What comes after cats, birds?

[jyhm]

What names will Apple use when they run out of big predatory cats? Lets see, they still have:

• Cougar
• Bobcat
• Lion
• Lynx
• Wildcat
• Alley Cat
• House Cat
• Dumb Cat
• Dead Cat

What animal is next? How 'bout majestic birds of prey like Eagles or Falcons. Maybe start small like Apple Tweety Bird, or Apple Humming Bird? And what about the cool looking "X" when we get to OS11? You could still use roman numerals like Mac OSXI. Or just keep the number ten to infinitum . syntax like Mac OS 10.9.99.2

[Mikuro]

Cheetah has already been used, albeit unofficially, for 10.0 (or was it 10.1?).

I think birds would be good. There's a large field to choose from that haven't been used in the tech industry yet, and the names would just sound good.

But it wouldn't have to be animals. Before cats, they used names and terms related to music. They only really started using cats as a bit of a joke, because Cheetah was supposed to be very fast (yeah, right; nice spin there, Apple!).

[mdnky]

10.0 was Cheetah, 10.1 was Puma.

[fryke]

I _really_ liked the nineties' codenames (before Steve Jobs' comeback) better. Plus: I'm still not sure it's a good idea to use codenames as actual product names. But go to birds and start small? Doesn't really work for me. You mean: After Mac OS X "Lion" we'd go to Mac OS X "Tweety"? Doesn't work. They should just go back to version numbering. Much better in my opinion. Clean, clear.

[nixgeek]

I loved the 90s codenames that referred to music, like Copland for the supposed next generation Mac OS 8, Rhapsody (the OS that eventually became Mac OS X), and some other musically oriented ones. The cat names are nice, but they lack that certain class once you start describing certain animals. Anythng having to do with classical music always sounds great.

But ultimately, I would have to agree with fryke...just give us the version numbers please.

[jyhm]

Maybe they can jump on the buzzword bandwagon like Netscape did in the 90's when they named javascript after java because it was getting headlines in the news.

Nowa-days there's Ajax!

Apple-Ajax!
or just
Apple "Sauce"
or
Apple "Pie"!

Apple Cider, Apple Martini,...

[Mikuro]

I agree: numbers are good. The only problem there is that it would require them to use a normal numbering system. (*gasp!* ) I mean, "10.4" doesn't sound a major upgrade from "10.3", so they need names as far as that goes. 10.2 would have been either OS 11 or OS 10.5 if they were using Apple's old numbering scheme.

...Which begs the question, "Why did they choose to stay at 10 instead of moving at a normal pace?" Seems to me like they just wanted to use the Roman numeral X as a wink to the Unix-y origins, and now they don't want to get rid of it because everyone calls it "Mac OS Ex".

It would seem odd to move away from cats before they move beyond "OS X" anyway, so maybe the plan is to ditch the numbers entirely at that point. A lot of the industry is following Microsoft's lead (wow, that sounds so wrong) and acting like people are too dumb to understand decimals. Or maybe it's that version numbers just aren't sexy enough.

[fryke]

That's a very old discussion. They had it right with Rhapsody (codename for Mac OS X Server 1.0) where they took the "X" as a hint of "UNIX" and looking at Mac OS X as a new system. But at some point in time, Steve Jobs must have had a bad idea.