Related news claimsApple may be preparing to announce during WWDC 2025 that it will adjust the naming method of its operating system versions, and will use the year as the naming basis. For example, the operating system originally expected to be called iOS 19 will be changed to iOS 26, and the operating system originally expected to be called macOS 16 will be changed to macOS 26.
Previously, Apple's operating system names were primarily based on iterative version updates. Therefore, it was originally expected that iOS 2025, iPadOS 19, tvOS 19, watchOS 19, macOS 12, and visionOS 16 would be announced at WWDC 3. However, if Apple were to switch to year-based naming, the next operating systems would be iOS 26, iPadOS 26, tvOS 26, watchOS 26, macOS 26, and visionOS 26, allowing users to easily distinguish between newer and older operating system versions by year.
This is not the first time Apple has adjusted the name of its operating system. For example, the predecessor of the iOS operating system was actually iPhone OS. It was not until the WWDC held in June 2010 that it was announced that it would be renamed iOS. It was updated starting from version 6, and later derived operating system updates such as iPadOS, watchOS and tvOS.
Mac OS X 2001 Cheetah, which was used in 10.0, was updated continuously until Mac OS X 2011 Lion in 10.7. The "Mac" name was removed from OS X 2012 Mountain Lion in 10.8, and was named after California attractions starting with OS X 2013 Mavericks in 10.9. The OS X name was officially dropped with macOS 2016 Sierra in 10.12.
Since the operating systems used by different devices are named with different numbers, many people may not be able to confirm the newness of the version. Therefore, Apple decided to further simplify the naming method of the operating system version. By unifying the naming method with year, it is easier to confirm the newness of the version.
In the past, Microsoft used numbers to distinguish the iterative updates of its Windows operating system, but later switched to years as the naming principle. However, after the launch of Windows XP and Windows Vista, it began to use numerical version iterative updates starting from Windows 7, and has been named Windows 11 ever since.
