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How Apple names things

nicolas.kruchten.com

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Re: How Apple names things

#61

Post by codetrotter »

ant6n wrote: post #42
codetrotter wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But did Mojave come before or after Sierra? Idk, but it doesn’t matter. If you need to know which version came before or after just compare the version numbers instead. The human names are not meant for that.

Yes but How do you know which cat or geological feature corresponds to which version number?

> How do you know which cat or geological feature corresponds to which version number?

You don't need to know that. It does not matter.

These human names are for marketing. They have no significance other than that.

Re: How Apple names things

#62

Post by mindracer »

Edd314159 wrote: post #48
ant6n wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but How do you know which cat or geological feature corresponds to which version number?

How do you know which Windows came first: XP, ME, Vista, 98, 10? I mean even when Apple uses sequential, numerical names you can't always answer the question of which came first: the iPhone 8 and iPhone X (10) were announced ~simultaneously! And there wasn't even a 9! My point is it really doesn't matter which big cat or California landmark came first. It's trivial to find out if you want to, but it's not terribly im…

To be fair Microsoft have moved some number for the last 4 releases of Windows

Re: How Apple names things

#63

Post by gumboza »

rob74 wrote: post #46
tacker2000 wrote: post #19

This reads like some typical fanboi stuff. There are a lot of things to also hate about apples naming schemes, just look at the pro, max, se nonsense they cooked up. Also the naming scheme of Mac OS versions, i can never figure out which one came before or after the other, there is no rhyme or reason. Why dont they use alphabetical sorted names? Or years/numbers like Windows…?

Ok, Microsoft is not a shining example for naming either, I mean, they had a product called "Windows 8" which actually had version number 6.2 - do I need to say more? At least they fixed this with the first release of Windows 10 - and then got rid of the version numbers in the very next release (at least according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Microsoft_Windows_vers... ).

That's nothing. Try working out what version of the .Net framework you need or are running!

Re: How Apple names things

#64

Post by apetrovic »

Edd314159 wrote: post #55
tacker2000 wrote: post #19

This reads like some typical fanboi stuff. There are a lot of things to also hate about apples naming schemes, just look at the pro, max, se nonsense they cooked up. Also the naming scheme of Mac OS versions, i can never figure out which one came before or after the other, there is no rhyme or reason. Why dont they use alphabetical sorted names? Or years/numbers like Windows…?

Is it so hard to just let someone enjoy something? Apple has a lot of problems right now, but it's still OK to say something positive about them once in a while. We don't need to fight about it and discredit it. Apple names are fun! It's a nice thing!

At this point, whenever anything Apple-related comes to HN front page, I can bring up a bingo card with pre-canned responses and cover at least 80% of conversation.

Same with go fanboyism/hate.

Re: How Apple names things

#65

Post by knolan »

One of the nice things I liked about OS X when I moved from Windows/Ubuntu around 2010 was the clear but playful naming of apps and utilities. They seemed to have presence. The large and beautiful high resolution icons helped too.

In Windows Disk Management was hidden away and searching for it would return a nebulous list with long winded descriptions but never name Disk Management forcing me to carefully read each result. For search to actually return Disk Management (or any utility for that matter) you have to type the entire name.

In OS X (and now in MacOS but with far fewer utilities these days) apps like Disk Utility have a personality and are easily searched for. Typing ‘du’ in Spotlight is all you need. Windows 10 fixes a lot of this with Super X (or right clicking on Start) but it still lacks that personality.

MacOS is losing a lot of its personality these days unfortunately. In a hurry I often confuse the app icons for Finder, Safari and Mail because they’re all similar white and blue squares.

I also love how the name Finder throws shade at Explorer.

Re: How Apple names things

#66

Post by codetrotter »

gregoriol wrote: post #56
codetrotter wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But did Mojave come before or after Sierra? Idk, but it doesn’t matter. If you need to know which version came before or after just compare the version numbers instead. The human names are not meant for that.

That is not true: when some good logic is applied to naming, human names are too in order, with the alphabetic order, so that at any time you could know what you are talking about (at least easily if it is "before" or "after" each one)

> when some good logic is applied to naming, human names are too in order, with the alphabetic order, so that at any time you could know what you are talking about

That's just like, your opinion.

Even operating systems that try to follow that idea are not fully able to do it.

For example, Ubuntu has been using alphabetically ordered names ever since version 5.10, which was released in October 2005.

But sooner or later they have to wrap. And they already did that once.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DevelopmentCodeNames

So now, for someone on the outside who tries to apply this idea that names should encode release order, we still can't tell, which of the following was released first:

- Ubuntu Maverick Meerkat

or

- Ubuntu Lunar Lobster

Well, if all we know about Ubuntu is that the names are alphabetically sorted then we might think that Lunar Lobster came before Maverick Meerkat. But Ubuntu Lunar Lobster is the upcoming version 23.04. Ubuntu Maverick Meerkat was version 10.10, released all the way back in October 2010.

And so my point is, if you want to compare version release dates. Just look at the version numbers.

It is not sensible to claim that somehow the names have to be in alphabetical order.

Do you use alphabetical order for the hostnames of your computers?

Do you name your children in alphabetical order?

Maybe you do. But not everyone will, and that's perfectly fine.

Re: How Apple names things

#67

Post by vvillena »

jimmySixDOF wrote: post #23

Its been interesting to watch the naming evolution (or at least the speculated evolution) of Apple's upcoming vr/ar headset. For example, they were going to use rOS and now it's rumored to be xrOS [1] for technical/branding/market reasons that are evolving behind a curtain. Also, its a little meta, but I am a big fan of visualizations and this link is itself an example of one that would work well in XR ! [1] https://…

Not a good idea to name a new OS "rOS" when ROS, the Robot Operating System, is already a thing.

Re: How Apple names things

#68

Post by dingaling »

codetrotter wrote: post #61
ant6n wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but How do you know which cat or geological feature corresponds to which version number?

> How do you know which cat or geological feature corresponds to which version number? You don't need to know that. It does not matter. These human names are for marketing. They have no significance other than that.

> You don't need to know that. It does not matter.

When a vendor says "we are dropping support for MacOS High Sierra and earlier" then it does matter.

Does that include Big Sur? Catalina? Mavericks ? One has to go and look up the corresponding version numbers to determine that.

Re: How Apple names things

#69

Post by olliej »

rob74 wrote: post #46
tacker2000 wrote: post #19

This reads like some typical fanboi stuff. There are a lot of things to also hate about apples naming schemes, just look at the pro, max, se nonsense they cooked up. Also the naming scheme of Mac OS versions, i can never figure out which one came before or after the other, there is no rhyme or reason. Why dont they use alphabetical sorted names? Or years/numbers like Windows…?

Ok, Microsoft is not a shining example for naming either, I mean, they had a product called "Windows 8" which actually had version number 6.2 - do I need to say more? At least they fixed this with the first release of Windows 10 - and then got rid of the version numbers in the very next release (at least according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Microsoft_Windows_vers... ).

Hey, don't dis MS for having different marketing version vs product versions. OS manufacturers are hostage to the same bad 3rd party coding practices that browsers browsers are with the UA string. You get stuck in a position where changing version number can become actually scary (I recall Safari 2.0.4 having a bunch of issues because the addition of the character "4" broke a wide array of sites, because if your user agent string contains "4" you are netscape 4, and supported document.layers and JavaScript Style Sheets)

Re: How Apple names things

#70

Post by nier »

sbuk wrote: post #22
tacker2000 wrote: post #19

This reads like some typical fanboi stuff. There are a lot of things to also hate about apples naming schemes, just look at the pro, max, se nonsense they cooked up. Also the naming scheme of Mac OS versions, i can never figure out which one came before or after the other, there is no rhyme or reason. Why dont they use alphabetical sorted names? Or years/numbers like Windows…?

> * Also the naming scheme of Mac OS versions, i can never figure out which one came before or after the other, there is no rhyme or reason. Why dont they use alphabetical sorted names? Or years/numbers like Windows…?* They do. Ventura is macOS 13. In fact, when they dropped OS X, they did a bit in the key note explaining that instead of it being OS X 10.16 Catalina, it would now now be macOS 11 Catalina. See  > Abo…

macOS 11 was named Big Sur while Catalina was version 10.15.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Apple_operating_system...

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