Apple has announced that the next version of their Macintosh operating system will abandon the tradition of being named after big cats (Jaguar, etc.) and will instead be named “OS X Mavericks,” to commemorate the surfing locale near San Francisco.

Presumably, Mavericks is the first in a new series of names, but Apple did not announce the series theme.  Friends speculating yesterday had some good guesses:

  • California locations (to fit Apple’s “designed in California” tagline)

  • Beaches

  • Words named after people (so “OS X Sadistic” would be a possibility)

  • Call signs from Top Gun

I’m hoping it’s call signs from Top Gun, which would mean we could look forward to OS X Iceman, OS X Goose, and OS X Joker. OS X Cougar would have nicely bridged big cats and call signs, but that wouldn’t fly today!

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Published on January 29, 2018