Lion might just be the final cat.
The initial Mac OS X was the first version of a stable, UNIX-based OS that succeeded Mac OS, which was used by Apple between 1984 and 2001. Over time, Mac OS X changed quite a bit - Apple moved the architecture from PowerPC to an x86 and upgraded it from 32 to 64-bit.
Mac OS X is based on a range of technologies developed by NeXT, a company that was founded by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and bought by Apple in 1996, which was also the mark of Steve Jobs' return to Apple. Since its original launch, Apple introduced seven major versions, all of which were named after big cats (Cheetah, Puma, Jaguar, panther, Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard). Mac OS X 10.7, code-named Lion, was first shown at an Apple event in October 2010 and will be first to include support for the Mac App Store. Lion is currently available as a developer preview.
The PowerPC-Intel transition, announced in June 2005, was the biggest change in the operating system's history so far - a critical move that could have alienated Apple users as Apple loved to discredit the performance of Intel processors in PCs prior to the announcement. All Mac OS X version up until Leopard (10.6) support the PowerPC architecture. Snow Leopard was the first to exclusively run on x86 processors.
Why do that? 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, etc. are essentially the same OS, just with upgrades done along the way.
Microsoft has crazy names for Windows, like Windows 2000, XP, Vista, 7, etc. However, they're just upgrades to Windows NT done along the way. Ubuntu names their version numbers off of the month they are released in.
So if you ask me, Apple has one of the more normal naming schemes than most OSs.
BUT, having said that, I wouldn't say there is an "industry standard" to name an OS. Companies can name it whatever they want.
Hated it when I had to use it for Xcode development for a semester.
Apple also had their own version of UNIX -- A/UX -- which could even run on a Mac II from 1987. This computer only had a 16MHz Motorola 68020 CPU and 1MB standard memory (but could go up to 128MBs), but needed a 68881 FPU for A/UX.
For a 10 year old OS, it has done amazingly well.
The guy who said windows is a rehash of NT, yes it was, until Vista, which they totally re-engineered. XP was the last true NT based windows.
great point, but dont put vista, 7, and xp in the same catagory
xp is great
vista was a major step back
7 was what vista was supost to be, and i hate everything about it.
still use xp, and passing on vista and 7, because i hate them with a passion
Here's my gripe for the different versions of 10.1 to 10.6. While the user's interface looks similar, each iteration has lots of application incompatibilities and they constantly change their framework. The growing pains of unix like repositories existed very much along with OS X, having need new binaries after each kernal upgrade. Basically programs that work in 10.3 might work in 10.2, but will not work in 10.1. For open source software, you can just recompile them, but lots of binaries needed an upgrade, fix, or patch. Only recently it's been less painful, like 10.5 to 10.6 which is like a service pack release. When they dumped PPC to Intel, all hell broke loose for me, the 10.3 to 10.5 era. Because of this, I don't really believe in a true 10 years of OS X like WinXP due to migration pains.
How could it be a bad thing for Windows to have some real competition in the mainstream desktop OS space?
The only reason I buy Apple products is because of the OS and hardware combo. I know it will work. I dont have to trouble shoot every other day and I can treat my computer like an appliance that does what I need it to do with minimal maintenace by me.
Everyone always pushes market share and competition....but the way I see; what for? Windows users will use windows because they think they are getting work done that cant be done on a Mac or OSX. And Apple users will buy Macs because we like the ease of use and functionality.
The majority of ordinary people use Windows because that's what they have, not because they like it particularly. I don't see how creating more choice would devalue or remove any of the options that are currently available...despite what Mr Jobs might want you to think.
Natural evolution, survival of the fittest....Surely it's hard to argue against that being a good idea? The fittest personal computer for the majority of mainstream users might be OSX on cheap x86 hardware, but that is a choice denied to the world by Apple.
Opening up the closed systems at Apple would be a very questionable commercial decision for them. It might work out very well, but it might work out very very badly..a risk...and risks that big shouldn't be taken lightly. I understand why things are the way they are, but I wouldn't want anybody to think that Apple (or any business) does what it does in the interest of consumer choice.
Its one of several reasons Apple only sell a single computer out of twenty(!) world wide, while Microsoft enjoys Windows installed in eighteen of those. If the consumer wants tons of good quality software or enjoy a ton of good games its easy to see why most choose Windows, its the standard (with a huge margain) and hence has most software for it!
Not to mention you get those benefits cheaper as well!