Submit Hint Search The Forums LinksStatsPollsHeadlinesRSS
14,000 hints and counting!


Why 10.5? | 35 comments | Create New Account
Click here to return to the 'Why 10.5?' hint
The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.
Why 10.5?
Authored by: MarkProgrammer on May 07, '02 09:10:44AM

Okay, this is a pet peeve of mine, but I really hope Apple doesn't name their new operating system "OS 10.5." I'm not a fan of arbitarily jumping numbers because the update is too big to warrant a sequential numbering scheme. It's a totally arbitrary distinction ("hmmm... the new upgrades and features make this look like a 10.7 to me..."), and I see it as little more than a marketing ploy. Besides, it'll make all the little kiddies sitting in their future computer history classes have to remember that there was no version 10.2, so we'll be setting up future generations to fail their tests, all so we could make a statement ;)

That having been said, I like what I see... a lot. I'm not a huge fan of the brushed metal interface (I have an iBook SE, and it really dislikes drawing iTunes windows), but I'm really looking forward to graphics acceleration support in Quartz... my poor SE's starting to show her age, and she's not very old (well, not in human years...)

Take care,
Mark



[ Reply to This | # ]
Why 10.5?
Authored by: Jay on May 07, '02 11:39:36AM

I agree, it is a blatant marketing gimmick. However, don't you think Apple is afraid of 11? I think they might slow down the numbering to avoid having to deal with OS XI or 11 or whatever they're going to call it.



[ Reply to This | # ]
Why 8.5?
Authored by: robg on May 07, '02 12:06:03PM

They've done it before. 8.1 -> 8.5, with nothing in between. The entire positioning of that page is that Jaguar is NOT 10.2. They call it the "next major upgrade" to OS X. Major upgrades have historically been more than .1 increments. And yes, it's arbitrary, but I don't think there's any argument that there's more content added from 10.1.4 -> Jaguar than there was from 10.0.4 -> 10.1.

As for what to do about eleven ... my personal guess is that OS X will start to become known as "OS ex" instead of "OS ten" and then "OS ex version 11" makes some degree of sense. They clearly have a brand here with the X, and it wouldn't make much sense to move away from it too quickly.

In short, who the hell knows ... I'm just along for the ride, and it's been interesting so far! ;-)

-rob.



[ Reply to This | # ]
Why 10.5?
Authored by: Dephex Twin on May 07, '02 12:46:59PM

This version numbering scheme is very common practice. And while every company might have their own particular rules for version numbering, the system has evolved into something that can convey the degree of upgrade pretty well (e.g. version 1.0 -> 1.0.1 = bug fixes & minor stuff, 1.0 -> 1.1 involves small enhancements, etc).

There's no reason to think of the jump from 10.1.4 -> 10.5 as arbitrary, because the entire numbering scheme itself is arbitrary and subjective. The idea behind it is conveying information. This is why there are even decimal places at all. Otherwise, why not just have version 1, 2, 3, 4 and so on... because with decimal places we convey that every upgrade is not equal.

The difference between 10.0->10.1 is much smaller than 10.1->Jaguar. Why adhere to an arbitrary numbering scheme and call it 10.2 if that doesn't reflect the amount of new features?

I can understand being annoyed if it is pure marketing (like Netscape skipping 5, for example). But this upgrade looks like it will have a lot of new stuff. The name will make users think of 8.1->8.5, and I think that's right on.

mark



[ Reply to This | # ]