More evidence of 'macOS' rebranding surfaces on Apple website

In another subtle hint that Apple plans to rebrand its desktop operating system "macOS," the company on Wednesday published a support document containing reference to the new naming convention alongside software pillars iOS, tvOS and watchOS.

As seen in the screenshot above, taken from an iTunes developer resource page covering upcoming changes to App Store revenue sharing, Apple refers to its Mac operating system as "macOS" — with a lowercase "m" — instead of OS X.

Apple has not voiced intent to switch away from OS X, but the company is dropping hints that a name change may be in the offing. In April, for example, an environmental FAQ webpage labeled Macs as "MacOS" devices, while at the same time making reference to OS X.

MacOS first popped up in a framework in March as part of Apple's OS X 10.11.4 release. The use of a capital "M" in April and a lowercase "m" today suggests internal branding might be in flux.

While Apple has yet to make an official announcement, it has been speculated that the company will do so at this year's Worldwide Developers Conference next week. Apple is expected to reveal roadmaps for of its major software platforms at the event.

34 Comments

thewhitefalcon 4444 comments · 10 Years

About 8 years ago

MacOS is fine. macOS is not.

mattinoz 2473 comments · 9 Years

Why stick with iOS then?
They are all Interface variations of the Core OS X system.
iPad has had special features since iOS 4 why not at least give it it's own padOS?

coolfactor 2332 comments · 20 Years

Looks like they've now updated that Resources page to say "OS X". Dead giveaway of what's coming Monday.

Not likely. iOS may have been derived from OS X, but it's since taken its own path.

Remember the "PowerBook" being renamed to "MacBook Pro"? That was their attempt at promoting the "Mac" more, but lately they've been really pushing "Apple" across their products.... "Apple TV", "Apple Music", "Apple Watch", "Apple Pay", "Apple this", "Apple that". OS X just seems to no longer fit with their naming conventions. It doesn't promote Apple or Mac. So they are likely going to call it "macOS" with some fancy new branding and marketing speak to support it. I'm okay with that. Times change. We adapt. As long as they don't name it "Apple OS"... :#

What really matters to me is that they become more responsive to a perfect user interface and experience, not just focusing on big, bold new features! We're now on 5 updates to OS X 10.11 and there's still some UI glitches that are being ignored. According to one developer, the bug report is marked as "cosmetic", so has zero priority in Apple's developer circles. What a load of crap. It affects my use of this one app on a *daily* basis, multiple times a day! Not just cosmetic to me!

lowededwookie 1174 comments · 16 Years

thewhitefalcon said:

MacOS is fine. macOS is not.

Why? I think it's a great naming convention: watchOS tvOS The device name is lowercase but the OS is uppercase because it's the important part of the name. By having the device as lowercase such as "mac" it acts as a distinguisher for which "OS" you are talking about. The only thing that could replace iOS would be mobileOS or portableOS or deviceOS but neither of these sound good so I don't know what they'd do if they were thinking about replacing the name for iOS.