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Archive 10Archive 14Archive 15Archive 16

OS X pronunciation

Can said user who makes it clear in their deletion actions that they have no understanding of the history of Apple desktop operating systems, or seemingly Unix for that matter, please stop removing the info explaining why "OS X" was named with an "X" as a nod to the fact it was based on UNIX, and was named OS X accordingly, as other products of the era often were. The quoted journalist Spencer Kelly (who I have no relation to whatsoever, either personally or professionally!) studied computer science and is therefore well versed to know the info to which he pertained to clarify in the piece quoted. The quote has been added in text form during the year it was live on the website and also explains why usage of /EKS/ is commonly used, regardless of the original AV not currently being available, is from a reputable source at the BBC, and therefore remains perfectly acceptable for retaining as a source for said point being made on the article. Thank you. If you have a problem with that, then under WP policy, you discuss it first BEFORE it stays or gets removed from the article. Jimthing (talk) 23:31, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

Just because somebody "studied computer science" doesn't prove that they actually know how Mac OS X was named. Anybody can speculate that "hey, all those UN*Xes had ix or X in their name so it must have been the reason why they put the X in there", but we need more than just speculation here. Guy Harris (talk) 01:40, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
I would be fine with a source from Apple, or perhaps someone who worked on the OS at Apple. Anything else is hearsay. MFNickster (talk) 04:13, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
Allright, listen up: I'll keep reverting your edits forever -- or until you get blocked for disruptive editing -- if you insist on continuing to insert content into this article, or any other Wikipedia article, based on non-functioning sources. I visit the URL in the link you provide, it says "this video is not available". As far as WP:VERIFY is concerned, that's the end of the discussion. Warren -talk- 04:36, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
But that isn't the end of the discussion, it's more nuanced than that I'm afraid, and you're attempting to run roughshod without knowing enough on what the guidelines state with regard to video sources. And repeatedly removing BEFORE first opening a talk page topic on it here, against the WP:3RR rule, hence I instead added the topic here for you accordingly.
The guideline on videos WP:VIDEOREF clarifies video links "...a link is not necessary since there is no distinction between using online or offline sources. As much information as possible should be provided to increase the likelihood of the source being accepted as reliable by the community. Including the minutes being referred to in a long video will make the source easier to verify by your fellow editors and the reader." This is exactly what has been done on its original addition as citation by me years ago, and verification by the countless editors who have been on here since then when the AV was live. It was verified by me as the submitting editor watching it and adding the appropriate said timing location, and the more information provided was clearly the additional text version for any WP users to read what the video source said if/when it became offline and unavailable.
As an obvious compromise, I have moved the BBC cite next to the quote about commonly pronounced like, and have added an Apple cite from 2001 with regards to the Unix association. While not perfect, I think it's good enough without being explicit. Jimthing (talk) 19:24, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
Ahhhh, I see what's going on here. You're protecting your personal contributions, and by extension, your personal opinion on the matter, instead improving the encyclopedia content through high-quality reliable sources. Here's the core problem with your contribution: the words you're writing do not accurately describe the sources! "it is also commonly pronounced like the letter "X" in honour of the fact that it is based on Unix, unlike its predecessors.[29]" points (apparently, you might be lying for all I know) to some TV show that is some guy stating what amounts to his personal opinion, and to a Apple press release which asserts none of what is being said in this sentence (beyond it being Unix-based). You're stating Spencer Kelly's opinion of a subject as a fact. This is a classic case of WP:WEASEL and a violation of WP:NPOV.
Now, as you can see from the other comments above, nobody is satisfied with what you're doing here. Maybe it's time to consider that, despite having been around Wikipedia for a while, you may have lost sight of how to apply WP:NPOV and WP:RS correctly. Are you going to stop fucking around and correct this by applying Wikipedia policies correctly and dispassionately, or should we just go straight to Wikipedia:Third opinion? I'll give you a couple of days to come around. Warren -talk- 04:47, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
No one can reason with you. With comments like "Knock it the -fuck- off. I cannot verify this source, there IT STAYS OUT." on your last reversion again, without consensus (against 3RR, too), regardless of my clear explanation above. Along with unfounded accusations both slanderous and without any basis in factual merit like "You're protecting your personal contributions, and by extension, your personal opinion on the matter" despite me doing exactly the opposite. It's not my opinion, I have given a perfectly valid source who explains why it is commonly pronounced /EKS/; a reputable journalist on a reputable technology programme from a reputable publication. So by that reckoning, you're now selectively choosing which journalists from reputable sources you 'believe' and which you don't. As you can't follow an argument, you instead resort to swearing at another editor as a bullying tactic ("Are you going to stop fucking around..."). Who can discuss anything with someone like this? No one is impressed with your rudeness, and your debating tactics of ad hominem attacks are cringeworthy and embarrassing. Jimthing (talk) 14:42, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
Let's take a breather from this, as I think the debate is more heat than light at this point. It's just an article, after all, and this particular point is not that important in the big scheme of things. I think your source, at most, supports an addition along the lines of "some people have speculated that the X was chosen to honor the system's Unix heritage," but not advisable per WP:Weasel. MFNickster (talk) 16:44, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
Jimthing, obsessing over how I talk to you doesn't change the fact that Wikipedia's verifiability policy is very clear about WP:EXTRAORDINARY claims requiring multiple sources. You have been repeatedly asked for multiple sources from multiple people and you've ignored this request. Is it because you can't actually find any? You've had two weeks. Know what I did? I actually looked around.... Macworld, Infoworld and MacAddict magazines from the 1990s, newsgroups, Apple press releases, John Siracusa's extensive article series on Ars Technica... Nothing of the sort came up. I did find someone that theorized that Mac OS X was named for the XNU kernel. But this, like the idea that the X in "Mac OS X" has to do with the X in the "Unix" is a WP:FRINGE theory at best. Warren -talk- 20:39, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

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Semi-protected edit request on 14 January 2018

macOS-10.7 Lion DOES support 32Bit Macs

Such as White MacBooks made from 2006 thru 2008 69.211.50.248 (talk) 03:55, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

[citation needed]. Guy Harris (talk) 04:34, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
Low End Mac lists only the first Core Duo MacBook as being 32-bit only. All the following MacBooks had Core 2 or better, and are compatible with Lion. MFNickster (talk) 18:45, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 22:39, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

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The first one and the third one moved; I updated them. The fourth one is, in fact, on the Wayback Machine; I fixed it. The other two work. Guy Harris (talk) 21:10, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

GA Reassessment

This discussion is transcluded from Talk:Mac OS X/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the reassessment.

This article has been reviewed as part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/Project quality task force in an effort to ensure all listed Good articles continue to meet the Good article criteria. In reviewing the article, I have found there are some issues that may need to be addressed, listed below. I will check back in seven days. If these issues are addressed, the article will remain listed as a Good article. Otherwise, it may be delisted (such a decision may be challenged through WP:GAR). If improved after it has been delisted, it may be nominated at WP:GAN. Feel free to drop a message on my talk page if you have any questions, and many thanks for all the hard work that has gone into this article thus far.

  • A number of sections are inadequately cited, for instance History, Description, and Compatibility.
  • There is a request for citation tag that needs to be dealt with.
  • The Criticisms section needs to be cleaned up, and has been tagged as such since May 2008. Criticisms sections in general are not always a good idea, so it may be better to integrate the criticism into the body of the article.
  • All citations need to have full information given, including publishers and last access dates for web links.
  • Some of the External links seesm to be of dubious relevance to an encyclopedia article. Please review WP:EL and prune the list of the "how to" or discussion forum links.

--Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 22:50, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

I've dealt with the fact tag and went through some of the EL's. The accessdates and publishers formatting is something a bot should do. It's tedious to expect editors to do this. I wish to have this article placed for community assessment unless you're willing to assist in repairing what you believe the faults to be. Nja247 (talkcontribs) 09:27, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
While reviewers are encouraged to fix problems they find, it it not the job of the reviewer to repair faults with the article. Geometry guy 23:35, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
2a of the good article criteria requires that articles be properly cited and sourced, tedious or not. I will help with tidying up the citations if I have the time to do so, but the most important issue is to provide inline citations for the unsourced sections of this article. If that has not been done by the end of the hold period, and as a result this article is delisted, then a community reassessment may be appropriate. In the meantime however, why don't we just fix up this article so that remains a hypothetical possibility? --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 14:33, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
I have made a number of changes to the citation formats (there should only be one) used in this article to demonstrate what is currently expected of a GA, and I will continue to help where I can. I would remind all interested editors though that it is not my responsibility to fix this article. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 22:39, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
I've also did my best to integrate the criticisms into relevant places in the article. I think it looks a lot better. Still not sure where to stick the last remaining criticism. Nja247 (talkcontribs) 09:56, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
Cheers on all the help. I never meant to imply you had to do anything (like another editor said), but I think you knew that anyhow. Nja247 (talkcontribs) 09:14, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Adding cited-source to sentence about name change to macOS

Apple shortened the name to "OS X" in 2012 and then changed it to "macOS" in 2016, adopting the nomenclature that it uses for their other operating systems, iOS, watchOS, and tvOS.

I wanted to add a cited-source to this sentence. I think either of these is sufficient: https://www.wired.com/2016/06/apple-os-x-dead-long-live-macos/ or https://www.engadget.com/2016/06/13/os-x-is-now-macos/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by PWx21 (talkcontribs) 23:14, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

First desktop version

Hi,
I'd like to know why Mac OS X 10.0 is considered the first desktop version.
What were the targets of previous versions?

Thank You.
Dorivaldo de C. M. dos Santos (talk) 20:28, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

As Mac OS X Server 1.0, a server OS, preceded it. Mac OS X 10.0 was the first proper release for desktop.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 20:37, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

MacKeeper needs more editors

Could use more editors on the MacKeeper article. Thanks.Adoring nanny (talk) 13:38, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 29 September 2018

Latest release is 10.14, but when searching on Google: Latest release pops up as 10.13.6 2001:8003:861B:4E00:515D:B3A1:7C7E:1886 (talk) 07:15, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

That's not an edit request, it's just a general comment; you didn't even indicate whether the Google results came from Wikipedia. I've updated the one place in macOS that appeared to need an update, namely the table in macOS#Release history; whether that's the cause of the Google search results in question is another matter. Guy Harris (talk) 07:35, 29 September 2018 (UTC)
 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Danski454 (talk) 18:28, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

Sorry for latest "sqaunchy" edits

Five days ago I attempted to edit what I thought was results from a malware attack on Wikipedia: the addition of random words. So I extensively editted the intro. It turns out I was the victim, not Wikipedia. I had synced my Chrome browsers, spreading the virus to my phone and multiple computers, therefore though it was the webpage under attack, not me. (Embarrassing!) I'm not sure if undoing my edits would cause more damage, but if it would be better, please do so for me. Im afraid to do any further changes myself. The reference is apparently to Rick and Marty cartoon. Sorry and thank you for understanding. Cuvtixo (talk) 06:48, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

@Cuvtixo: Your revisions were reverted eighth days ago.
By the way, what kind of computer virus adds the word “squanches” to Wikipedia articles? Interqwark talk contribs 07:07, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
Something like this application on the Chrome Store? Guy Harris (talk) 07:14, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
That’s what I was thinking! It had to be a Google Chrome extension. I used to have silly extensions like that mess up my wiki editing, so I had to remove them. I’m not sure how Cuvtixo installed this extension without realizing it, though. Interqwark talk contribs 07:23, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
I knowingly installed it on my smartphone, not really understanding its only functionality was added random words, and quickly forgot it. It was through the "Sync" of Chrome browsers it spread through my laptop, desktop, etc. Chrome treated it as a desirable extension instead of a nuisance. As far as my strong language "malware" and "virus": it "reproduced" without my knowledge, the same way some biological viruses are mostly harmless, but will spread throughout a body or ecosystem. More importantly as I see it, it provides a model for which malicious users could spread a payload, a trojan or spyware. Someone could easily alter a version of this Android App, and add code to create password stealers or identity theft by allowing it to install on all devices that have Chrome and Chromium, or Firefox, and Mozilla's many variations. Minimal scripting is all that is needed to weaponize an extension, as long as Google doesn't police such "fun" apps, it poses a danger. Therefore, rather than laugh about it as a dumb mistake or practical joke on me, I'm trying to raise a bit of an alarm. And, after all, it caused me a lot of time working to make edits then try and retrace all the edits I had made and erase them. It did not advertise it's presence, as a harmless joke extension should. It also could be even more easily altered to insert obscenities, names of celebrities or politicians. I could go on, but I may be adding to the problem but suggesting possibilities. I'm hoping the attention this Editing Talk is minimal so as not to give ideas to "script kiddies," but enough to cause some to think twice about such "joke" extensions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cuvtixo (talkcontribs) 02:10, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
Also I don't see the dupblication... Marshmallych 10:35, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cuvtixo (talkcontribs) 02:10, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

iTunes Support on Past OSX Releases

The software compatibility table that lists out the OSX releases and version support for various Apple provided applications should be updated for iTunes and OSX High Sierra. It currently says OSX releases 10.10 (Yosemite) through 10.13 (High Sierra) support iTunes 12.7

According to the apple support page for iTunes 12.8 it supports OSC 10.10.5 and higher which included all the above releases https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1977?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

I am currently running High Sierra on an old MacBookPro and running iTunes 12.8 just fine. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zipzot (talkcontribs) 22:52, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 6 March 2019

27.56.225.144 (talk) 01:30, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. NiciVampireHeart 01:44, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 25 March 2019

Change current version from 10.14.3 to 10.14.4 Im a Jayhawk (talk) 23:10, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

This has already been updated. RudolfRed (talk) 23:45, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
Not in the "Release history" table, it wasn't. I've just updated that. Guy Harris (talk) 02:22, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 5 June 2019

Please add "MacOS 10.15, MacOS Catalina" to the article. It just came out in WWDC 2019 yesterday. Khan Academy gyy0909 (talk) 07:36, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

 Already done Was already in article Abote2 (talk) 09:46, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 1 July 2019

In the lead section, fourth paragraph, add iPadOS to the list of OSes that share components of macOS. 96.8.24.95 (talk) 00:43, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

 Done Guy Harris (talk) 01:52, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Weird redirect

Every time I go to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/macOS, it redirects to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacOS, though the title is macOS - Wikipedia. Can this redirect be removed? It should be en.wikipedia.org/wiki/macOS instead of en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacOS. 111.88.15.218 (talk) 10:54, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

"Can this redirect be removed?" Sadly, no - as Wikipedia:Naming conventions (technical restrictions) says:
Some page names are not possible because of limitations imposed by the MediaWiki software. In some cases (such as names which should begin with a lowercase letter, like eBay), a template can be added to the article to cause the title header to be displayed as desired. In other cases (such as names containing restricted characters) it is necessary to adopt and display a different title. This page describes appropriate ways to handle these situations.
...
Restrictions on page titles are listed at Wikipedia:Page name § Technical restrictions and limitations. The most commonly encountered problems are that:
  • titles cannot begin with a lowercase letter;
and as Wikipedia:Page name#Technical restrictions and limitations says,
A pagename cannot begin with a lowercase letter in any alphabet except for the German letter ß.
so the URL has to end with "MacOS". Guy Harris (talk) 16:33, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Properietary vs. non-free

User Grufo updated the lead to say "non-free" rather than "proprietary," on the grounds that it requires a legal understanding. I disagree; "proprietary" is a very common and well-understood term in general, and in software specifically. However, rather than just revert it I'd like to hear what other editors think and get a consensus. What do other OS articles say? MFNickster (talk) 01:11, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Microsoft Windows says "non-free" in the lede, but that's just because user Grufo recently changed it to mention the non-free/proprietary status. It says "proprietary" in the infobox. The same applies to Solaris (operating system).
HP-UX and IBM AIX say "proprietary" in the lede.
Tru64 UNIX and IRIX say nothing in the lede, although IRIX speaks of the processors as being "proprietary". UNIX System V also says nothing in the lede, and the infobox just speaks of it as being "closed source".
The pages for various (non-UN*X) IBM mainframe OSes say nothing in the lede; OS 2200 also says nothing. Burroughs MCP says "proprietary".
OpenVMS says "proprietary" in the lede. RSX-11 says nothing in the lede. Data General AOS and HP Multi-Programming Executive also say nothing in the lede. Guy Harris (talk) 01:38, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
I'm not dogmatic about this but I'd say proprietary is better or no worse, because macOS is free with ownership of a supported Mac. So non-free in this sense also requires legal understanding because you need to understand that "free" in "non-free" is being used in the "free as in speech, not free as in beer" sense. But you could also say proprietary isn't clear-"does that mean that only people who work at Apple are allowed to use it?" If anything, "closed-source" is the clearest at expressing the concept-that Apple controls the source code. Regardless, I don't think any of these is needed in the lead, since it's clear from the context and something, I think, that's well-understood about Apple products in general. It doesn't need to be the fourteenth word in the article, it's fine in the infobox. Blythwood (talk) 02:57, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
Yup - free software talks about "free as in speech", but I suspect that non-technical people, and even many technical people not that involved with free-as-in-speech software, wouldn't realize that, so "non-free" also has an intended meaning not obvious to all of the audience, although they could click on the link to find out.
But I'm +1 on just removing it from the lede; those who care probably already know it's mostly not free-as-in-speech, and convincing more people to care is not the article's purpose. Guy Harris (talk) 03:43, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
OK, implemented. Blythwood (talk) 04:40, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
Sorry, just read the discussion after reverting Blythwood's edit. I think that a software that requires you not to attempt to control your own machine is not just a "graphical OS", but it is a "non-free graphical OS". And an encyclopedia, especially one that relies on MediaWiki, has the duty of at least not hiding it. Apple itself has no problems at all at defining its own operating system as non-free, why should Wikipedia have problems with that? --Grufo (talk) 17:23, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
Where did Apple ever refer to MacOS as "non-free"? MFNickster (talk) 17:28, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
@MFNickster In the license? Apple "retains ownership" on the product you have paid for (and to "retain ownership" literally means that the product is non-free).

The Apple software (including Boot ROM code), any third party software, documentation, interfaces, content, fonts and any data accompanying this License whether preinstalled on Apple-branded hardware, on disk, in read only memory, on any other media or in any other form (collectively the “Apple Software”) are licensed, not sold, to you by Apple Inc. (“Apple”) for use only under the terms of this License. Apple and/or Apple’s licensors retain ownership of the Apple Software itself and reserve all rights not expressly granted to you. You agree that the terms of this License will apply to any Apple-branded application software product that may be preinstalled on your Apple-branded hardware, unless such product is accompanied by a separate license, in which case you agree that the terms of that license will govern your use of that product.

— Software License Agreement for macOS Catalina[1]
Add to it that "non-free" is a widely accepted label for such kind of products. --Grufo (talk) 20:34, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
So Apple themselves did not use the term "non-free"? MFNickster (talk) 21:15, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
Right, synonyms are bad and we need to stick to the actual text. So, maybe instead of "a series of non-free graphical operating systems" we could have "a series of unbuyable[2] graphical operating systems given in concession by Apple to the users who are willing to let Apple retain the ownership of their operating system". Does that sound more politically correct? --Grufo (talk) 22:12, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
"Non-free" is an accepted label for that among computer people. It's not well-known beyond computer people. I wouldn't expect that "non-free", meaning what macOS and others are, is widely accepted or widely understood by the readership of the English Wikipedia. Vadder (talk) 20:52, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
This is starting to feel very tilting-at-windmills. The logical conclusion of your argument is that we need to put "non-free" at the start of every article on of closed-source software and digital content. That would be dreadful prose style and a real failure of WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. (I mean, I specialize in editing font articles: it'd be dreadfully tendentious if every article on a commercial font began "X is a non-free font....", or our article on the Harry Potter series began "Harry Potter is a non-free book series...". Generally, a lede should tell people the key things they need to know, sometimes the most interesting, surprising or commonly misunderstood things, about the subject. I don't think the average person reading this article is under the mistaken impression that Apple is a charity and keen to help them install macOS on their Samsung Galaxy. It's not like Wikipedia doesn't include criticism of Apple, either, I mean we have a colossal article on it. It's just a question of whether it needs to be at the very start of the article. Blythwood (talk) 22:34, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ "APPLE INC. SOFTWARE LICENSE AGREEMENT FOR macOS Catalina" (PDF).
  2. ^ OSx cannot be bought. "Software License Agreement for macOS Catalina" (PDF). www.apple.com. The Apple software (including Boot ROM code), any third party software, documentation, interfaces, content, fonts and any data accompanying this License […] are licensed, not sold, to you by Apple Inc. […]. Apple and/or Apple's licensors retain ownership of the Apple Software itself and reserve all rights not expressly granted to you.
Nobody talks about charity here, as long as you own what you buy the software is free software, even if you have paid millions for having it. And, for answering your question, since the "normal" thing when you pay for something is that you own it, my answer is yes, every Wikipedia article that talks about a product that deviates from a "normal" trade should specify it. And definitely should not be misleading. Take for example the Wiki article about Microsoft Windows, it says that Windows is "sold by Microsoft", but that's just wrong, Windows as well is not "sold", but given in concession. --Grufo (talk) 22:50, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

As a long-time free-software supporter I am disagree on using "non-free" lable for proprietary software, because not all people know what does mean "free software" to understand what does mean "non-free"! also such term is ideologicall, I am just agree on "proprietary software" and specially "freeware". -- Editor-1 (talk) 05:03, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

OSx is not freeware. --Grufo (talk) 19:12, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

System V

I think it is relevant that Mac OS X (ten) follows the naming using roman numerals of UNIX System V (five), referencing the history of OS and moving on from Mac OS 9... 86.11.51.106 (talk) 07:31, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

Do you have a reliable source that says Mac OS X is named in reference to UNIX System V? The Mirror Cracked (talk) 07:41, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

Unix certification MacOS 10.7 Lion

The page currently claims that Mac OS X is since 10.6 unix-certified. For most of the versions it cites opengroup website with the registration, but for 10.7 Lion it cites just Apple marketing materials. And if you dig deeper, you find out, that 10.7 was not actually certified https://www.mail-archive.com/austin-group-l@opengroup.org/msg02006.html

I propose to delete the claim, marketing materials shouldn't be used as credible source, when primary source, The Open Group, doesn't support it. 77.48.70.42 (talk) 12:22, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Weird, but that mail message looks authoritative, especially if, as is probably the case, it's author is this Andrew Josey. The article should probably explicitly note that 10.7 was, for whatever reason, not certified, and give that mail message as a reference. Guy Harris (talk) 17:33, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 18 March 2020

60.135.70.234 (talk) 03:00, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Guy Harris (talk) 03:23, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 10:39, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 6 August 2020

The section of "OS X 10.11 El Capitan"

From: OS X 10.11 El Capitan was released on September 30, 2015. Similar to Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, Apple described this release as containing "refinements to the Mac experience" and "improvements to system performance" rather than new features. Refinements include public transport built into the Maps application, GUI improvements to the Notes application, adopting San Francisco as the system font for clearer legibility, and the introduction of System Integrity Protection.

To: OS X 10.11 El Capitan was released on September 30, 2015. Similar to Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, Apple described this release as containing "refinements to the Mac experience" and "improvements to system performance" rather than new features, except the introduction of System Integrity Protection (SIP). Refinements include public transport built into the Maps application, GUI improvements to the Notes application, adopting San Francisco as the system font for clearer legibility.

Reason: The modification is to move the phrase "the introduction of System Integrity Protection" as to emphasis that it is a "new feature". People who do not like the SIP, although it adds the security, may want to stay in the Yosemite. W3!m9? (talk) 04:01, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

 Partly done. Instead of moving SIP, I've just reworded the sentence to remove the "new features" bit. There was no way Apple's going to say that there's not that many new features anyways.  Ganbaruby! (Say hi!) 13:23, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Internal demo by Jobs at Macworld 2000

Shouldn't a mention be made of the demo Jobs showed at Macworld 2000? It was (I believe) an internal demo predecessor to 10.0. Gold333 (talk) 00:04, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

http://cdn.cultofmac.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/os_x_aqua.jpg — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gold333 (talkcontribs) 00:43, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

"Previously MacOS X"...?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


Why is this phrase included: "previously Mac OS X and later OS X", and particularly right after the first word of the entry? "X" is the roman numeral for 10, and the X version of the operating system (OS) followed the 9 version (Mac OS 9). The previous versions of the operating system running on Apple computers were referred to "Mac OS" with a number, so weren't they also "macOS"? (Mac OS 9, Mac OS 8, Mac OS 7, etc.) If the intent is to clarify the name/branding change of the operating system, it should be written differently (and probably not so close to the start of the page --> like move to the second (or 12th, 40th, "X"-number) paragraph. - Hooperswim (talk) 19:47, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

The name "Mac OS" was, allegedly, created when Apple started its program to encourage Macintosh clones; the intent may have been to provide branding for the OS, separate from the hardware.
"Mac OS X" was probably picked as a name to suggest continuity with the earlier OSes with "Mac OS" in their names, even though Mac OS X was a new OS.
I have no idea what the intent behind dropping "Mac" was, other than perhaps a notion that "OS X" would also be the name for the OS on the iPhone (Jobs apparently said "iPhone runs OS X" when it was announced), but that was dropped in favor of 'iPhone OS".
"macOS" was probably picked to suggest a family relationship with the other initial-lower-caseOSes that Apple has.
So "Mac OS" and "macOS" may share "mac" and "OS", but they have different origins, so I'm not sure I'd say that the pre-NeXTStEP OSes for Mac were "also macOS".
And, yes, the name of the first NeXTStEP derivative for Mac matched the same pattern as the names of the last few major releases of the pre-NeXTStEP OSes, but that was for marketing reasons - classic Mac OS and Mac OS X are extremely different OSes, so calling Mac OS X just "Mac OS" would be a bit misleading. Guy Harris (talk) 20:27, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
I always supposed that the renaming was a tacit admission by Apple that there would never be an "OS XI" MFNickster (talk) 10:08, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
That probably wasn't the intent of the renaming, but it does serve that purpose (just as Sun's switching from "Solaris 2.N" to just "Solaris N" does, although, in the early days, there was some notion of a Shiny New Solaris 3 at some point in the future; I forget the details of the idea, as that was over 30 years ago, but I think "object-oriented" was floating around there somewhere - maybe "microkernel" as well). Guy Harris (talk) 11:16, 2 January 2020 (UTC)


I think it is a good time to reopen this debate, since that Big Sur will be ver. 11.0. It's macOS, but definitely not a "Mac OS X". 2A02:8388:180C:7E00:B9DB:67A7:7852:5CEF (talk) 22:20, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

What is the debate, exactly? Currently named macOS and previously named Mac OS X and then OS X is still correct. Big Sur will be version 11, but Apple does not refer to it as "macOS 11" anywhere on their preview page or WWDC page. MFNickster (talk) 01:50, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
Apple does refer to "macOS 11" in some places in the developer documentation, such as this page in the Human Interface Guidelines and in the Big Sur beta 1 release notes.
However, given that, apparently, it was "10.16" until fairly recently, there's nothing particularly exciting about the version number change; it does not betoken a Huge Change that means it's not the latest incarnation of The Operating System Formerly Known As Mac OS X And Then OS X, it's just a marketing move, just like the move from Mac OS X to OS X or from OS X to macOS. Perhaps they're just saying it's an Exciting UI Redesign or something such as that, or perhaps they're tired of explaining what that extra "10." crap is in front of the version number and want to just give it a version number that increments for every major release, just as the other *OSes have.
Yes, some journalists and fanboys might get all stirred up, but the journalists have to do something to get the circulation numbersclicks up, and the fanboys have to do something to keep themselves busy.
So, no, there's no debate to be had here, not that there ever was a debate to be had. Apple's marketing departments periodically have to justify their existence, like marketing departments for other companies that produce OSes, so they periodically tweak names and version numbers to convince their paymasters that they're performing a useful function. Guy Harris (talk) 07:11, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for that info. It will be interesting to see where Apple goes with this. MFNickster (talk) 12:58, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
My issue with this is not "Apple Marketing says it is 11". If you say "macOS, previously OS X", you can say it's initial release date was ~19 years ago, and you are explicitly talking about the version 10 (= X in Roman numerals). If you extend it to version 11, it's, for me, semantically wrong to say, it was first released 19 years ago. 2A02:8388:180C:7E00:68D8:E699:6535:BF99 (talk) 14:09, 4 July 2020 (UTC)
"If you extend it to version 11, it's, for me, semantically wrong to say, it was first released 19 years ago." Not for me; it's just a marketing department monkeying around with names. The code base is the same, the APIs are the same, etc.. And, for all we know, next year's release could be "macOS 12", in which case all they've done is switch from having an "X" in the name and a "10" preceding the major version number to having the first component of the version number be the major version number, in which case it's similar to Solaris, where they went from calling the SunOS 5-based OS "Solaris 2.x", with "x" changing with every major release, to "Solaris x", with "x" changing with every major release. Guy Harris (talk) 18:19, 4 July 2020 (UTC)
Version numbers is and has been always a more marketing thing than technical. Windows 10, 8.1, 8 has being on Windows NT for a while. There are all major versions with own Wikipedia pages. They share the code base and the APIs. Heck, you can even find some interface elements from Windows 3.1 in Windows 10. Windows 10 page doesn't and shouldn't read "Windows 10, previously Windows 8.1, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista... Released July 27, 1993; 26 years ago". That will be just very, very weird. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:8388:180C:7E00:9807:FDA9:ABEE:24CE (talk) 12:19, 5 July 2020 (UTC)
Yes, it would be very, very weird if the macOS Big Sur page said "previously macOS Catalina, macOS, High Sierra, ...".

Microsoft's marketing department, like Apple's marketing department, have done a significant amount of rebranding of the OS, going from "Windows NT x.y" to "Windows 2000" to "Windows XP" to "Windows Vista" to "Windows x.y" to "Windows 10, now with rolling releases". The Wikipedia pages for the various versions of Windows NT describe most of the versions as operating systems, rather than releases of operating systems, and describe Windows 10 as "a series of operating systems". The pages for the various versions of Apple's current UNIX-for-Macs all refer to them as releases of that OS, noting the name changes of the OS in parentheses.

But, the way the articles for various versions of Windows NT and macOS are written notwithstanding, the best model is that "Windows NT" and "macOS" are equivalents, with the sequence "Windows NT 3.1", "Windows NT 3.5", "Windows "Windows NT 4.0", "Windows 2000", ..., "Windows 10" being equivalent to the sequence "Mac OS X 10.0", "Mac OS X 10.1", "Mac OS X Jaguar", "Mac OS X Panther", ..., "OS X Mountain Lion", "OS X Mavericks", ..., "macOS Catalina", "macOS Big Sur".

And, no, the "X" in "Mac OS X" is not best thought of as a version number; it's best thought of as the equivalent of "NT" in "Windows NT" - a marker to indicate a major change in the underlying OS. "Mac OS X 10.0" was the first release of the new OS, not the tenth release of "Mac OS", just as "Windows NT 3.1" was the first release of the new OS, not the first update to the third release of the new OS. Eventually, just as Microsoft dropped "NT" from the names of OS versions in Windows 2000, Apple dropped the "X", going from "OS X" to "macOS" in Sierra. Guy Harris (talk) 18:51, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Now I get where you're coming from and I now can understand your train of thought. Yet, I have to say: I read X as a version number. Therefore for me, "macOS (now on ver. 11), previously OS X" sounds wrong. With title "macOS", I see the page the equivalent of "Windows" and not "Windows NT", it sounded like "Windows, previously Windows NT". Maybe something like "(Modern) macOS, formally marketed with version number 10 in Roman numerals as OS X ..." perhaps will help with the ambiguity. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2a02:8388:180c:7e00:f158:f520:61d:5d7f (talk) 21:41, 5 July 2020 (UTC)
"Modern" macOS, as distinguished from what? There was a "Mac OS" (which previously had other names; see classic Mac OS), the last release of which was Mac OS 9, and then there was Apple's current UNIX-for-Macs, currently known as "macOS" (which previously also had other names). Guy Harris (talk) 22:00, 5 July 2020 (UTC)
Yeah, a more important point is technology rather than version numbering. The Mac OS X series (2001-present) form a series: a "modern" operating system with pre-emptive multi-tasking. The old Mac OS (1984-1999) form a series: a simple OS designed to run fast on slow computers. I think I'm right in saying there's conceptually far more similarity between the first OS X version (2001) and Big Sur today than there is between that first OS X version and the "classic" Mac OS 9 directly preceding it. That's clearly what Cook thinks: in his quick Mac history lecture he listed three big transitions in the Mac platform, and only one of them was an OS transition: classic to Mac OS X. The fact that macOS incremented version number wasn't even mentioned (indeed, I didn't notice it on the livestream, and nor did TechCrunch: they posted an article announcing macOS 10.16-check the URL-and I included that in the article at first). As for the X as a version number: branding is branding, and these things can get changed. Marcin Wichary has shown a switfly-killed graphic from Apple's website that briefly described Panther as Mac OS X version 11 (although I'm a bit confused about why this was put on their website in 2005, unless it was left over from before Panther launched). Blythwood (talk) 04:15, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
I'd agree that it's really the same operating system (based on the technology) gone through several revisions and renamings. The article lead says right off the bat that it's a "series of operating systems," but it would be kind of silly to say "Mac OS X" is one series, "OS X" is another series, and "macOS" yet another. MFNickster (talk) 05:47, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
"I think I'm right in saying there's conceptually far more similarity between the first OS X version (2001) and Big Sur today than there is between that first OS X version and the "classic" Mac OS 9 directly preceding it." In terms of being a Unix-based OS under the hood, and in terms of particular aspects of its appearance ("traffic light" buttons top left of every window for example), then yes I agree. However, Big Sur has a lot of phased similarities with iOS and has changed in so many ways since OS X 10.0. Another way of looking at it would be to say that OS X 10.0 was a very radical UI redesign of OS 9 - on the surface - but with less power and fewer features than OS 9 had. Many of those were added in the next 3 or 4 releases, but it has taken some giant steps since then. 78.144.205.77 (talk) 22:15, 30 September 2020 (UTC)
"However, Big Sur has a lot of phased similarities with iOS and has changed in so many ways since OS X 10.0." So has macOS 10.15 Catalina. What makes Big Sur special? Guy Harris (talk) 23:35, 30 September 2020 (UTC)
I think the most important thing is how Apple has been treating the versions of the OS. And from all documentation, private and public, and all marketing, it's very clear that Apple is treating macOS Big Sur as a continuation of the macOS line of OSes introduced to the public in 2001. The name or number changing doesn't change that fact. Mac OS 9 was not a different OS from Mac OS 8 simply because the major number changed, just like iOS 14 isn't a different OS from iOS 13 just because of the major number changing. In Apple's marketing at WWDC, they called it "The biggest change to macOS since the release of Mac OS X in 2001" (or something along those lines). That statement should make it unambiguous that Apple refers to macOS Big Sur as a major update to macOS, but NOT a different OS. I respect your opinion and the dissenters' opinions that macOS Big Sur is a huge change that is on par to the release of a completely different OS. But frankly and respectfully, Wikipedia isn't the place for personal opinions. We are here to present and uphold the truth and the facts, and in this case, that's what the company says (not to mention that Big Sur sharing the same base as every release of macOS that preceded it). macOS Big Sur is the 17th release of macOS. That's just the fact. Herbfur (talk) 01:54, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

There are plenty of references in the article that say, the name changes coincided with a change in leadership after Scott Forestall botched the Maps release. Under Craig Federighi, they stopped naming each release after big cats, and as of Big Sur, even increments the Major version to 11, instead of a 16th or 17th release of macOS 10. Shencypeter (talk) 05:13, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

X is a Roman numeral but it also signifies macOS's roots from Steve Jobs's NEXTSTEP operating system. Shencypeter (talk) 05:15, 1 October 2020 (UTC)
The section "OS X" says "In 2012, with the release of OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, the name of the system was shortened from Mac OS X to OS X. That year, Apple removed the head of OS X development, Scott Forstall, and design was changed towards a more minimal direction." For Lion, Apple sometimes spoke of "Mac OS X" and sometimes spoke of "OS X", so the transition was starting before 2012; it wasn't consistent until Mountain Lion, but it was sometimes used for Lion.
"and as of Big Sur, even increments the Major version to 11, instead of a 16th or 17th release of macOS 10". It's the 17th release of Apple's UNIX-for-Macs, an OS that was renamed twice - "Mac OS X" to "OS X" to "macOS".
"X is a Roman numeral but it also signifies macOS's roots from Steve Jobs's NEXTSTEP operating system." Citation needed. Guy Harris (talk) 09:55, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

https://computerhistory.org/blog/the-deep-history-of-your-apps-steve-jobs-nextstep-and-early-object-oriented-programming/ Shencypeter (talk) 11:56, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

I looked for all occurrences of the letter "x" in that article, and saw nothing whatsoever to indicate that the "X" in "Mac OS X" and "OS X" had anything whatsoever to do with NEXTSTEP. Guy Harris (talk) 17:27, 1 October 2020 (UTC)
There is no "macOS 10" or "macOS 11". It's just "macOS". It's literally just a branding change. It's not a different operating system. The fact that it coincided with a leadership change doesn't mean anything. Herbfur (talk) 15:39, 1 October 2020 (UTC)
And the next update to Big Sur is apparently macOS 11.1 - the first beta is 11.1 beta - so the next major release after Big Sur might be macOS 12. If the era of macOS 10 is over, and the era of macOS 11 is beginning, the latter era may last only one year....
More likely, this is just Apple's "Solaris 7" moment, where they stop pretending that there will be some next-generation new OS coming after Mac OS X/OS X/macOS, and have the first component of the version number increase with every major release. (Sun started with the SunOS 4.x-based Solaris 1.y and the SunOS 5.x-based Solaris 2.x, with the latter names going up to Solaris 2.6, but the next SunOS 5-based release was Solaris 7, not Solaris 2.7; Solaris 7 was based on SunOS 5.7.) Guy Harris (talk) 19:08, 17 November 2020 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

MacOS 11?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


Is there going to be a new page made for macOS 11, or is it still considered a macOS 10 version? Pix12 (talk) 12:17, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

It's just 'macOS' now, not OS X or Mac OS X. If Apple announces a 'macOS 11' or 'Mac OS XI' then sure. MFNickster (talk) 14:58, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
Well, there is a macOS 11, or macOS 11.0, but we already have a page for macOS 11.0. Whether Big Sur's successor will be macOS 11.1 (continuing in the numbering scheme for Apple's current UNIX-for-Macs) or macOS 12 (following the numbering scheme for Apple's other Darwin-based OSes) is as yet unknown (and probably won't be known until this time next year).
But the page for "Mac OS X", "OS X", and "macOS", regardless of version number, is just macOS, as noted. Guy Harris (talk) 19:05, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
Before you read further, I just want to say that everything past this sentence up until the semicolon is not guaranteed to be accurate since I'm not old enough to have experienced it. I'd argue that this article was designed just for the 10.x Versions. The last time the first number in the version number incremented was before Wikipedia existed so this is literally the first time this had happened. OS X was originally presented as the 10th Major version of the OS. The term "Classic Mac OS" is a retronym that likely didn't exist right as Cheetah came out and the difference between Cheetah and Puma was probably initially seen as like between 9.0 and 9.1. I would say it wasn't until Panther or Tiger that people realized these were major versions rather than incremental updates and at that point it was when the term "Classic Mac OS" was conceived; If the versions were to be classified by generations, then the Classic Mac OS would be the first generation and the 10.X versions were the second, while the 11.X or 11+ versions, depending on what the 2021 Mac OS will be called, would be the third generation. At WWDC it was shown to be version 11.0 rather than 10.16 which is probably what some people were expecting. Let's give the OS 11 generation it's own article or third generation of Mac OS depending on what's next. Subscribe to me (talk) 19:31, 4 October 2020 (UTC)
Apple very clearly see the change in major version number from 10 to 11 to be symbolic of the Mac platform moving forward, but still a fairly minor thing. It wasn't even mentioned in the keynote, you just saw it in an "About this Mac" dialog box. I don't see it as a huge amount more than an Easter Egg. The real breakthrough was classic Mac OS to OS X, and the arrival of true pre-emptive multitasking. (I'm also...well, not too young to have used classic Mac OS, but they were very rare in the mid-late 1990s unless owned by people with jobs like graphic design who had already bought into the Mac platform by the early 1990s. I've only ever seen screenshots/videos, I don't think I ever used one until I played with one in a museum in 2017.) Blythwood (talk) 20:13, 4 October 2020 (UTC)
I agree with Blythwood. Apple makes it pretty clear that this is a symbolic change and Big Sur is not a new OS. Herbfur (talk) 20:33, 4 October 2020 (UTC)
What if the 2021 macOS is called 12.0? Will the heads of everybody who thinks this particular release is The Next Generation(TM) explode?
Such a change would not be unheard of. When Sun introduced the term "Solaris", they labeled the SunOS 4.x-based versions of Solaris "Solaris 1.y" and the SunOS 5.x-based versions of Solaris "Solaris 2.y". There was some thought at Sun (before the "Solaris" name was introduced, and possibly after, as I left before the "Solaris" name was introduced) of a "next generation" of Solaris (microkernel, object-oriented, and otherwise buzzword-compliant); perhaps that's what they thought would be Solaris 3. Eventually, they appear to have realized that there would probably never be a "Solaris 3", so they went from "Solaris 2.6" to "Solaris 7" rather than "Solaris 2.7".
And there's nothing different between Catalina and Big Sur that's anywhere near to the magnitude of the difference between classic Mac OS and Mac OS X; the latter change justifies the notion of the classic Mac OS and Mac OS X being different generations, but some UI changes (there have been UI changes throughout the history of Mac OS X/OS X/macOS) and support for a new hardware platform (that had already happened in the history of Mac OS X/OS X/macOS with the Intel-based Macs) doesn't justify calling Big Sur the first of a next generation.
(And note that, in some places, Big Sur did identify itself as 10.16, and, as per the "Third-Party Apps" section of the Big Sur beta release notes, there's a hack to force Big Sur to pretend it's still 10.x, for the benefit of third-party scripts.)
So there's no indication that this somehow represents a Next Generation, rather than just some marketing-department tweaking (which they've done several times before, with the introduction of the "Mac OS" name when the Mac cloning program was introduced, the mysterious dropping of "Mac", and the switch to "macOS"), perhaps to get macOS in line with its siblings, which change the first component, rather than the second component, of the version number when a new release comes out (and to allow small bug-fix software updates to be dot-dot releases, as with everythingelseOS, rather than "Supplemental Updates").
So let's not give Big Sur and successors their own article until some solid reasons exist to consider them to represent Something Big And Different. Guy Harris (talk) 20:38, 4 October 2020 (UTC)
What I'm saying is seemingly when this article was first created in 2002, it was under the assumption that Mac OS 11 would never happen and for the next 18 years it was edited as such. When the OS was first introduced it was assumed at the time the next major release of the Mac OS would be OS 11 and after that OS 12 and so on. At WWDC 2005 Steve said that PowerPC set up Apple for a decade, and it was a decade after it that. Less than a minute later he said Mac OS X set up apple for the next 20 years. And 2020 is the 20th year. People probably held the belief that System 7 would be the last version during that 6-year period. In fact, Mac OS 8 was originally going to be 7.7 and all versions until Copland were going to be 7.x. Also, there are noticeable redesigns on Big Sur that will be important to ensure iOS and iPadOS apps complement the OS. They probably didn't release OS 11 during the Intel transition since Tiger had already been released at that time. Since the architecture didn't change Yosemite probably wasn't OS 11 either. But since both the redesign and architecture change are happening simultaneously, they saw this as worthy of the new number. Apple isn't using numbers anymore in their marketing for the Mac. I would think it's a sort of megamajor release unlike anything we've seen before. This generation will run on new hardware eventually. Subscribe to me (talk) 13:28, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
The fact that people didn't think macOS 11 would arrive doesn't prove that macOS 11 is a different operating system. It wasn't edited as such that macOS 11 wouldn't arrive, it was edited according to the facts we had. This has nothing to do with whether or not macOS 11 is a different OS. What Jobs meant by "Mac OS X set up Apple for the next 20 years" is that the current foundation of macOS is so stable and advanced that it will continue to be used in 20 years. Using that statement to prove that Big Sur is a different OS is just speculation that flies in the face of everything Apple has said about Big Sur to date. Big Sur really isn't that different from Catalina on the inside, it's really not. A new OS isn't just a facelift and a ported architecture (Was Windows NT 4 a different family of OSes from Windows NT 3.51 just because it was ported to PowerPC?). It seems that your whole argument runs on your own opinion of how big a difference Big Sur makes, but to be frank, Wikipedia is NOT about personal opinions. The fact of the matter is that Big Sur is NOT a new OS. Apple makes it pretty clear that the version change is symbolic only and it's just the same macOS as always. We are an encyclopedia of facts, not opinions, and how Apple treats Big Sur makes it a FACT that Big Sur is the same OS. Herbfur (talk) 15:17, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
"What I'm saying is seemingly when this article was first created in 2002, it was under the assumption that Mac OS 11 would never happen" When this article was first created in 2002, it was under the assumption that the OS was named "Mac OS X". That assumption was made because, at the time, the OS was, in fact. named "Mac OS X".
In the Lion and Mountain Lion time frame, the name changed, and the article's name was changed to just "OS X".
In the macOS Sierra time frame, the name changed again, and the article's name was changed to "macOS".
It was also the case, for most of that time frame, that Apple chose to use version numbers that began with 10. That remained true through all name changes, including the dropping of the "X"; it finally changed with Big Sur.
"When the OS was first introduced it was assumed at the time the next major release of the Mac OS would be OS 11 and after that OS 12 and so on." Citation needed. Some people may have assumed that there might, at some point, be a "Mac OS XI" or something such as that. Whether that would be a "next major release" or a "new OS" is not at all clear. Apple changed the first component of the version number of the "Macintosh System Software" several times, as per this support article from Apple, so they were going from 1 to 2 to ... back then. This continued when the name "Mac OS" was introduced with the 7.6 release; they subsequently released version 8 and 9.
Those may have changed the major version number, but they were all continuations of the original Mac system software.
When they replaced that system software with a tweaked version of NeXTSTEP, they called the replacement "Mac OS X". That wasn't a continuation of Mac OS 9; even the name wasn't "Mac OS 10". It had its own version numbers, which had 10 as the first component, and changed the component after that each time they came out with a new version.
And now it appears they've decided to change the major version number, even though they haven't made a radical change to the OS. Whether that will continue with next year's release is, as yet, undetermined.
"At WWDC 2005 Steve said that PowerPC set up Apple for a decade, and it was a decade after it that." At WWDC 2005, Jobs stated that PowerPC set up Apple for a decade because, at that point, it was (approximately) a decade since the first PowerPC-based Macs had come out and he was announcing the x86-based Macs, so that wasn't a prediction.
"Less than a minute later he said Mac OS X set up apple for the next 20 years. And 2020 is the 20th year." That was a guess on his part; given that Apple are continuing with the same OS code base, APIs, etc. - and that the same code base was used in other OSes, including the one used in the product line that's been Apple's biggest for a while, it appears it's set up Apple for longer than that. So it's inappropriate to treat that as an indication that there would be a Shiny New OS in 2020.
"People probably held the belief that System 7 would be the last version during that 6-year period. In fact, Mac OS 8 was originally going to be 7.7 and all versions until Copland were going to be 7.x." And then Copland didn't happen, forcing Apple to do more work on the old OS, to the point that they apparently decided to continue to update the major version number. Mac OS 9 was the last version of the old OS, as they finally had a replacement that they believed (correctly) would succeed. For whatever reason, they decided, with the new OS, not to keep changing the major version number.
"Also, there are noticeable redesigns on Big Sur that will be important to ensure iOS and iPadOS apps complement the OS." There were other UI changes in previous releases to make the OS for Macs a bit more like iOS, so that's not new.
"Apple isn't using numbers anymore in their marketing for the Mac." Apple stopped using the version number as a big thing with Jaguar (10.2). That's not something new.
"I would think it's a sort of megamajor release unlike anything we've seen before." We've seen a complete replacement of the code base with Mac OS X 10.0; we'd need something bigger than that to be "unlike anything we've seen before", but what we have, instead, is more work on the same code base, so what we're seeing with Big Sur is smaller than what we saw with the transition from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X 10.0.
"This generation will run on new hardware eventually." Presumably by "new hardware" you mean "hardware with a different instruction set", which has happened several times in the history of Apple's Macintosh operating systems. The first was the switch to PowerPC with the classic OS; that was the most disruptive such change, as the original OS had a significant amount of 68k assembler code, and many applications may have had that as well. The second was the switch to x86; that one was a change to a UNIX-based OS, so there was a lot less assembler code in the OS and apps; however, that change did have one possible disruption, namely that they switched from a big-endian processor to a little-endian processor. They also dropped support for classic Mac OS applications, so developers who hadn't gotten around to Carbonizing their apps, or switching them to Cocoa, would either have to get around to doing that, or drop the Mac. The third is the switch to ARM; that's not changing the byte order, and everybody's on Cocoa now, so this transition may be less painful, although it's always possible to make inappropriate assumptions in your code, so some code may still need to be cleaned up to remove those assumptions. In any case, it didn't require a "next generation" OS to run on the new machines. (UNIX as a portable OS dates back to at least Version 7 Unix, and UNIXes that build and run on multiple instruction sets, with applications that build and run on multiple instruction sets, have been around for quite a while.) Guy Harris (talk) 17:54, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
Also, "Mac OS X set up apple for the next 20 years" says only that it will be sufficient for the next 20 years; it says nothing about what happens after that. So far, Apple's UNIX-for-Macs appears to be doing Just Fine, although Apple's UN*X-for-iPhones is the OS for their current biggest platform. Big OS Changes for general-purpose computers aren't happening much these days; the most common OSes for general-purpose computers are UN*Xes (with API and command-line continuity back to V7 in 1979), Windows NT (with API, command-line, and GUI compatibility back to 3.1 in in 1993), z/OS (dating back to OS/VS2 Multiple Virtual Storage in 1974, with API, ABI, batch job, and TSO command-line compatibility back to OS/360 in 1966, except for the "everything runs in one address space" prior to pre-MVS and the "every job step has its own address space" in MVS; the code base changed significantly in MVS), z/VSE (dating all the way back to DOS/VS in 1972, and back to DOS/360 in 1966, except for the virtual memory), z/VM and the Conversational Monitor System (dating all the way back to CP/CMS in 1968), IBM i (dating back at least to OS/400 in 1988, and at least to some degree Control Program Facility in 1978), and OpenVMS (dating back to VAX/VMS in 1977) (possibly also OS 2200 and MCP, but the platforms on which those run are now only implemented on x86 with binary-to-binary translation). I am not expecting any truly new general-purpose OS from Apple (or Microsoft or IBM or...), just updates to the existing ones and perhaps new derivatives for new platforms. Once you have a popular enough platform, you can add stuff, but you will have difficulty getting rid of stuff and, as for the code base, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". It may eventually be like a "grandfather's axe", as parts get changed or replaced, but I see no reason to believe that there will be a "next big thing" OS for the Mac.
And there's a lot of speculation about touch-screen Macs, but that's just speculation. Face ID wouldn't be a huge change to make a new OS. Guy Harris (talk) 04:04, 6 October 2020 (UTC)
11.0.1 beta just dropped, so that basically confirms that next year will be 11.1. And also this would be a clean place to split the article anyway so that we don't have this debate 5 years from now. Subscribe to me (talk) 15:31, 29 October 2020 (UTC)
Nobody has given anything remotely close to a credible reason why Big Sur is the first release of a new operating system, so nobody has given anything remotely close to a credible reason to split the article. No new code base, no completely new UI, now API change, nothing. Solaris 7 was just the successor to Solaris 2.6; macOS 11.0 is just the successor to macOS 10.15. Guy Harris (talk) 16:45, 29 October 2020 (UTC)
Indeed, Apple's Developer page for Big Sur is [1] and gushes that it "takes the most advanced operating system in the world to a whole new level of power and beauty." Note that it's not the debut of a new OS. Big Sur is macOS, ergo covered by this article. MFNickster (talk) 05:38, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
And, given that the first beta of the next update to Big Sur is 11.1 beta, next year's macOS may well be macOS 12. If that's the case, we already have a page for macOS 11, and will create a page for macOS 12 when it's announced next year. Guy Harris (talk) 19:11, 17 November 2020 (UTC)
The current version of Big Sur is 11.1, which basically confirms that next year will be 12. Guy Harris (talk) 22:26, 15 December 2020 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

New File System

Apple has introduced new File System named Apple File System (APFS) in 2017. Piyushluniya (talk) 09:22, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

I.e., the file system mentioned in the first and second paragraphs of macOS#macOS? Guy Harris (talk) 10:42, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

The hatnote for other OSes for Mac

The "This article is about..." hatnote is there to point people interested in operating systems for Macintosh other than macOS at the appropriate articles.

None of those operating systems are versions of macOS - the classic Mac OS, and all non-macOS operating systems mentioned in Macintosh operating systems, are separate operating systems from macOS, not versions of macOS - so the hatnote should not speak of other "versions". Guy Harris (talk) 09:00, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Agreed. I initially wrote it like that to avoid repetition, but given the point of a hatnote is to unambiguously point the reader to the correct article, your version is better. - Novov T C 11:27, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 15 June 2021

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) -- Calidum 16:00, 21 June 2021 (UTC)



MacOS → ? – This article does not cover Mac OS 7, 8 and 9, but it does cover Mac OS X, as well as macOS 11 and 12. The title does not make that clear, and therefore fails to meet WP:PRECISION.

In my opinion, fitting titles would be macOS (Darwin) or macOS (Unix) because the Kernel and OS family are the factors that differentiate macOS X, 11 and 12 from Classic Mac OS. Andibrema (talk) 11:39, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

Oppose - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_Mac_OS Shencypeter (talk) 13:56, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
Well, I don't think the move is necessary because this macOS is as recent as twenty years ago. Shencypeter (talk) 13:59, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
Oppose - "macOS" isn't the same thing as "Mac OS". "Mac OS" was originally a name given to the classic Mac OS (which wasn't originally called "Mac OS"), that being what Mac OS 7, 8, and 9 were. Apple called their NeXTStEP port "Mac OS X", presumably so as not to frighten the horses, so they think it's just the next thing after Mac OS 9 than something completely different. Eventually, the need to care about that disappeared, and "OS X" ("Mac" having been dropped for some mysterious reason - it happened after the iPhone, and iPhone OS/iOS had already been released) was out of sync with the other OS names (iOS, tvOS, watchOS), so Apple renamed the OS again, this time to sync it with the rest of their OS names. People interested in the classic Mac OS should go to classic Mac OS; people interested in the OS whose current name is "macOS" - a name that was never given to any other OS - should got to macOS; people interested in all OSes for Macs should go to Macintosh operating systems, which is where Mac OS currently redirects, as it should ("Mac OS" could either refer to the classic Mac OS, or could refer to macOS, given that its original name was "Mac OS X"). Guy Harris (talk) 18:51, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
Oppose - OS X/macos forms a coherent series of OSs. See e.g. Tim Cook's 2020 keynote introducing ARM: "The Mac has had three major transitions in its history: the move to PowerPC, the transition to Mac OS X, and the move to Intel." Apple's renaming to macOS is a branding decision and the change in version numbering was such a small Easter Egg that they didn't even mention it. Blythwood (talk) 03:42, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Requested Move July 19 2021

While macOS Big Sur and macOS Monterey use the name macOS, they are officially not versions of Mac OS X and it is therefore confusing to see them grouped with all other Mac OS X operating systems. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Awesomemaxbahanda (talkcontribs) 05:18, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Apple has, so far, had two primary lines of operating system for the Mac:
  • The classic Mac OS, which was the first OS shipped with the Mac, and which originally had no official name. It later got the name "Macintosh System Software", and, after that, was renamed "Mac OS".
  • The NeXTSTEP-based operating system, which has had the name "Mac OS X" (perhaps to try to tie it to the classic Mac OS, even though it shared very little code with that OS, and had a different user interface), "OS X" (for unknown reasons, given that the "Mac" was dropped in 2012 with Mountain Lion, several years after the OS for the iPhone was given the name "iPhone OS" rather than "OS X"), and then "macOS" (perhaps to tie it in to the rest of Apple's NeXTSTEP-based OSes, as the classic Mac OS was long dead but iOS was the OS for their best-selling devices, and to make the version numbers change the way the version numbers of the other OSes change from year to year).
So Apple's marketing department has been quite busy with name changes.
They also decided, originally, to number the version of the latter OS as 10.x, changing the x with each major release, even though the "X" got dropped from the name in 2016 with Sierra. They finally got around to dropping that idea in 2020 with Big Sur.
So don't get confused by the version number decoration Apple's marketing department uses. Big Sur is not a brand new OS, it's just the release of the NeXTSTEP-based OS for the Mac that follows Catalina; it's not a new code base, or a new set of APIs, or even that major a UI change (and there have been UI changes before that). This is only confusing to those who take the version number style change seriously; people shouldn't do that.
So there's no move to be made here. "Mac OS X" hasn't existed since 2012, and "OS X" hasn't existed since 2016; everything from 10.0 through 12 is a version of the NeXTSTEP-based OS. Guy Harris (talk) 06:00, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
macOS is just a naming mechanism. You can see in the console that all versions from macOS Sierra 10.12 to macOS Catalina 10.15 are still internally referred to as Mac OS X. This is not present in new releases of macOS, and therefore a new article should be created for all versions of macOS past 11. Apple has closed the door on version 10 and I do not see why version 11 and 12 are included in an article about Mac OS version 10. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Awesomemaxbahanda (talkcontribs) 12:03, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
"macOS is just a naming mechanism." So are "Mac OS", "Mac OS X", and "OS X" - they're all marketing decoration, as are version numbers such as 9, 10.0, 10.1, 10.2, ..., 11, 12, ....
This is not an article about "Mac OS version 10". This is an article about Apple's NeXTSTEP-derived operating systems for Mac, which has had three different names (used inconsistently by Apple, with Lion sometimes being referred to as "Mac OS X" and sometimes being referred to as "OS X", and with some of the "macOS"-named versions reporting "Mac OS X" in the sw_vers command for backwards compatibility - that's still true in Big Sur, where, if you set the SYSTEM_VERSION_COMPAT environment variable, sw_vers reports "Mac OS X" as the ProductName and "10.16" as the version), and has had two version numbering schemes (one maintaining the notion that the major version is 10 - long past the point when that needed to be part of the "this is just the successor to Mac OS 9" story, i.e. past the point when they changed the name to be part of the "this is a member of Apple's family of OSes" story - and one changing the major version with each release, the same way all other members of that family do).
"Apple has closed the door on version 10" Apple closed the door on version 10.0 when version 10.1 came out. They closed the door on version 10.1 when version 10.2 came out. ... There's nothing about the transition from Catalina to Big Sur that makes it more significant, in anything other than the way the marketing department has decided to do version numbering, than the transition from Mojave to Catalina. Yes, it adds support for a second instruction set, but Apple's done that before without making a Brand New OS.
This is just Apple's "Solaris 7" moment; Solaris originally had the SunOS 4.x-based 1.y releases and the SunOS 5.x-based 2.x releases, possibly because they expected eventually to make a completely new 3.0 with Shiny New Modern Technologies (at least when I was there, there was some talk about an "object-oriented" OS), but, following Solaris 2.6, they didn't release Solaris 2.7, they released Solaris 7.
(And, as per my note above about backwards compatibility, sometimes you have to keep old names and version-numbering styles around in APIs and other internal places so as not to break software not prepared to see a name or version-numbering style change. Heck, even with the dropping of "Mac" from "Mac OS X", sw_vers on OS X 10.9 Mountain Lion reports "Mac OS X", not "OS X". Apple appears to have decided that it's time to push the latest branding for the OS into some APIs and commands, with backwards compatibility tricks such as "unless the app is built with the Big Sur SDK, pretend it's "Mac OS X 10.16" so as not to frighten the horses" and "if SYSTEM_VERSION_COMPAT is set, when running scripts, pretend it's "Mac OS X 10.16" so as not to frighten the horses".) Guy Harris (talk) 18:30, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
The reasoning above shows why Windows went from 8.1 to 10, skipping 9 to avoid confusion with Windows 9x. Anyhow, macOS is still the same underlying operating system, the Intel support will become obsolete in a few years. Between editors the reasoning is that this is the UNIX based macOS, so we haven't moved past the X in NeXT or uniX, we only stopped using the Roman Numeral X. macOS Monterey or macOS Big Sur already have their own articles, with emphasis on California locations rather than eleven or twelve OR the fact that it is the seventeenth or eighteenth release. Shencypeter (talk) 01:01, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 25 October 2021

For the sake of consistency, I request that the paragraph/section for macOS 12 Monterey - be revised to include the public release date of October 25, 2021. Thank you. Sjwards (talk) 15:45, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Sjwards, I've  done that for you. :) --Ferien (talk) 19:13, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Error needs corrected.

In the system requirements table, the table claims that OS 12 needs 12.13GB of RAM. This is incorrect. The system requires 4GB of RAM. 12.13GB is the download size of the OS from the App Store. Unable to correct myself do to protected status — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.241.108.246 (talk) 17:35, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

Done. Guy Harris (talk) 18:52, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

Install Time

The install time for macos 10.15 - 12 is listed at 6-8 hours. That seems hilariously long and I suspect the work of trolls. Can someone at least add the citation needed tag or proper citation? I cant remember the last time an OS took 6 hours to install on anything. MrBradricks (talk) 21:29, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 9 January 2022

PhalloPlop (talk) 14:27, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

install time of MacOS monterey & BigSur nearly 12 minutes - 8 hours source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiEWl2dyXGQ

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate.  Ganbaruby! (talk) 14:35, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Checksums for Installer Images

What does everyone think about adding checksums for each version? I would recommend creating a new section rather than in-lining them into the existing sections for each version. I would lean towards only listing the sha256 sum from the uncompressed tarball for simplicity. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lukewalsh23 (talkcontribs) 06:56, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

What is the encyclopedic value of these checksums? Primefac (talk) 07:08, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 22 June 2022

The current stable release of Big Sur including bug fixes macOS 11.6.7 (Build: 20G630) Leroydouglas (talk) 15:28, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:46, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

"Unknown" Mail.app versions

Under "Software Compatibility",

  • Mac OS X 10.7 Lion uses Mail.app Version 5.3
  • Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion uses Mail.app Version 6.6
  • Can't find a proper citation for this, but just installed both OSs to check. Lvidmar (talk) 01:04, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 19 July 2022

Please change Chrome OS to ChromeOS, as it is the new name of the OS. Fatalerror404123 (talk) 09:35, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

 Done MadGuy7023 (talk) 09:40, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

Release history is a bit of a mess

There's:

  • an ugly "box art timeline", too small to really see anything; hard to update with new releases
  • a transcluded template listing a bunch of (frankly) trivia (Darwin version, processor support, application support)
  • an ugly "Timeline of versions"
  • and then a release history with subsections for each major release.

Hugely redundant. Half of these elements are also present at macOS version history, with no greater depth. How do we fix this mess?

For macOS, I propose:

  1. We remove the box art, template, and timeline
  2. We make a simplified table with release dates and version numbers, and box art/logo in each row.
  3. Either:
    1. We keep the subsections for major releases, as is. (I lean towards this option)
    2. We delete them and just have the simplified table (#2), with bluelinks for each release, and let the leads of these articles take care of things.
  4. Delete "List of macOS versions and the software they run" table, and "Hardware compatibility" table. Unencyclopedic cruft.

For macOS version history, I propose:

  1. Delete the Releases section (totally redundant with this page, depending on whether consensus supports #3.1 or #3.2)
  2. Move it back to History of macOS. It was moved from there 6 years ago, with no discussion, for consistency reasons with Microsoft Windows version history and others; but it just didn't work out. macOS version history is actually worse than macOS, notably lacking mainlinks for major versions.

Keep in mind the standard is not whether information is useful, but whether a high-quality, reputable encyclopedia would have it. If you post comments below, please clearly indicate which numbered #proposal you support, and which you oppose. DFlhb (talk) 11:53, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

Screenshot for macOS Monterey

Screenshot of Monterey

Ezekiel Sam Gaviola (talk) 07:26, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

Please add a screenshot for macOS Monterey.

 Declined - there is already a screenshot on the page. We do not need more than one here. MadGuy7023 (talk) 08:41, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protection

I removed semi-protection today. Per Wikipedia:Rough guide to semi-protection, "the only way to know if protection is still needed is to see if disruption returns without the protection." So, let's all keep an eye on it. If you think it needs to be reesabilished per the reasons stated in that guide, please ping me or (if you've got the sudo) sudo yourself. —GoldRingChip 15:58, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

"Derived from"

Please see my change to the lead.

Technically: iOS was directly based on macOS. iPadOS, watchOS, and tvOS were directly based on iOS. and audioOS is directly based on tvOS. They're very technical/minute differences, and it's still correct to say that they're all derived from macOS. Maybe we should explain this somewhere in the article, since they're all a significant part of macOS's legacy. DFlhb (talk) 18:55, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 18 March 2023

2601:203:4383:12F0:8D03:C9:7259:A92A (talk) 05:52, 18 March 2023 (UTC) Not arabic numerals, but it must be corrected to say Hindu numerals.

 Not done: Likely factual errors. Lightoil (talk) 08:20, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

Pp-protected template needed

Hello. Would you please add the {{pp-protected}} template? Becuase it's semi-protected. Thank you for your cooperation. 172.56.216.64 (talk) 19:56, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

 Done HouseBlastertalk 21:50, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 7 June 2023

Hey, I am an older apple fan (i'm 15) and have been a big fan of aple overall. I'm not here to share my life story or anything, but pplease give me permission to add macOS 14 (Sonoma) that has been recently released to this page! It will be greatly appreciated..! Cosmozinity (talk) 19:49, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

oh and btw, i'm traveling soon so don't be suprised if I don't reply quick! Cosmozinity (talk) 19:54, 7 June 2023 (UTC)
 Not done: this is not the right page to request additional user rights. You may reopen this request with the specific changes to be made and someone may add them for you, or if you have an account, you can wait until you are autoconfirmed and edit the page yourself. Tollens (talk) 21:23, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 30 September 2023: change information about UNIX 03 certification for macOS 14 Sonoma

macOS 14 Sonoma also seems NOT to be UNIX 03 certified by the Open Group – macOS 13 Ventura seems to be the latest one – according to:

https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/ https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/xy.htm https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/apple.htm

So, the sentence

"The first desktop version, Mac OS X 10.0, was released on March 24, 2001. All releases from Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard[8] and after are UNIX 03 certified,[9] with an exception for Mac OS X 10.7 Lion.[10]"

should be changed accordingly to:

"The first desktop version, Mac OS X 10.0, was released on March 24, 2001. All releases from Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard[8] and after are UNIX 03 certified,[9] with an exception for Mac OS X 10.7 Lion[10] and macOS 14 Sonoma."

Please check/verify. Maybe someone additionally officially ask the Open Group for confirmation and reference that answer too, like in the case of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion? 95.116.186.67 (talk) 17:35, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/xy.htm is weird, as it lists Monterey, not Ventura. The other pages currently doesn't list Sonoma, but I don't know 1) whether the first official release build has to be the one submitted, in which case that build may not have been available until 2023-09-21 and not known to be the official release build, rather than a release candidate, until 2023-09-26, and 2) how long the process takes until you end up with something on the Open Group web site (2022 Wayback Machine archives of the Apple page don't show Ventura until December, but they don't show any archives at all from 2022-08-13 to 2023-11-30, which may indicate no changes in that time frame or may just mean the changes weren't seen by the Wayback Machine because it didn't bother to look for some reason), so, at this point, without further information from the Open Group, we can't conclude anything about the certification status of Sonoma.
So I changed that part to say that everything from Leopard to Ventura has been certified, except for Lion. That needs no updating if Sonoma never gets certified, unless and until 2024's macOS Oxnard gets certified (in which case we add Sonoma to the list of exceptions), and can be updated to Sonoma (with a reference) if it does get certified. That part is now in a form that more clearly indicates that it needs to be updated for every release (which has always been true, given that a reference is needed for each release).
I'll see whether the Open Group suggests a way to contact them about this and, if so, will ask them (and tell them that the xy page needs an update). Guy Harris (talk) 19:44, 30 September 2023 (UTC)
"https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/xy.htm is weird, as it lists Monterey, not Ventura."
Yes. This inconsistense is very strange, and I've never seen it before.
"The other pages currently doesn't list Sonoma, but I don't know 1) whether the first official release build has to be the one submitted, in which case that build may not have been available until 2023-09-21 and not known to be the official release build, rather than a release candidate, until 2023-09-26, and 2) how long the process takes until you end up with something on the Open Group web site".
As I remember correctly: the mention of the latest certified macOS on the Open Group's website in the last years, always correlated with the release date, usually on the very same day of the official release date or at the latest in the next few days after the official release date. Let's wait for the next few days to see whether there will be a change relating Sonoma or not.
"so, at this point, without further information from the Open Group, we can't conclude anything about the certification status of Sonoma"
Yes. But it's somewhat strange.
"So I changed that part to say that everything from Leopard to Ventura has been certified, except for Lion. That needs no updating if Sonoma never gets certified, unless and until 2024's macOS Oxnard gets certified (in which case we add Sonoma to the list of exceptions), and can be updated to Sonoma (with a reference) if it does get certified."
OK. That's a good idea. Thanks.
"That part is now in a form that more clearly indicates that it needs to be updated for every release (which has always been true, given that a reference is needed for each release)."
Yes. Since the certification process of the product by the Open Group has to be taken and the conformance (or non-conformance) be proven and certified every year to be further certified.
"I'll see whether the Open Group suggests a way to contact them about this and, if so, will ask them (and tell them that the xy page needs an update)."
Thanks. Maybe the open group mailing list or email address (Andrew Josey) linked as source for Lion in [10]: https://www.mail-archive.com/austin-group-l[at]opengroup.org/msg02006.html? 95.116.186.67 (talk) 20:19, 30 September 2023 (UTC)
Yes. This inconsistense is very strange, and I've never seen it before. The issue on the xy.htm page could just just be a failure on the part of the web site maintainers. Apple, on several occasions, has botched one or more of the individual release pages under https://developer.apple.com/news/releases/, e.g. omitting one of the OSes, so it may not signify anything at all other than somebody at The Open Group forgetting to update it. I commented on that via TOG's comment submission form, and also separately asked about Sonoma on the same form. Guy Harris (talk) 07:54, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
"https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/xy.htm is weird, as it lists Monterey, not Ventura."
"The issue on the xy.htm page could just just be a failure on the part of the web site maintainers. […] so it may not signify anything at all other than somebody at The Open Group forgetting to update it."
Seems to be corrected meanwhile, now it also lists Ventura, like the other pages in question. But still no certification listing for its successor, Sonoma. 77.6.128.207 (talk) 17:33, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
Yes, they replied to my comment on the xy.htm page, and another comment I made that https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/xv7.htm didn't have a "Filter by Standard" button, indicating that both had been "fixed", which they now are, so those presumably were just unintentional errors.
As for the product register, they say an update has been scheduled for tomorrow, so we'll see what's in that update. Guy Harris (talk) 18:48, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
What's in that update is "Sonoma is now registered". Guy Harris (talk) 18:31, 3 October 2023 (UTC)
Yes. Thanks for updating the entry.
Additional: what do you think of the idea, also to link under [8] or [9]
this confirmation on Quora, published a year ago from Terry Lambert, by the time Apple Core OS Kernel Team and technical lead on several projects over 8 years at Apple, https://www.quora.com/What-goes-into-making-an-OS-to-be-Unix-compliant-certified – especially in view of the 1st URL in [8] regarding Lions alleged and advertised UNIX certification vs. what is said in [9]) that Apple had to be carried out hunting, was forced to certify, because they were sued by the Open Group for false statements and misleading advertising regarding UNIX certification? 77.3.48.205 (talk) 20:49, 3 October 2023 (UTC)
Correction: "because they were sued by the Open Group for false statements and misleading advertising and unjustified use the UNIX® trademark for a product without being certified accordingly at that time." 77.3.48.205 (talk) 21:14, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 13 November 2023

In the macOS information card on the right, latest release of macOS appears to be 14.1 (23B74) (October 25, 2023; 19 days ago), however, the actual latest version of macOS is 14.1.1, released on Nov. 7, 2023. Powersagitar (talk) 19:56, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

 Done Thanks for pointing this out. DFlhb (talk) 20:16, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
Technical details, if you're interested:
That infobox field is kept in a separate template, Template:Latest stable software release/macOS, and transcluded into this page, that way it can be updated in multiple places at once. But we have separate templates for the latest macOS version, and the latest macOS Sonoma version, and only the latter was kept up to date. What I've done is change the macOS template to transclude the Template:Latest stable software release/macOS Sonoma template; that way they'll always be in sync. Next year when a new release comes out, we can just switch the transclusion again to the new release. DFlhb (talk) 20:19, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 19 November 2023

macOS (/ˌmækoʊˈɛs/;[6] previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is an operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and laptop computers, it is the second most widely used desktop OS, after Microsoft Windows and ahead of Linux (including ChromeOS).


the last part where gnu/linux is refered as just linux is wrong and should be changes so it is more true and correct 81.234.150.230 (talk) 00:44, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: The name of the family of operating systems in reliable sources is simply "Linux", so that's what we use here. Tollens (talk) 01:03, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

Need a new redirect tag for macOS

The software, macOS, is now onto version 11. So it shouldn't be called OSX anymore, X letter meaning the older version 10. So there should be a new redirect tag leading to this macOS page. Is the word "macOS" okay, or is it 1-2 digits too long? ObiKKa (talk) 06:17, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

What do you mean by a "redirect tag"? Mac OS X, OS X, and OSX all redirect to macOS, and have done so for quite a while, given that the OS has been called "macOS" ever since macOS 10.12 Sierra, several years before macOS 11 Big Sur. Guy Harris (talk) 06:56, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Unreadable header image resolution

I severely doubt Apple is going to sue Wikipedia for a screenshot of their operating system, considering screenshots/videos of macOS and iOS have appeared in thousands of places across all media types, including media made with profit in mind. I'm not sure why we're stuck with pictures that are lower resolution than computers from the 90s. This has been enacted across all pages related to macOS, destroying what used to be very pretty and readable pictures. This also clutters Google images. Machintosh-hd (talk) 01:31, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Because Wikipedia follows Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria. - Aoidh (talk) 02:50, 3 May 2024 (UTC)