. “Sea Lion.” It’s time to change to sea creatures with cool names, with “Sea Lion” as the transition release 10.9. Mac OS “eleven” (the “huge quake of change”) the can continue with Orca or Baracuda or Stingray, etc.

    “Cougar” is the best name left, but it’s basically a mountain lion. “Bobcat” and “Ocelot” and “Lynx” are kind of weak. Hence, there are no good big cat names left.

  5. Mr Jinx? How bout dropping the cat names altogether and call it OSX Obama Rocks? Tim Cook would love that! Or OSX Blame Bush? Or OSX God is Dead? Those would draw some attention and fit Cook’s political agenda quite nicely!

  6. Duh. Jesse Mincey showed how he knows little about Mac OS X when he asked “what will Apple do for OS X 11?”. We in the Mac community know they’re version numbers, not decimals (Tiger went up to 10.4.11). Hence the one after 10.9 will be numbered 10.10.

    1. Yes, the version after 10.9 can be 10.10. However, it is also true that the time is ripe for a major revision of the Mac’s OS, on the order of magnitude of the Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X transition. Hence, the speculation that the release after 10.9 will be “eleven dot zero,” is reasonable.

    2. Duh. ‘Jesse’ Mincey is a she. She’s married to Jeffrey Mincey, a frequent Mac blogger.

      I like Lynx.

      After that, let’s change to more exotic creatures. Sting Ray, Shark, Tarantula, Cobra. I hear Microsoft will start using similar names. Next up is Windows 9 ‘Rat’.

  7. No matter what the name will be, we should think a minute of silence about those poor people who still have to use Windows, especially Windows 8. Those poor people!

  8. Grumpy Cat should be at the head of the list. Grumpy because of the more window like, less intuitive system they have been pumping out for the last operating system upgrades….

  9. Meh!
    I prefer a swap to toothed whales… Orca, Dolphin, Porpoise, etc
    They’re all supremely capable, are excellently adapted for 7 tenths of the planet, and they eat other operating systems for breakfast.

    1. Or maybe switch to birds of prey? Hawk, Falcon, Peregrine Falcon for those not so big upgrades. And the year Microsoft implodes and dies, we use Vulture.

      Harder to guess what animal they will go to next more than what cat this time around.

  10. Well what will be interesting is if they repeat the same cat again. They have used the (Puma concolor) mountain lion or Puma or Panther all names for the same cat before. I would look at Ocelot, Lynx, or Caracal.

  11. There is only one “big cat” remaining and they have already duplicated one–Puma and Mountain Lion. All that remains is the “Clouded Leopard”, all per the Nat Geographic issue photographed, except for, the Snow Leopard, at the great Houston Zoo.

    So, will it be medium cats, dogs or monkeys at OS 11?

  12. Cats have 9 lives, there are currently 9 versions of OS X too (10.0, 10.2, 10.3, 10.4, 10.5, 10.6, 10.7, 10.8). maybe they will name it after something else.

    Like “ken1w” said:

    ~”Tuesday, March 12, 2013 – 12:02 pm

    “Sea Lion.” It’s time to change to sea creatures with cool names, with “Sea Lion” as the transition release 10.9. Mac OS “eleven” (the “huge quake of change”) the can continue with Orca or Baracuda or Stingray, etc.”~

    This could possibly be the case too, as a sea lion is not a cat, but refers to one!

    1. Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion: July 25, 2012
      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

  13. They say a cat has 9 lives. OS X 10.0 Cheetah was the first. As 10.8 Mountain Lion was the 9th, maybe it’s time for something different?

    Whatever they call it, I look forward to it.

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