It’s happening. For the second time in as many weeks, Apple has let slip that its long-running OS X operating system is going by another name internally: MacOS.
The naming scheme mirrors that of every other Apple operating system — watchOS, tvOS and of course iOS — so it’s no surprise that Apple would want to attain that last piece of consistency.
Slip the first
On March 30th, we got the first sign that something was up, as Brazillian blog MacMagazine spotted an Interface Builder document within OS X’s System folder with the macOS naming scheme. The file was renamed with the release of OS X 10.11.14 just nine days before, but at the time it was hard to conclusively say that macOS would definitely be coming.
Slip the second
However, today’s release is altogether more convincing. Apple included a reference to ‘macOS and tvOS devices’ in its new environmental webpage, a slip that was quickly picked up by tech blogs before Apple could change it to OS X. This suggests that Apple are already using the new name internally, which in turn could mean that we’ll see the rebrand quite soon.
A suitable stage for a name change
An obvious platform for the announcement is the company’s WorldWide Developer Conference (WWDC), which is expected to be held from June 13th to 17th. Apple are already working on OS X 10.12, but it’s unknown whether this will become MacOS 1.0, MacOS 10.12 or something else entirely.
What do you think of the name change? Will you miss OS X, or is the venerable OS due for a rebrand after 12 major versions? Let us know in the comments below, or write to us on Twitter @mobilefun!