As Apple has continued to launch new products, their naming schemes for their operating systems has shifted. Several years ago, the iPhone’s operating system was known as iPhone OS, which was shortened to iOS with the release of version 4. When Apple launched the Apple Watch and newest Apple TV, two new operating systems were born, watchOS and tvOS respectively.
With those names in mind, the name for the computer operating system (OS X) seems a bit dated as of now, but signs are pointing toward the possibility that Apple is preparing to call its computer operating system something a bit more modern, MacOS. We probably won’t hear too much more about the next version of OS X or its naming until WWDC, which takes place in June, but Apple has begun dropping hints about the change.
On a page on their website updated today, MacOS is mentioned in their list of operating systems, rather than OS X or any other naming scheme for the operating system. The page in question talks about the power consumption of their products. Here’s a snippet from it.
To model customer use, we measure the power consumed by a product while it is running in a simulated scenario. Daily usage patterns are specific to each product and are a mixture of actual and modeled customer use data. Years of use, which are based on first owners, are assumed to be four years for MacOS and tvOS devices and three years for iOS and watchOS devices.
In addition to today’s reference, a reference to MacOS was found in the library files in OS X 10.11.4, so it’s looking entirely possible that we could see the change in the next version of the operating system, due to be released later this year, possibly as a larger update that could bring Siri to the Mac for the first time.
Personally, I’m surprised that they haven’t changed the name of their operating system sooner, or moved on from OS X. Either way, it will be interesting to see what Apple decides to do.