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For anyone else confused by the version number bump from 15 to 26, apparently Apple announced they are moving to version numbers that reflect the year _after_ t

by bradly 1y ago

For anyone else confused by the version number bump from 15 to 26, apparently Apple announced they are moving to version numbers that reflect the year _after_ the release date similar to car model years. This change feels odd to me, but I can't put my finger on why.

russelg 1y ago
I think it makes sense, the updates release in September, so that means most of the updates lifetime occurs in the following year.
Reason077 1y ago
Change sometimes feels odd at first, but given time it will feel normal. The new numbering makes sense to me, considering Apple have been on an annual release schedule for their OSes for some time. The question is, will they do this for hardware too? Will the iPhone 17 actually be the "iPhone 26"?
- alsetmusic 1y ago
  > will they do this for hardware too? Will the iPhone 17 actually be the "iPhone 26"? What? No. This is just silly.
  - cAtte_ 1y ago
    how is it any sillier?
mouth 1y ago
It reminds me of Windows 95, 98, and 2000. Going from Windows 3.11 to 95 instead of 4.0 didn’t feel right at the time, and this feels the same to me.
- bombcar 1y ago
  At least 95 felt significantly different. It also helped that it was a moment where the market exploded considerably
mingus88 1y ago
It makes sense to have everyone in 2026 running version 26. It’s also nice to announce 27 ahead of 2027 and people feel like they are on the bleeding edge getting it early It makes sense to have all the product families on the same versioning scheme because they keep blurring the lines between iOS and macOS but that’s the part I don’t like as much I don’t like my laptop/desktop OS to look and feel like a tablet interface but this is the way they have been going for a while
- makeitdouble 1y ago
  It makes marketing sense. That's IMHO a critical distinction, as it's neither common nor natural.
- lxgr 1y ago
  > It makes sense to have everyone in 2026 running version 26. For that, they'd need to release iOS 26 for all devices, including discontinued ones, and force people to upgrade (and prevent them from upgrading to iOS 27 in September 2026!) Since all that won't happen, no, it does not make sense. They have control over one thing: The year in which they make a new iOS version available. That's the year they should have named it after.
CharlesW 1y ago
Apple adopted the “Model Year” convention, used by autos and many other kinds of products. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_year
bdunks 1y ago
> I can’t put my finger on why. To me it feels inauthentic. Based on early comments, which say it makes sense, I’m an outlier. However, this shifts from something that had semantic value (not saying Apple used Semver, but there were linear major and minor versions) to marketing driven version numbers.
- jekwoooooe 1y ago
  iPadOS 18 Vision os 3 watchOS 12 or whatever This change makes a ton of sense
mook 1y ago
I'm just really confused that macOS 26 runs on Darwin 25. Why couldn't they have bumped that too to make things match‽
TylerE 1y ago
I mean, the full release probably won’t come for another few months at least. That will carry us through tm October or November.
makeitdouble 1y ago
For those on the "it makes sense" camp, remember Apple sticks a year number on their hardware to distinguish models with the same otherwise the same name, e.g. "MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2021) " [0] And indeed, that specific Macbook was released in 2021, not 2020. So they're breaking their own convention purely for the marketing benefits. [0] https://support.apple.com/en-us/111901 https://support.apple.com/en-us/111901
- alsetmusic 1y ago
  As much as I don’t like this, it’s accurate for nine months after the OS is released. I can see their point of view.
- phinnaeus 1y ago
  I don’t think that’s totally fair. The OS version number gets mentioned a lot more often than the year of a specific laptop. Furthermore it’s only made available to the general public close to the end of the year. The majority if its use is seen in a year matching the version. I’m not saying it’s a perfect system but I can see why they prefer that then having people use iOS 25 for the majority of 2026.
  - dylan604 1y ago
    Now that they are referred to by the SoC like M1 M3 etc, but they definitely were known by year models. I have a 2011 MBP, a 2017 MBP, and a 2019 MBP. I couldn’t tell you what cpu it has because Intel’s naming convention is something mere mortals do not know or care about. I know the 2011 had the last Nvidia GPU, the 2017 had the shit keyboard, and the 2019 is the last intel cpu. To say that they did not use the years sounds like some one commenting on something they are not as familiar as they’d like the rest of the internet to think they are. Also, people refer to the OS by the cat or California location. I couldn’t tell you what year snow leopard or mavericks came out though
  - makeitdouble 1y ago
    > close to the end of the year. That wasn't a consideration in the past. e.g. "MacBook Pro (13-inch, Late 2011)", introduced on October 24th 2011 https://support.apple.com/en-us/111341 https://support.apple.com/en-us/111341 > they prefer that then having people use iOS 25 for the majority of 2026. I'm not blind to the advantage of their new naming scheme, and honestly they could name it iOS 2077 it would be their prerogative. It just sounds off to me to equate "they're just cheating a bit" to "it makes sense".
sneak 1y ago
If they switched to the current year at time of release, there would be 6+ months each year where the current version represents the previous calendar year, making it seem outdated. It’s not marketing fluff, it is maximizing the amount of time out of each year that the year matches the current version number, given that macOS releases are in the second half of the year and not on 1 January. Doing it with version = release year would mean more days each year where the year != version. Why are strategic decisions like this always interpreted in the most superficial ways? Apple does scumbag shit frequently (monopolistic anticompetitive practices, walled garden price gouging, illegal wage fixing) but this isn’t that. It’s just math.
- radlad 1y ago
  > If they switched to the current year at time of release, there would be 6+ months each year where the current version represents the previous calendar year, making it seem outdated. One could argue that this is simply a marketing concern.
wkat4242 1y ago
I've never heard of car models named after the year after release. Weird. But here in Europe cars aren't changed every year anyway. I don't think they're ever even numbered. Except for some brands like Peugeot and formerly Renault but those had nothing to do with the year. But even even naming them after the year of release makes more sense than the year after. I think for cars it's sometimes done because people don't want to buy cars in the last 3 months because it affects the resale value.
- ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
  Car models get year tags mentioned all the time. Sometimes, the changes between years can be crazy. Check out Dodge Chargers, over the years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_Charger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_Charger
  - wkat4242 1y ago
    Oh yeah we don't have dodge here in Europe. Maybe it's just a US thing? Most US models are not sold in Europe because they're unpractically big or don't meet our standards. Even the US brands that operate here like Ford make models specially for the foreign market. Like the Ford Escort (now Focus), Fiesta or Mondeo.
Gigachad 1y ago
I keep pretty up to date with this stuff but I recently read a line on GitHub that said “this software requires macOS 15 or greater”. And I had no idea if that was the current version, a really old version, or the next beta. When I see a version number, what I really care about is how new/old it is, not how many releases it’s been since the first version. Which is why one of my most common Google searches is “when did <software> <version number> release”

by bradly 1y ago

russelg 1y ago

I think it makes sense, the updates release in September, so that means most of the updates lifetime occurs in the following year.

Reason077 1y ago

Change sometimes feels odd at first, but given time it will feel normal. The new numbering makes sense to me, considering Apple have been on an annual release schedule for their OSes for some time. The question is, will they do this for hardware too? Will the iPhone 17 actually be the "iPhone 26"?

alsetmusic 1y ago
> will they do this for hardware too? Will the iPhone 17 actually be the "iPhone 26"? What? No. This is just silly.
- cAtte_ 1y ago
  how is it any sillier?

mouth 1y ago

It reminds me of Windows 95, 98, and 2000. Going from Windows 3.11 to 95 instead of 4.0 didn’t feel right at the time, and this feels the same to me.

bombcar 1y ago
At least 95 felt significantly different. It also helped that it was a moment where the market exploded considerably

mingus88 1y ago

It makes sense to have everyone in 2026 running version 26. It’s also nice to announce 27 ahead of 2027 and people feel like they are on the bleeding edge getting it early It makes sense to have all the product families on the same versioning scheme because they keep blurring the lines between iOS and macOS but that’s the part I don’t like as much I don’t like my laptop/desktop OS to look and feel like a tablet interface but this is the way they have been going for a while

makeitdouble 1y ago
It makes marketing sense. That's IMHO a critical distinction, as it's neither common nor natural.
lxgr 1y ago
> It makes sense to have everyone in 2026 running version 26. For that, they'd need to release iOS 26 for all devices, including discontinued ones, and force people to upgrade (and prevent them from upgrading to iOS 27 in September 2026!) Since all that won't happen, no, it does not make sense. They have control over one thing: The year in which they make a new iOS version available. That's the year they should have named it after.

CharlesW 1y ago

Apple adopted the “Model Year” convention, used by autos and many other kinds of products. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_year

bdunks 1y ago

> I can’t put my finger on why. To me it feels inauthentic. Based on early comments, which say it makes sense, I’m an outlier. However, this shifts from something that had semantic value (not saying Apple used Semver, but there were linear major and minor versions) to marketing driven version numbers.

jekwoooooe 1y ago
iPadOS 18 Vision os 3 watchOS 12 or whatever This change makes a ton of sense

mook 1y ago

I'm just really confused that macOS 26 runs on Darwin 25. Why couldn't they have bumped that too to make things match‽

TylerE 1y ago

I mean, the full release probably won’t come for another few months at least. That will carry us through tm October or November.

makeitdouble 1y ago

For those on the "it makes sense" camp, remember Apple sticks a year number on their hardware to distinguish models with the same otherwise the same name, e.g. "MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2021) " [0] And indeed, that specific Macbook was released in 2021, not 2020. So they're breaking their own convention purely for the marketing benefits. [0] https://support.apple.com/en-us/111901 https://support.apple.com/en-us/111901

alsetmusic 1y ago
As much as I don’t like this, it’s accurate for nine months after the OS is released. I can see their point of view.
phinnaeus 1y ago
I don’t think that’s totally fair. The OS version number gets mentioned a lot more often than the year of a specific laptop. Furthermore it’s only made available to the general public close to the end of the year. The majority if its use is seen in a year matching the version. I’m not saying it’s a perfect system but I can see why they prefer that then having people use iOS 25 for the majority of 2026.
- dylan604 1y ago
  Now that they are referred to by the SoC like M1 M3 etc, but they definitely were known by year models. I have a 2011 MBP, a 2017 MBP, and a 2019 MBP. I couldn’t tell you what cpu it has because Intel’s naming convention is something mere mortals do not know or care about. I know the 2011 had the last Nvidia GPU, the 2017 had the shit keyboard, and the 2019 is the last intel cpu. To say that they did not use the years sounds like some one commenting on something they are not as familiar as they’d like the rest of the internet to think they are. Also, people refer to the OS by the cat or California location. I couldn’t tell you what year snow leopard or mavericks came out though
- makeitdouble 1y ago
  > close to the end of the year. That wasn't a consideration in the past. e.g. "MacBook Pro (13-inch, Late 2011)", introduced on October 24th 2011 https://support.apple.com/en-us/111341 https://support.apple.com/en-us/111341 > they prefer that then having people use iOS 25 for the majority of 2026. I'm not blind to the advantage of their new naming scheme, and honestly they could name it iOS 2077 it would be their prerogative. It just sounds off to me to equate "they're just cheating a bit" to "it makes sense".

sneak 1y ago

If they switched to the current year at time of release, there would be 6+ months each year where the current version represents the previous calendar year, making it seem outdated. It’s not marketing fluff, it is maximizing the amount of time out of each year that the year matches the current version number, given that macOS releases are in the second half of the year and not on 1 January. Doing it with version = release year would mean more days each year where the year != version. Why are strategic decisions like this always interpreted in the most superficial ways? Apple does scumbag shit frequently (monopolistic anticompetitive practices, walled garden price gouging, illegal wage fixing) but this isn’t that. It’s just math.

radlad 1y ago
> If they switched to the current year at time of release, there would be 6+ months each year where the current version represents the previous calendar year, making it seem outdated. One could argue that this is simply a marketing concern.

wkat4242 1y ago

I've never heard of car models named after the year after release. Weird. But here in Europe cars aren't changed every year anyway. I don't think they're ever even numbered. Except for some brands like Peugeot and formerly Renault but those had nothing to do with the year. But even even naming them after the year of release makes more sense than the year after. I think for cars it's sometimes done because people don't want to buy cars in the last 3 months because it affects the resale value.

ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
Car models get year tags mentioned all the time. Sometimes, the changes between years can be crazy. Check out Dodge Chargers, over the years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_Charger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_Charger
- wkat4242 1y ago
  Oh yeah we don't have dodge here in Europe. Maybe it's just a US thing? Most US models are not sold in Europe because they're unpractically big or don't meet our standards. Even the US brands that operate here like Ford make models specially for the foreign market. Like the Ford Escort (now Focus), Fiesta or Mondeo.

Gigachad 1y ago

I keep pretty up to date with this stuff but I recently read a line on GitHub that said “this software requires macOS 15 or greater”. And I had no idea if that was the current version, a really old version, or the next beta. When I see a version number, what I really care about is how new/old it is, not how many releases it’s been since the first version. Which is why one of my most common Google searches is “when did <software> <version number> release”