4 ms·

Wait macOS 11, not 10.16. I assume this is a breaking change then?

ihuman 6y ago
I think it's because Big Sur is the first version that supports ARM.
samename 6y ago
Technically yes, but Rosetta 2 is supposed to allow most apps to continue working fine until their developers upgrade them.
paulirwin 6y ago
macOS in its history has not really followed semantic versioning. 10.6 dropped support for running on PowerPC CPUs, and 10.7 dropped support for running PowerPC apps with Rosetta. 10.15 dropped support for 32-bit apps. Those were pretty significant breaking changes.
GekkePrutser 6y ago
This is macOS. Every major and some minor versions are breaking, especially from an enterprise point of view :)
saagarjha 6y ago
Apple's version numbers are decided by marketing, not any technical API versioning reasons.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
croddin 6y ago
It could be they are moving to the major version number being the one that is now incremented in each major release, in line with iPadOS and all the apple OSs. Eg. it will be iPadOS 14, not 10.14.
kristofferR 6y ago
Pretty fitting, since Steve Jobs said OS X would last 20 years, which is exactly this year.
- peterkos 6y ago
  I was re-watching that old keynote and its great when things like this line up. I like that this time they lined up design changes + hardware -- and that this time hardware was the reason to bump the version. Like, we saw Intel transition in 10.3-ish, no more Rosetta in 10.7, entirely new design + Swift in 10.10, Catalyst and SwiftUI (brand new frameworks) in 10.15, but new design + ARM was the push for 11. I like this trend of hardware being the "major" version bump but now I'm curious what kinda space-age paradigm macOS 12 will be breaking. "real" 3D touch? Brain-computer interfaces? I can dream, okay?!
  - DragoCubed 6y ago
    >"real" 3D touch? anyone else remember tactus technology?
deathanatos 6y ago
They're giving up TenVer[1]… wow. Must have become too mainstream. [1]: http://tenver.drone-ver.org/ http://tenver.drone-ver.org/
Phrodo_00 6y ago
Good job spotting this. I guess this is why they officially moved away from the OSX name.
throw0101a 6y ago
Going from Intel to ARM is potentially a breaking change, so if you're going to rev the 'major' version number there's probably no better time.
snazz 6y ago
It still says 10.16 in Software Update if you download the beta today.
SllX 6y ago
Less breaking than going from 10.14 to 10.15, but they did drop support for my laptop (although I think the usual pattern is another year or two of security updates, so I guess I'll see when I'm replacing it).
- athriren 6y ago
  The transition from PowerPC to Intel occurred at 10.4.4. Think this is probably an homage to Jobs (who famously said that OS X would last two decades).

I think it's because Big Sur is the first version that supports ARM.

Technically yes, but Rosetta 2 is supposed to allow most apps to continue working fine until their developers upgrade them.

paulirwin 6y ago

macOS in its history has not really followed semantic versioning. 10.6 dropped support for running on PowerPC CPUs, and 10.7 dropped support for running PowerPC apps with Rosetta. 10.15 dropped support for 32-bit apps. Those were pretty significant breaking changes.

GekkePrutser 6y ago

This is macOS. Every major and some minor versions are breaking, especially from an enterprise point of view :)

saagarjha 6y ago

Apple's version numbers are decided by marketing, not any technical API versioning reasons.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

croddin 6y ago

It could be they are moving to the major version number being the one that is now incremented in each major release, in line with iPadOS and all the apple OSs. Eg. it will be iPadOS 14, not 10.14.

kristofferR 6y ago

Pretty fitting, since Steve Jobs said OS X would last 20 years, which is exactly this year.

peterkos 6y ago
I was re-watching that old keynote and its great when things like this line up. I like that this time they lined up design changes + hardware -- and that this time hardware was the reason to bump the version. Like, we saw Intel transition in 10.3-ish, no more Rosetta in 10.7, entirely new design + Swift in 10.10, Catalyst and SwiftUI (brand new frameworks) in 10.15, but new design + ARM was the push for 11. I like this trend of hardware being the "major" version bump but now I'm curious what kinda space-age paradigm macOS 12 will be breaking. "real" 3D touch? Brain-computer interfaces? I can dream, okay?!
- DragoCubed 6y ago
  >"real" 3D touch? anyone else remember tactus technology?

deathanatos 6y ago

They're giving up TenVer[1]… wow. Must have become too mainstream. [1]: http://tenver.drone-ver.org/ http://tenver.drone-ver.org/

Phrodo_00 6y ago

Good job spotting this. I guess this is why they officially moved away from the OSX name.

throw0101a 6y ago

Going from Intel to ARM is potentially a breaking change, so if you're going to rev the 'major' version number there's probably no better time.

snazz 6y ago

It still says 10.16 in Software Update if you download the beta today.

SllX 6y ago

Less breaking than going from 10.14 to 10.15, but they did drop support for my laptop (although I think the usual pattern is another year or two of security updates, so I guess I'll see when I'm replacing it).

athriren 6y ago
The transition from PowerPC to Intel occurred at 10.4.4. Think this is probably an homage to Jobs (who famously said that OS X would last two decades).