They do. Ventura is macOS 13. In fact, when they dropped OS X, they did a bit in the key note explaining that instead of it being OS X 10.16 Catalina, it would now now be macOS 11 Catalina.
See > About this Mac
The cat names were more memorable and spanned a longer time line instead of being yearly releases.
Idk, but it doesn’t matter. If you need to know which version came before or after just compare the version numbers instead. The human names are not meant for that.
I mean even when Apple uses sequential, numerical names you can't always answer the question of which came first: the iPhone 8 and iPhone X (10) were announced ~simultaneously! And there wasn't even a 9!
My point is it really doesn't matter which big cat or California landmark came first. It's trivial to find out if you want to, but it's not terribly important to encode that in the name you're using to identify your product.
But perhaps they should adopt a chicken-egg naming scheme.
You don't need to know that. It does not matter.
These human names are for marketing. They have no significance other than that.
When a vendor says "we are dropping support for MacOS High Sierra and earlier" then it does matter.
Here are some random examples taken from some of the software that I use on my systems.
JetBrains CLion system requirements:
> macOS 10.14 or later
https://www.jetbrains.com/help/clion/installation-guide.html
System requirements for using Slack
> MacOS OS X 10.15 or above
https://slack.com/help/articles/115002037526-System-requirem...
Davinci Resolve 18 Tech Specs
> Mac 10.15 Catalina or later.
https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve/tec...
Mac Compatibility with Live – Live 11 – Live Universal build
> Apple Silicon: macOS 11.6.6 Big Sur through macOS 13 Ventura
https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/articles/115001261150-Mac-...
That's just like, your opinion.
Even operating systems that try to follow that idea are not fully able to do it.
For example, Ubuntu has been using alphabetically ordered names ever since version 5.10, which was released in October 2005.
But sooner or later they have to wrap. And they already did that once.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DevelopmentCodeNames
So now, for someone on the outside who tries to apply this idea that names should encode release order, we still can't tell, which of the following was released first:
- Ubuntu Maverick Meerkat
or
- Ubuntu Lunar Lobster
Well, if all we know about Ubuntu is that the names are alphabetically sorted then we might think that Lunar Lobster came before Maverick Meerkat. But Ubuntu Lunar Lobster is the upcoming version 23.04. Ubuntu Maverick Meerkat was version 10.10, released all the way back in October 2010.
And so my point is, if you want to compare version release dates. Just look at the version numbers.
It is not sensible to claim that somehow the names have to be in alphabetical order.
Do you use alphabetical order for the hostnames of your computers?
Do you name your children in alphabetical order?
Maybe you do. But not everyone will, and that's perfectly fine.
Frankly, that's not a problem. They have 26 letters to go through, so that's 13 years.
13 years is a geological age in computing. By that point the previous product has been deprecated for so long it's basically a museum piece and nobody can spot it in the wild.
Microsoft Windows XP was released to retail on October 25, 2001.
Extended support for Microsoft Windows XP ended on April 8, 2014.
~13 years after its release
Back then, in 2014, 13 years after its release, Windows XP still had a big market share according to for example this page from 2014 https://sourcedigit.com/6553-windows-xp-will-die-april-8-201...
Regardless. All I am saying is, there is no reason to try and insist that marketing name should encode version release date.
If you want to compare versions, use the version numbers and compare those. That's what the version numbers are for.
If you had more than 20 children, you would clearly want some logic in naming. People often apply that to twins for example.
Anyway, that applies better to "more than a few" groups; Ubuntu did well because they release many versions, and you really rarely need to check against versions from 13 years ago with that release speed. Microsoft didn't need it for Windows because they only had 4 or 5 versions in 20 years.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Apple_operating_system...
Which isn’t always the case.
The human names of the macOS versions are not meant for that purpose.
Every version of macOS also has a version number. If you need to ever know which version came before another you compare the version number.
I too find their naming conventions confusing. Apple TV is another example. It could refer to 3 different things depending on how it’s used. I have an Apple TV and an Apple TV subscription but I have no idea which is technically called what.
I also disagree with their casual use of the term “Pro” too. But at least that isn’t an Apple specific problem but rather endemic across the entire tech landscape.
The Microsoft example given by the GP isn’t great though. Microsoft are, in my personal opinion, even worse at naming things than Apple. But as someone who’s released a fair amount of open source, I do acknowledge that naming things is hard.
It does communicate something. But it's not for comparing release dates of versions.
It's for marketing.
Go to Apples website, navigate to the Mac section and then to the macOS section.
That lands you on this page: https://www.apple.com/macos/ventura/
The names are used in marketing when new versions are launched.
Read the page I linked about macOS Ventura. The way that they use the name of that version here is the way that they use the OS version names in general. For marketing, when a new version is released.
Your argument that the names are non-descriptive because they were intended to be non-descriptive doesn’t absolve the criticism that non-descriptive names are confusing to a lot of people.
When people talk about Apple TV I’m never quite certain which product they’re referring to and have to infer that from the context of their sentence.
As a personal pet peeve of mine, whenever a corporation chooses "One" for its marketing or branding it indicates an uncreative and unoffensive marketing team that can't think of anything more creative to convey a sense of product cohesion.
> Poseurs will call Windows versions by their programmatic version numbers. For example, they will call Windows Vista “NT6” and Windows 7 “NT6.1”. Trust me, nobody on the Windows team calls the products by their programmatic version numbers. Whenever anybody says “NT6” I have to go to Wikipedia and look up what they’re actually talking about. If I even care to bother, and usually I don’t.
[0] https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20130507-00/?p=44...
Apple names are fun! It's a nice thing!
Same with go fanboyism/hate.
The products themselves were/are great but their names are really bad.
"I phone" kind of works, but "I pod"? "I pad"? Really? :-)
I really dislike the pro/max/ultra qualifiers, but again it is all consistent.
Compare it with the discontinued “Galaxy Note.” Although it is not a tongue twister, it is two words, neither of which is unique to Samsung on its own. “Galaxy Tab” has the same issues.
Samsung’s product names are not bad. But “iPad” definitely has the advantage of pithiness and uniqueness.
Really, what is there to be joyful about here?
I can write a similar essay about how I like the strong capital letters of AMD, the beauty of not falling for the temptation of putting a lower-case "i" in front of it, etc., etc.
You could. And it might be an enjoyable read if you articulate it properly.
Is it so hard to just let someone complain about something? Everyone can have their own opinion, i don't know why some people want every single one to be positive.
For the purposes of enlightenment: Your comment is typical nerd stuff. You’re biased by your failure to understand how human communications and social interactions work.
Contrarian edgelords are obnoxious and tiring. There is no need to get involved in a conversation if the point is just to label someone an idiot fanboy. It is not even cynicism, which requires some degree of consciousness instead of a knee jerk reaction. So yeah, if your only argument is “I think the author is an idiot and I am so much better because I can see clearly what he ignores”, well, then kindly fuck off. Come back when you’re civilised enough to have a conversation instead of name calling.
vs
10.0, 10.1,...,10.15,11,12,13
Which you’re free to do, and could have done without insulting the author. The submitted post’s very first sentence is “I love the way Apple names things”. The author likes them. They’re sharing a opinion, at no point do they imply they’re the voice of reason or that you should agree with them.
What I see from their post is someone who made an effort to build and share something interesting which makes them happy.
What I see from your comment is instant tribalism, where one can’t even say they like an inconsequential naming scheme without being labelled a “typical fanboi”.
Can we do better? Let people enjoy what they want, they’re not harming anyone.
That is to be proven. Encouraging and advocating practices that are counterproductive can be harmful.
Maybe you just don't see how one company is shaping the entire market because a group of people (we can call them fanboys for the sake of argument) insists that their way of doing things is "the" way. Which it of course isn't and we see how that is ruining products that try to compete. See win11 as an example.
You don’t call someone a pejorative term “for the sake of argument”, you do it for the exact opposite. Insults are the antithesis of productive discussion.
> because a group of people (…) insists that their way of doing things is "the" way.
Which, again, is not what the author did. They didn’t claim Apple’s naming scheme was “the way”, they said they personally liked it. Period.
I missed this part in the tiny paragraph that says "I like these names"
Also, Apple adopted these practices long before they had significant market share in any market. Nobody has been “forced” to adopt them in order to compete.
Im sure you feel similarly about anything related to Elon Musk, right?
HN circle jerks are so prevalent it's nearly transparent.
Nothing bad about those names in utility. They designate 3 different models/spec levels, and they're infinitely better than all crap names DELL or SONY etc ever came up with ("NZ4X5-324DD" and such). As for aesthetics, they're short, easy to remember, and pleasurably sounding.
What's not to like? That "pro" ain't for "real" professionals gatekeeping BS, as if video editors and graphic designers are the only real professionals, and a CEO isn't pro enough...
>Also the naming scheme of Mac OS versions, i can never figure out which one came before or after the other, there is no rhyme or reason.
Aside the fact that they coming with an associated dead simple numeric version, they're out there for a year before the next one comes. You have like a year to learn and remember that Ventura is the latest and had one year to become familiar with Monterey before it was replaced (so it's quite easy to remember Ventura was next). Now, if you some reason you want to determine if some OS from 10-15 years ago like Snow Leopard came before or after Tiger, yeah, that would be more difficult (also more pointless).
Heck, im still on catalina, imho the last “good” macos version (but thats another discussion).
Anyway, its just that everytime a macos version is mentioned i have to look up the sequence, because i just cant remember it.
One reason is probably also that macos has much more frequent updates (than windows for example) and thats why i cant remember them.
Also you say its hard to sequence the older macos releases, that is true! but i can perfectly sequence the old windows releases. Why? Maybe i used them more? Anyway its still interesting.
In the end it wouldnt be hard for them to use a more helpful, user friendly, naming scheme
There are a lot of things to also hate about apples naming schemes, just look at the pro, max, se nonsense they cooked up.
Also the naming scheme of Mac OS versions, i can never figure out which one came before or after the other, there is no rhyme or reason. Why dont they use alphabetical sorted names? Or years/numbers like Windows…?