Apple Seeds OS X Mavericks 10.9.3 Build 13D28 to Developers

I am wondering when they will start working on OS 11, and what they will name it.

OS X is a brand. It's like saying "when will they change the name of the iPhone?"

OS X was a play on words (it's pronounced Oh Ess Ten) because Apple was on version 9.x of the Mac operating system.

When Steve Jobs returned from NeXt (notice the capital X) he brought the Unix-based operating system that they had been developing.

OS X wasn't called OS 10 because it was a completely new kernel based on Unix. So the play on works was to call it Oh Ess Ten but write is as OS X to signify that it was the operating system following 9.x but was Unix based.

So, unless there is a brand new kernel that gets introduced, the name will never change from OS X. We are currently on OS X 10.9.2. You would pronounce this Oh Ess Ten, Ten point Nine point Two. The next major release will be either OS X 10.10, or it could be OS X 11.0 (unlikely). There will be no OS 11.

I too am a fan of Bertrand Serlet. I thought 10.6 was the amazing OS for the time of its release. I had a top of the MBP and added 8 GB (a lot for the time - I think we spent nearly a grand on the memory) and ran 10.6 doing some heavy development projects. 10.6 just screamed. It was just a well-tuned, solid, extremely efficient OS.

-P

Yeah we need another Snow Leopard like release. No new features, just a clean out the bloat and streamline everything. And if OS X continues to be free, don't think it will be an issue with users.

Personally, while Craig Federighi is an excellent engineer, nothing beats the work Bertrand Serlet did while SVP of OS X engineering. I still believe 10.5/6 are the best OS X releases to date (and before the "Serlet was involved with 10.7, he was not, he was already on his way out the door to Parallels 2009-2010, 10.7 was all Federighi).

I too am a fan of Bertrand Serlet. I thought 10.6 was the amazing OS for the time of its release. I had a top of the MBP and added 8 GB (a lot for the time - I think we spent nearly a grand on the memory) and ran 10.6 doing some heavy development projects. 10.6 just screamed. It was just a well-tuned, solid, extremely efficient OS.

-P

OS X is a brand. It's like saying "when will they change the name of the iPhone?"

OS X was a play on words (it's pronounced Oh Ess Ten) because Apple was on version 9.x of the Mac operating system.

When Steve Jobs returned from NeXt (notice the capital X) he brought the Unix-based operating system that they had been developing.

OS X wasn't called OS 10 because it was a completely new kernel based on Unix. So the play on works was to call it Oh Ess Ten but write is as OS X to signify that it was the operating system following 9.x but was Unix based.

So, unless there is a brand new kernel that gets introduced, the name will never change from OS X. We are currently on OS X 10.9.2. You would pronounce this Oh Ess Ten, Ten point Nine point Two. The next major release will be either OS X 10.10, or it could be OS X 11.0 (unlikely). There will be no OS 11.

Love your post. Thanks for the info. Being serious FYI.

It's been a bad sign, for me and many others. Before 10.7, OS X 10.X development varied between 1 ½ to 2 ½ years with biweekly or weekly releases that required downloading a .dmg from the developer site, burning the image to a DVD, wiping the system and installing a "clean" OS. This allowed for improved debugging by eliminating any possible third party app "contamination" (10.7+ releases have proved difficult to properly isolate any system matters), and allowed Apple more time to "get it right" before release. Of course not all 10.X first releases were stellar, but they were far better than the current annual release cycle to match iOS. There is no need to rush out annual OS overhauls, especially as we're just on 10.9.3 beta. By the time iOS is released it may be .5 or .6.

Personally, while Craig Federighi is an excellent engineer, nothing beats the work Bertrand Serlet did while SVP of OS X engineering. I still believe 10.5/6 are the best OS X releases to date (and before the "Serlet was involved with 10.7, he was not, he was already on his way out the door to Parallels 2009-2010, 10.7 was all Federighi).

Every OS X update since Snow Leopard its the same complaint from you. You sound like a broken record. Bertrand is gone. He's been gone for years now. And he's not coming back. Federighi worked under Bertrand too and i doubt he was twiddling his thumbs throughout that period.

People only tend to remember the good things of the past. Snow Leopard and even worse Leopard were far from perfect

Mavericks is a very solid OS...even more so since 10.9.2. And in my opinion, is superior to 10.5/10.6 overall.

Er, no.

Actually, I wish they would have kept it as Mac OS X.

They've really amped up the build frequency, I'm not sure if that's a good sign or a bad sign

It's been a bad sign, for me and many others. Before 10.7, OS X 10.X development varied between 1 ½ to 2 ½ years with biweekly or weekly releases that required downloading a .dmg from the developer site, burning the image to a DVD, wiping the system and installing a "clean" OS. This allowed for improved debugging by eliminating any possible third party app "contamination" (10.7+ releases have proved difficult to properly isolate any system matters), and allowed Apple more time to "get it right" before release. Of course not all 10.X first releases were stellar, but they were far better than the current annual release cycle to match iOS. There is no need to rush out annual OS overhauls, especially as we're just on 10.9.3 beta. By the time iOS is released it may be .5 or .6.

Personally, while Craig Federighi is an excellent engineer, nothing beats the work Bertrand Serlet did while SVP of OS X engineering. I still believe 10.5/6 are the best OS X releases to date (and before the "Serlet was involved with 10.7, he was not, he was already on his way out the door to Parallels 2009-2010, 10.7 was all Federighi).

Actually, I wish they would have kept it as Mac OS X.

Ditto

Don't like it, don't read it, Before you rudely address someone, educate yourself and try to be a bit more mature, it will open more doors for you. :)

Cute.

and you're dead wrong on Federighi. Serlet had nothing to do with 10.7.

Except i never said Bertrand worked on 10.7 though...

[MOD NOTE]
Please stay on topic, this thread is not about the OSX branding, or about Snow Leopard or any prior version of OSX. Its about the new 10.9.3 build and as such please discuss that.

Personally, while Craig Federighi is an excellent engineer, nothing beats the work Bertrand Serlet did while SVP of OS X engineering. I still believe 10.5/6 are the best OS X releases to date (and before the "Serlet was involved with 10.7, he was not, he was already on his way out the door to Parallels 2009-2010, 10.7 was all Federighi).

You can go on about that like you usually do until the cows come home, but the reality is that you don't design things like Operating Systems in the fashion that you ship a version and then have a meeting where you decide on what you're going to work on in the next version.

Instead you have long range plans that go for years ahead. When one version ships, the feature set for the next one is pretty much locked at that point. If you worked on one version up until launch or close to it, you've generally been part of planning the one after that as well as whatever comes after that. Just go read up some Apple history and you'll see that that's the way they plan OS development.

Also, I don't see why people like to moan about how great 10.5 was... It made OSX considerably heavier to run (bye bye everything but the really last of the G4 machines and G5's) and had a ton of bugs. I personally like to call it Apple's Vista considering that disaster was pretty recent at the time. Sure, 10.6 fixed a lot of things, but I still consider it a massive service pack as reflected by the now much lower price.