- Cheetah
- Puma
- Jaguar
- Panther
- Tiger
- Leopard
- Snow Leopard
- Lion
- Mountain Lion
The next version of OS X, 10.9, is expected to be released at around middle of next year, and perhaps somewhat pre-announced about 3 months prior, just like what happened to 10.8 this year. The question though is, what will its codename be?
Of course one thing that could happen is Apple could just drop the codenaming altogether. But there's little chance for that. Using these codenames make the OS versions more "accessible" to people who are otherwise tech-averse; i.e. it's a good marketing ploy.
But now people are thinking -- Apple has almost ran out of cat types to use. In fact, puma, mountain lion, and panther are all practically the same thing. But wait, there's more! A cougar is also the same as those three, and it's not yet on Apple's list! So that is definitely one candidate. But then they will need to look for a photo of another mountain lion / cougar that doesn't look at all like that in one of the wallpapers that come with Mountain Lion. Because, again, basically they're the same thing. But that's the least of their concerns. They also need to feature another galaxy as a wallpaper.
They could also go with Black Panther -- because they never really featured a black one per se to represent the OS X Panther. Only
There is also the Chinese Mountain Cat. But I doubt they'd use this one, only because its name is three words long. But maybe also because it's not such a big, imposing (or very speedy) cat like the others. It is also an endangered species.
Speaking of extinction, there is the Saber-Tooth Cat (Wikipedia note: this is incorrectly called a Saber-Tooth Tiger), which has long been extinct. Also, note the difference in spelling from Sabretooth, the Marvel/X-Men mutant character and nemesis of Wolverine. This also feels like having a three word name, but they can tweak it a bit and just call it Sabertooth for short -- note the different spelling from Sabretooth. Apple might not like the idea of using an extinct cat's name -- unless this will be the final version of OS X as we know it, and of course, their marketing guys would deny all about the sabertooth's extinct status, and focus mostly on this wild cat that had even elephants for breakfast.
And lastly, for now, how about Bobcat? I think Apple would do well not to use the word cat in their branding (crossing out CMC as well, and that's why a simple Sabertooth instead of the full STC is better). Nor would they probably use a name already known popularly as a basketball team that hasn't had much success. Problem also is this is not a very big cat, although it's not small either.
So what's the best bet? Black Panther or Cougar is a good play, maybe good for 10.9. Sabertooth might be good for 10.10 -- and this is me assuming that OS X 10.11, i.e. OS Xi will be released just around the same time as iOS 10, i.e. iOS X, and they will actually be the same OS, and run on the same platform (i.e. ARM-based processors for both, instead of Intel processors for OS X). And then from thereon, it's just simply iOS X starting at version 10.0, all over again. Obviously they won't use cat names as codenames anymore. Speculation on what those would be, I leave to others. But I doubt they'll use something as cheesy as dessert names. :D
But hey, like I said, this is a baseless prediction. It's more of speculation and wishful thinking, really. In the same way that I wrongly thought that Apple would call the iPad mini as something other than an iPad (i.e. iBook? iPlay?) because it will be meant more for consumption than production. Later though, I realized that the iPad brand and ecosystem is just so big and it could really help the iPad mini become big as well. Whoops, the mini becomes big; no pun intended.
UPDATE: The rumors now suggest it's going to be called LYNX. I didn't want to include this because LYNX already is the name of one of the very first web browsers. A lynx is also not a very big cat, but it's a little bit interesting-looking -- i.e. makes for a nice looking wallpaper.
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