Talk:MacOS

Inaccuracy

The article starts "Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces *developed*, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc." (emphasis mine). Apple actually only developed a very small portion of the operating system (an uninformed rough guess, I'd say less than 0.001% of the source code). The core kernel (which Apple dubs Darwin is a mash of various older operating systems, including Mach3, XNU and BSD - all open source operating systems). As with most operating systems (with perhaps the notable exception of Windows), the vast majority of the code volume is in components external to the OS kernel - such as tools, admin and user utilities and applications, drivers, windowing systems, network stacks etc etc). Like most contemporary *nix operating system distributions, Mac OS X comes with a fairly large set of tools - most of which are redistributions of open source software with little or no modification. The biggest exception for Mac OS X is the windowing system, which Apple chose to develop themselves (borrowing from OpenStep after the acquisition of NeXT Computer.). So, we can say that in all likelihood, the amount of code in Mac OS X as distributed by Apple that was developed by the global Linux, *nix and FreeBSD communities could be as must as 99.999%. Again, this is just a guess, but even if I'm out by two or even three orders of magnitude, there is no way one can support claiming that Apple "developed" Mac OS X in its entirety when it is basically a mash of open source code with a thin veneer of Apple code on top. I suppose the sense of the word "developed" could be taken to mean "slightly enhanced", but given the common usage of "developed" in the software world, it is, at best, misleading as currently stated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Davidljung (talk • contribs) 20:12, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

"The windowing system" - and the non-GUI libraries that accompany it, such as Core Foundation and Foundation, and other libraries such as various audio libraries, Core Data, etc. - are more than .001%, .01%, or even 10% of the operating system. The core OS, Darwin (which is more than the kernel; XNU is just /mach_kernel, there are both kernel extensions, many Apple-developed, and userland libraries in Darwin as well - check out http://opensource.apple.com/), is far from completely developed by Apple, but XNU is much modified from Mach 3 and the various BSDs that have contributed code to it (and some parts of it are Apple-developed or NeXT-developed, such as HFS+ and IOKit), and userland includes the Open Directory code (which may rest atop open-source NIS and LDAP code, but isn't itself based on any other open source code), and the Grand Central Dispatch code, which was developed by Apple.

So, no, the article isn't inaccurate. Guy Harris (talk) 22:02, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Once upon a time, I had to look over a quite a bit of Mac OS X sources as part of getting it to compile with versions of GCC. While I don't have exact numbers (and it would be an NDA violation anyway), there is a *huge* amount of Apple-originated code in the system - I wouldn't be surprised if it's well over half of all the source lines. Sure, cat hasn't been changed much, but that's just a few hundred lines, while subsystems like Quartz and the CoreFoos are often in the 50-100Kloc range... each. Another way to look at it is that Apple has had hundreds of system software engineers working on OS X for 15 years straight; even assuming a low-ish productivity of a half-page per day, and 200 engineers coding, that still comes up to 15Mloc total - and I can assure everyone that the total system is not 15M / 0.001% = 1.5 trillion lines of code, lol. Stan (talk) 23:17, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Even if Apple hasn't written every line, they surely have developed OSX as a complete package. Apple chose to include or not to include certain open source components, contribute to and even if they don't rewrite any of them this is still a part of the development of OSX. Just like Google certainly have developed the Nexus 7 tablet, even if they didn't design nor manufacture the Tegra 3 chipset or any other electronic components in it. -- Henriok (talk) 14:46, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

White Lion

A few Internet sites say that the next version after Lion will be called White Lion. Any verified info on this?? Georgia guy (talk) 17:21, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it's been verified by Apple that it won't be. :-) Guy Harris (talk) 18:25, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Mac App Store Information

The Mac App Store was introduced as a free update to existing Snow Leopard users in 10.6.6. The current article says that the support was in Lion.

References

Mydude123 (talk) 02:04, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

OS X name change

According to all recent promotional material from Apple, multiple Macworld stories (which is the #1 Apple Magazine and has a direct pipeline to Apple), and verification from apple, Mac OS X is from here on forward to be named simply "OS X". I request that the article be renamed OS X, and whenever Max OS X is searched, it redirect to OS X. Flynn58 (talk) 07:31, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

OS X already goes to Mac OS X; I'm not sure what you mean by "whenever Mac OS X is searched".

This should NOT be done simply by renaming the article; the article should, at minimum, indicate that it used to be called "Mac OS X" (see, for example, the Apple Inc. page, which says

Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) formerly Apple Computer, Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and sells consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers.)

In addition, this should NOT involve an automatic search-and-replace of all occurrences of "Mac OS X" to "OS X" - the names for the pre-Mountain Lion versions should remain "Mac OS X", as that's what they were called, titles of articles etc. in references should NOT be changed as the magazines etc. used the correct name at the time, and NO links should be changed unless the page in question is moved (i.e., the change should break NO links in this page!). Guy Harris (talk) 18:24, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Flynn58 is correct. The name of the operating system has changed, so the name of the article should change to "OS X" and a user search for "Mac OS X" should redirect to the new page ("OS X"). See iOS, which used to be named "iPhone OS". Similarly, a search for "iPhone OS" will redirect to "iOS".

Compsciasaur (talk) 19:37, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure what "a user search for "Mac OS X" should redirect to the new page ("OS X")" means. If you're citing "a search for "iPhone OS" will redirect to "iOS"" as an example, that's called a redirect, and there's already a redirect from "OS X" to "Mac OS X", as indicated. A page rename would involve a move over a redirect, with "OS X" becoming the article and "Mac OS X" becoming a redirect to "OS X", which is certainly doable.

As for changing anything else in the page, a large number of the "Mac OS X"s in this page should be left as is, so, as I said, nobody should do a global search-and-replace in the page; I had to undo one of those that broke a bunch of links and referred to older versions as "OS X {blah blah blah}" rather than as "Mac OS X {blah blah blah}", the fact that their name was "Mac OS X {blah blah blah}" nonwithstanding. I really don't want to have to do that again.... Guy Harris (talk) 20:00, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Ok, forget about the redirect and the search-and-replace. The main point is that the article "Mac OS X" should be renamed/moved/whatever you want to call it. Ron Artest's page is now named Metta World Peace, iPhone OS's page is now named iOS, so there is a precedent where if something changes its name, the corresponding Wikipedia article is updated.Compsciasaur (talk) 21:41, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

That's what it's called, so let's move it. Zach Vega (talk) 15:31, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

So why haven't we done it yet? Flynn58 (talk) 06:01, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

For some reason it won't let us, so an admin has to do it. Zach Vega (talk) 02:31, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

The reason is that there's already an OS X page that redirects to Mac OS X, so you can't just rename this page - there's a page in the way. You need to request that an admin do a "move over a redirect", or whatever it's called, as per Wikipedia:Move requests#Requesting technical moves. The end result of that would be a page named "OS X" with a page named "Mac OS X" that redirects to "OS X"; I don't know whether the admin would clean up any pages that redirect to Mac OS X to redirect to OS X instead, to avoid double-redirects, or whether the person requesting the move should do so afterwards.

Whether such a move would count as "controversial" as per that section I leave up to whoever requests the move. There's already been a discussion on this page, so, at least as I read Wikipedia:Move requests#Requesting controversial and potentially controversial moves, all the necessary discussion seems to have been done. Given that Apple appear to have more vigorously dropped the "Mac" in Mountain Lion than in Lion, I wouldn't object to the move at this point, as long as the updates to the page after the move are done VERY carefully, so as not to break links or change titles of references (nobody went back in time and changed Ars Technica articles talking about "Mac OS X Snow Leopard" to now say "OS X Snow Leopard", for example); they perhaps shouldn't even refer to pre-Mountain Lion releases as "OS X" without decoration, either. Guy Harris (talk) 02:53, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Done, thanks to Zach Vega. Guy Harris (talk) 07:15, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

I realise this is now done, however I think that it isn't as simple as suggested. If you take the view that there are a series of discrete products called Mac OS X 10 - Mac OS X 10.7 and then OS X 10.8 and 10.9, then it seems anachronistic to put them all under the heading of OS X. To be a little more explicit, Mac OS X 10.6 is still Mac OS X 10.6. It isn't OS X 10.6. I guess the question is" what is the appropriate term for this family of OSes?". Although, clearly Mac OS X is different to Mac OS, the same distinction cannot be drawn for Mac OS X's and OS X's. I guess I am a little uncomfortable with the change, Mac OS X seems a better choice for the family, as most members have this name. Windows has it easy, since they have all been called Windows x. 103.1.7.171 (talk) 00:04, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Currently, there are seven members of the family for which "Mac OS X" was used all the time (10.0 through 10.6), one member during the transitional period where Apple used both (10.7), and two members where "OS X" is used all the time (10.8 and 10.9). In approximately five more years, at the current rate of releases, unless Apple stops putting out desktop OSes or drops the "OS X" part of the name entirely, there will be as many "OS X"-only releases as "Mac OS X"-only releases; are you suggesting that we should have waited until then to rename the article?

Anachronism cuts both ways - it's just as anachronistic to put the OSes all under the name "Mac OS X" as to put them under the name "OS X". And if one considers that it's more important to care about what Apple are doing now than to care about what they did in the past, OS X is a better choice for the family.

So your objections are noted, but they don't motivate me at all to consider the rename a mistake, and I think it would be a mistake to undo it. Guy Harris (talk) 00:16, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

I don't see that the iOS goes under the iPhone OS – Georgij Michaliutin (talk) 02:05, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Added information to "Version 10.8: Mountain Lion"

In the "Version 10.8: Mountain Lion" there should be a little bit about how it has more chinese support, the information to be put can be found at the main article here.

 iWiki Script  Talk  11:00, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

File:Mac About us.png Nominated for speedy Deletion

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File:10.7-.8 without mac.png Nominated for speedy Deletion

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File:Disc mac os x.jpg Nominated for speedy Deletion

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File:Osxboxes.png Nominated for speedy Deletion

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OS X version description

The image description for the boxes/logos of each OS X version is inaccurate, says that Lion is version 6 (when it is 7), and that Snow Leopard is also version 6 (which it is). Please fix.

Drewno (talk to me) 15:44, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

(Presumably this was asked because the page is semi-protected and therefore you didn't have permission to edit it.) Done. (Note that those aren't version numbers, they're picture numbers; the first picture is for both Cheetah and Puma (10.0 and 10.1).) Guy Harris (talk) 17:55, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

X11 has been discontinued in OS X Mountain Lion

In the software section, there should be a note, stating that you have to manually install XQuartz, because X11 is not bundled with OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Teakuno (talk • contribs) 17:02, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Done. Guy Harris (talk) 17:40, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

OS X Logo Display

There have been a couple back and forths with the banner logo for the article. Should it be a literal, stylized "X" (which had been used in versions of OS X until recently) or the latest released version's logo (which is a cat)? From my perspective, it seems to be pushing it to insist on the use of an older "X" logo simply because Apple has decided to no longer have one but we editors wanna have an X on the top of the article. My understanding is that we attempt to reflect reality instead of getting creative. Or should we simply have no logo? Lexlex (talk) 13:33, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

It should not be the latest released version's logo, because that's not a logo for "OS X" as a whole, it's just a logo for the release in question. It should especially not be the logo for a release different from the one shown in the screenshot. If there's no Apple logo that's used for OS X as a whole - i.e., one that is not a picture of a particular big cat, corresponding to a particular release - we should simply forego having a logo at all, as that means there is no logo for OS X. Guy Harris (talk) 17:37, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree with you that a picture of a cat is not indicative of the product as a whole, but when a company does this - just drops the logo with no replacement, what are we supposed to do? I kind of think losing the logo would be the best thing also or perhaps just using the latest screen shot, or the finder icon? Any ideas? Using an old logo doesn't seem right to me. And yes, we are dissecting flies here - but this is fun, right? ;) Lexlex (talk) 18:02, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

If the company drops the logo with no replacement, drop the logo, as I've done. Guy Harris (talk) 18:30, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree, good call. Lexlex (talk) 18:54, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

__MACOSX -directory inside ZIP-files?

Sometimes ZIP-files I download from Internet has some weird directory called “__MACOSX”. It seems I can find information about it from Google. But if I write that string __MACOSX to search engine of Wikipedia, I end up reading this article. Maybe our wiki-engine has some restriction that prevents articles whose names start with “__”.

juhtolv (talk) 12:32, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Marklar history details on Quora

I doubt any of this is solid enough to use, but perhaps it can be cross referenced with something else: How does Apple keep secrets so well? --Steven Fisher (talk) 16:59, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 12 June 2012

Under 5.10, please update as follows: OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion February 16, 2012[76] July 2012[76] DP3 (April 18, 2012) To: OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion February 16, 2012[76] July 2012[76] DP4 (June 11, 2012)

MJWaters1985 (talk) 21:31, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Mdann52 (talk) 10:03, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Quick question

Why is the screen shot of "lion" and not "mountain lion". Obtund 13:04, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Because no one has gotten around to it, probably. Do you have one? If so, please upload and replace or put link here if you'd rather. Otherwise it should happen soon enough.Lexlex (talk) 13:47, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

I've changed the screenshot to the one from the infobox on the ML page. Hope that sorts it out. --drewmunn (talk) 14:36, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Yeah someone made one when ML was realesed but then this 13 year old kid kept changing it back...Thanks.Obtund 19:38, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

New column in Versions table

I was thinking a new column in the Versions table for the version of the kernel would be nice to have along with all the other stuff in that table. This is the information that is obtained from the command "uname -a" (less the hostname so as not to show any personal info or just replace it with XXXXXX). Another method if you don't have that version of OS X running could also be obtained with the command "strings /mach_kernel | grep Darwin" where the location of the kernel file could be anywhere (this method does not result in the system name being shown) - most likely another bootable volume root folder.

For Lion on a MacBookPro4,1 system this info is:

$ uname -a

Darwin XXXXXX 11.4.0 Darwin Kernel Version 11.4.0: Mon Apr 9 19:32:15 PDT 2012; root:xnu-1699.26.8~1/RELEASE_X86_64 x86_64

For Snow Leopard on a MacPro1,1 system this info is:

$ uname -a

Darwin XXXXXX 10.8.0 Darwin Kernel Version 10.8.0: Tue Jun 7 16:33:36 PDT 2011; root:xnu-1504.15.3~1/RELEASE_I386 i386

So for example here is what the table might look like:

Mac OS X Version Information

Version	Codename	Date Announced	Release Date	Most Recent Version	Kernel Version
Rhapsody Developer Release	Grail1Z4 / Titan1U		August 31, 1997	DR2 (May 14, 1998)	Unknown
Mac OS X Server 1.0	Hera		March 16, 1999	1.2v3 (October 27, 2000)	Unknown
Mac OS X Developer Preview			March 16, 1999	DP4 (April 5, 2000)	Unknown
Public Beta	Kodiak		September 13, 2000		Unknown
Mac OS X 10.0	Cheetah		March 24, 2001	10.0.4 (June 22, 2001)	Unknown
Mac OS X 10.1	Puma	July 18, 2001	September 25, 2001	10.1.5 (June 6, 2002)	Unknown
Mac OS X 10.2	Jaguar	May 6, 2002	August 24, 2002	10.2.8 (October 3, 2003)	Unknown
Mac OS X 10.3	Panther	June 23, 2003	October 24, 2003	10.3.9 (April 15, 2005)	Unknown
Mac OS X 10.4	Tiger	May 4, 2004	April 29, 2005	10.4.11 (November 14, 2007)	Unknown
Mac OS X 10.5	Leopard	June 26, 2006	October 26, 2007	10.5.8 (August 5, 2009)	Darwin Kernel Version 9.8.0 - Tue Aug 5, 2008, ?:?:?
Mac OS X 10.6	Snow Leopard	June 9, 2008	August 28, 2009	10.6.8 v1.1 (July 25, 2011)	Darwin Kernel Version 10.8.0 - Tue Jun 7, 2011, 16:33:36
Mac OS X 10.7	Lion	October 20, 2010	July 20, 2011	10.7.4 (May 9, 2012)	Darwin Kernel Version 11.4.0 - Mon Apr 9, 2012, 19:32:15
OS X 10.8	Mountain Lion	February 16, 2012	July 25, 2012	10.8 (July 25, 2012)	Unknown

References

Think it would be a nice extra bit of info to show along with all the other stuff in that table and since the table has only 5 columns now, think that adding one more would not be an issue.

For the moment any system that does not have data available would be marked as "Unknown" (or should it be left blank???) and then be filled in when that information becomes known.

As far as sourcing where this information comes from, it would be in the same category as the current last column (Most Recent Version) - none of this info has any footnote sources, so don't see where this new column should be treated any different. Anyone who has that particular system could easily verify it's accuracy.

I've always wished that this extra bit of information was available somewhere, but so far have never seen it anyplace other than on OS X systems themselves and think that it would be a nice addition to the information already shown in this table.

Is there any point in putting the same kernel version info in the description details of each OS X version that follows the table?

DeepYogurt (talk) 21:14, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Is there any point in having something such as "Darwin Kernel Version 10.8.0: Tue Jun 7 16:33:36 PDT 2011; root:xnu-1504.15.3~1/RELEASE_I386" in the table? I'm unconvinced - who cares at what point the build started or finished or whatever on Apple's build servers? uname -a is, at least on Snow Leopard, the same as uname -mnsrv. -m is bogus, as it's different on machines that happen to run 32-bit kernels and machines that happen to run 64-bit kernels. -n is, as you noted, completely bogus here. -s is just going to be "Darwin", and -v is that long build string, so that leaves just -r. That might be interesting, although it can be computed from the OS X version. Guy Harris (talk) 08:24, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Edit request - Lion as Unix 03

If I'm reading it correctly it looks like Lion did actually receive a Unix 03 certification. However Apple got it after Lion was launched, and they also opted for Lion's Unix 03 status to be confidential on the Open Brand site. I came to this conclusion after I found Lion's conformance statements in the OS X certification pages, it could be seen at the bottom in the document history.

• Internationalised System Calls and Libraries Extended V3: [1]
• Commands and Utilities V4:[2]
• C Language V2: [3] (validated on October 2011, three months after Lion was launched)
• Internationalised Terminal Interfaces: [4]

The actual certificate can't be seen on the Open Brand site since it can be confidential -- "The details of the Certified Product will then be put on the Certification Register, which is a public document, unless you have requested that it remains confidential." [5] I guess Apple chose to keep Lion's Unix 03 status hidden since they were very late, unlike in Leopard and Snow Leopard (and later Mountain Lion) where they received their Unix 03 certifications on time.

In any case Apple announced it themselves that Lion is Unix 03 on their security whitepaper, and it looks legit enough as they are using Open Group branding and copyrights: [6]. It's not just OS X 10.5, 10.6, and 10.8 which were Unix 03 certified but 10.7 as well. --112.203.35.255 (talk) 03:32, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

The specific parts that would be edited would be on the infobox (OS family; add a reference for Lion) and in the first paragraph of the article adding Lion to the OS X versions that are Unix 03. Additionally an edit editing the reference for "Apple page on Unix" [7] should be done too as the link just redirects to OS X Server, I suggest it linking to the security whitepaper (OS X for Unix users) in my post above. --112.203.35.255 (talk) 03:50, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Partly done: I added a reference for the whitepaper in your first to the part of the infobox with the family, and added Lion to the first part of the paragraph. Is that OK? Discuss-Dubious (t/c) 00:46, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

That works out great, thank you for the edit. --112.203.35.255 (talk) 01:51, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Update Versions for 10.7.5

Could someone update 10.7.4 to 10.7.5 that just came out? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.88.57.234 (talk) 20:03, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Versions board update ... end of support

In the "Versions" paragraph, It may be useful to add an "End of Support" column in the version sum-up board. And precise "2012" as the end of support date for Leopard ...

Thanks

WikiAlanSwiki (talk) 14:27, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

 On hold/ Not done. No sourcing on the second statement, I'll leave it up to those who regularly edit this page to determine on the column. gwickwire | Leave a message 19:32, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Column

Leaving this open per ER above, don't exactly know if I'm for or against it at this moment. gwickwire | Leave a message 19:32, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Directory structure

What kind of Directory structure does OS X use ? 80.200.227.141 (talk) 09:40, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

As with other Unix systems, OS X uses the Unix directory structure. drewmunn (talk) 09:52, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

...with some differences. For example, removable devices are, by default, mounted on directories under /Volumes rather than on /media, /opt isn't the standard place for add-on software, and OS X has no /proc (neither do some other Unixes); also, some system configuration files are stored in directories under /System/Library, as are the loadable kernel modules that are part of the system. By and large, however, the same directory layout is used. Guy Harris (talk) 19:16, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Lynx

Because of recent edits, I've decided to open this discussion here. Please see this discussion that occurred on the iPad talk page a while back. It regards pre-release rumors surrounding the iPad mini, and whether we should document them. No solid conclusion was come to, and it developed into a bit of an argument later on (on a user's talk page), but still nothing solid was drawn up. My opinion on the matter of including rumors, however, is that they have no place on Wikipedia. I cited a mix different guidelines to back up this belief:

[I believe rumors fall] under a mix of No Original Research ("Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources."), and Verifiability (“Sources that are not usually reliable... [include those that] rely heavily on rumor."). Lastly, the Wikipedia is not a crystal ball guidelines state that "Wikipedia is not a collection of product announcements and rumors."

I'd like to hear other people's opinions on this, as it'd clear up a lot of problems in the future, as well as the issue in hand. Thanks in advance. drewmunn (talk) 18:10, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

I agree - I removed the section. Apple haven't officially announced anything, and this speculative article from PC Magazine pointed to this article as a source; the latter article says "This report comes from a reliable source who claims to have talked to someone from inside the walls of Apple.", which sounds like "a friend of a friend told me", and what they told them was "This source claimed that he saw some internal papers that seem to be finalizing the name of the operating system, although the same source couldn’t say when Apple would be finalizing its name and announcing it to the public.", which doesn't seem very authoritative. This CNET article also refers back to the AppleScoop article, as does this mashable.com article (which also seems to assume that the city of Cupertino would explode if there were two digits after "10.", or something such as that - "With only one version of Mac OS X left to go", indeed...). So the first few articles that popped up from a Google search for "os x lynx" all seem to go back to the AppleScoop article.

So this sounds as if it all comes from a "trust me" claim from one site. Not exactly encyclopedic, as far as I'm concerned.... Guy Harris (talk) 18:25, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Exactly; the current state of the rumors all share one source, which in itself purports to have a source. However, that source is shrouded in more mystery than is good for a rumor. On top of that, the only material evidence I could find anywhere was a screenshot of webpage analytics, showing OS X version 10.9 had visited the site. This is not evidence that a release will happen any time soon, just that Apple still exist, and the employees are awake. On the topic of rumors in general, what's your opinion? This will become more relevant for the Lynx case as time goes on and more 'friends of friends' appear, but overall, what do you think? drewmunn (talk) 18:31, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Over all, my inclination would be to leave rumors out, except perhaps if there are a large number of rumors from independent sources all pointing in the same direction, as long as they're clearly presented as rumors, and even there I'm not inclined to think the rumors are that newsworthy (the only point of including rumors being to give the news that there are a lot of rumors; the content of the rumors isn't encyclopedic, but maybe a high level of rumors at some point is). Guy Harris (talk) 19:18, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 15 March 2013

Please update the Most Recent Version within the Versions table of OS X 10.8 from 10.8.2 to 10.8.3 and the corresponding September release date to March 14, 2013.

Supporting information can be found here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5612 Belanger (talk) 00:24, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Done. Guy Harris (talk) 00:42, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

10.9 Cabernet

Go to http://www.technobuffalo.com/2013/04/29/mac-os-x-10-9-cabernet-apple/ and it says that 10.9 officially has a name. Any thoughts about creating an article?? Georgia guy (talk) 14:07, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

That's an internal codename that may not be used for the final product. See, for instance, Windows Longhorn. We don't actually have anything much even to confirm that it is used in Apple, other than media outlets and their 'reliable sources'. In any way, it's unlikely to be its final name (it's not a cat, after all), and we have nothing to use it in context with. drewmunn talk 14:15, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

That is what Windows Vista was called back in 2004. Now everyone knows it as Windows Vista. Georgia guy (talk) 14:19, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

That's why I cited it. In very rare circumstances do internal codenames become popular enough to pass WP:COMMONNAME. drewmunn talk 14:36, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 20 May 2013

In your history of OS X it's missing mkLinux's contribution that helped Mac OS X advance. Linux has helped a lot with OS X !

History Main article: History of OS X

MkLinux was the first attempt by Apple to support a free and open source software project. The work done with the Mach 3.0 kernel in MkLinux was extremely helpful in bringing up NeXTSTEP on the Mac platform, which would later become OS X.

reliable sources http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MkLinux

Mallenwest (talk) 22:11, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

mkLinux helped a lot with OS X. The part that helped was the "mk" part, not the "Linux" part. Guy Harris (talk) 22:24, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. Please also cite a reliable source; another Wikipedia article won't suffice. Rivertorch (talk) 05:27, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps he meant that the mkLinux page (which he should have mentioned with a wikilink, not a raw URL) has presumably reliable sources, such as [8], as its citations. Guy Harris (talk) 06:48, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps. I certainly have no objection to your incorporating the proposed addition, along with any sources you think support it. My sense was that it was likely to be disputed, so the sources had better be explicitly identified so that there'd be something tangible to argue over ;) Rivertorch (talk) 07:13, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Maverick

The following URL reveals it's official that OS X 10.9's name is Maverick:

http://www.theverge.com/2013/6/10/4413466/apple-os-x-10-9-announcement-pricing-availability

Georgia guy (talk) 17:31, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Yup. It's mentioned here, and it has a page of its own. Guy Harris (talk) 18:19, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 19 September 2013

On September 12, 2013, the newest update for OS X Mountain Lion has been released: OS X 10.8.5. Source: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1676. Claytonbn (talk) 15:11, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

 No action. The page already reflects this in the infobox, the relevant location for such data.  drewmunn  talk  15:57, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 5 October 2013

This page shows the most recent version of OS X Mavericks is DP 5. Apple has released the GM seed of Mavericks on Thursday, Oct 3rd, 2013. Requesting to update the information to show the change.

In the Versions table, replace the "Most Recent Version" text for the OS X 10.9 row to say "10.9 Golden Master (October 3rd, 2013)."

The source is Apple's Developer program, but there are other posts outside the developer program, as well:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57606004-37/apple-releases-os-x-mavericks-golden-master-to-developers/ http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/10/03/apple-releases-os-x-109-mavericks-golden-master-to-developers http://www.macrumors.com/2013/10/03/os-x-mavericks-released-for-all-mac-developers-as-golden-master-seed/

Jmillertym (talk) 22:43, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

Done. Guy Harris (talk) 00:13, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

System Information merge proposal

The AfD for System Information closed without consensus but merge into this article was suggested as a possible resolution. ~KvnG 13:36, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Support Hi. If you must know, I am the original nominator. But I am seeing KvnG and three others have issued a "merge" verdict while only two have advised "keep". So, I think a merger is in order. Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 16:19, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Actually, my vote was Keep. I don't think merge discussions should be done at AfD. ~KvnG 15:25, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Support. Not independently notable. Brycehughes (talk) 19:00, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Oppose - Seeing the support from others, I looked at doing this merge. There are 28 utilities in {{OS X topics}}. To do the merge would make this the only utility covered in depth in the main article and would cause WP:UNDUE. ~KvnG 15:25, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Oppose - Same as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_Panel_(Windows) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 177.6.4.148 (talk) 22:23, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Support. Although the Control Panel (Windows) article is similar, it has much more content than the System Information article. J.gastaldello (talk) 02:26, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

Oppose - as per KvnG's 8 December 2013 argument, and against J.gastaldello's 17 January 2014 comment — we should not just delete articles for lack of full content but instead they should be improved to be made better (there's loads of info missing from the page that needs to be added). Jimthing (talk) 04:31, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Oppose - per KvnG's 8 December 2013 argument.SBaker43 (talk) 20:24, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

OS X or Mac OS X (or MacOS or System..)

Hi, "OS X" is now used for current versions and I support that in this page. "Mac OS X" also redirects here. I've changed a lot of link to here from "Mac OS X" to "OS X", and now have second thoughts about it due to WP:COMMONNAME. Does that trump WP:TRADEMARK? I started thinking when seeing PostgreSQL (didn't change there). I might be implying that software only runs on OS X (10.8 or maybe 10.7) and newer, when the software probably runs on 10.0 and up. When I know, I have changed but even then it might be confusing other editors thinking they should/could always do the same. I've changed for instance keyboard layout articles that said "Mac OS X" but really some things like that (not most software?) also applies to "Mac OS" or System.. Would you just change everything to "OS X" (unless for software that only worked on pre-Mac OS X?)? comp.arch (talk) 15:36, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

There are essentially 2 issues here, so I'll separate them out:

• COMMONNAME would, from some Internet hit searching, lean towards OS X anyway. Even prior to the official name change, people already referred to it sans the "Mac". OS X is, then, how we should refer to the family of operating systems.
• Articles should really call the family of operating systems as "OS X". Similarly, all versions of OS X greater than Lion should be referred to as "OS X", as that is what they are. However, any versions prior to Mountain Lion are still Mac OS X 10.n, so they should be referred to as "Mac OS X". They are, however, part of the OS X family, not the Mac OS X family.

Does that do anything to clear things up?  drewmunn  talk  19:03, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

As for Mac OS/System, about all the old OS for Macs and the new one have in common is that

1. Apple has offered them both as the OS that ships with Macs;
2. Later versions of the old OS, and current versions of OS X, support the Carbon API;

so those should be spoken of separately - what software, UI features, etc. apply to both should mention both. Guy Harris (talk) 19:40, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

• Optional style: Hi. The difference between Mac OS X and OS X is so trivial that it is a matter of optional style. According to MOS:STABILITY, one of these must be used consistently in the article but there is no need for cross-article consistency. However, once an article chose one of these as the consistently used one, it must not be changed. ArbCom has previously ruled that disputes over optional styles or and changes of optional styles in one article are not tolerated.

In short, do not convert "Mac OS X" to "OS X" or vice versa; this is not allowed.

Best regards,

Codename Lisa (talk) 01:18, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the "info" on MOS:STABILITY. I put it in quotes, as it now redirects to a non-existent section and I wander if the concensus on this has changed? I just thought of this again now when seeing Help:Installing_Japanese_character_sets#Unicode_Japanese_fonts. I would have maybe changed, just the section name. comp.arch (talk) 19:15, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

the page should definitely be changed back to "Mac OS X" - "OS X" is just a shortening of the original anyways. Windows Vista hasn't moved to "Vista".Secondplanet (talk) 13:30, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

The images of each OS disc under the Description section... should we really have them all in one row?

It looks kinda ridiculous. On my 13" laptop, the second infobox ends in Description, so the beginning of that section only has about 300 pixels of width. If I knew how to do it, I would change it into three rows, maybe even four. Greenplastictree (talk) 05:24, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Citations

This article includes numerous uncited statements. Tezero (talk) 02:15, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Please add {{citation needed}} to those statements. Guy Harris (talk) 03:06, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Done. (Really should've done that first; you're right.) There are a lot of them, though, even considering that I left a few common-sense/easily-checkable statements alone. There are also a number of short paragraphs. I don't think this article fits GA status in its current state, although it wouldn't take too much work. Tezero (talk) 17:05, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 5 April 2014

88.227.167.128 (talk) 09:41, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

You have to actually ask people to do something specific here.... Guy Harris (talk) 09:45, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(t • e • c)} 11:26, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Build versions

Map of OS X version to Kernel Version 10.0 4K78 10.2 6C115 10.3 7B85 10.4 8A428 10.4.7 8K1079 10.4.9 8P2137 10.6.4 10F569 10.7.3 11D50d 10.7.4 11E53 10.8.5 12F45 10.9.2 13C64 10.9.2 13C1021 10.9.3 13D61 tech preview 10.9.3 13D65 @mcalef — Preceding unsigned comment added by 23.29.105.98 (talk) 19:38, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

Those aren't kernel versions (kernel versions are Darwin versions, such as you get from "uname -r"), those are build versions, which correspond to the entire OS. Mappings from versions to build numbers can be found in the pages for the individual OS versions, such as Mac OS X v10.0, Mac OS X v10.1, ..., OS X Mavericks. Guy Harris (talk) 20:48, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

OS X 10.10 Article

Hi all! As some of you may be aware, and article exists for OS X 10.10, despite it not yet having been announced. As this is likely to happen within 24 hours, I'm not taking deletion action. However, I'd welcome your comments at this talk section as to the validity of the article's existence, and how we should deal with this kind of thing in the future. Thanks!  drewmunn  talk  20:36, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

Hi all,

I deleted both the page and the current section on the rumored OS X 10.10. Yes, we've seen all the leaked banners "confirming" the next OS, but beyond that we don't have any official information. Unfortunately the reports of a slimmer profile and similarities to the OS 7 user interface are only speculation at this point. We have to remember that such material needs to reliably sourced. However, after the WWDC keynote tomorrow you are welcome to add the confirmed information. Best, Mike V • Talk 01:53, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Hackintosh Discussion

Hi Everyone.

I think that there should be a mention of "hackintosh" builds of OS (builds of OSX which focus on hardware that is not supported by Apple, or that have non-standard features).

I would love to hear other opinions BDBJack (talk) 21:17, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

A mention such as, for example, saying something like "Support for the PowerPC platform was dropped after Mac OS X 10.5. Such cross-platform capability already existed in Mac OS X's lineage; OpenStep was ported to many architectures, including x86, and Darwin included support for both PowerPC and x86. Apple stated that Mac OS X would not run on Intel-based personal computers aside from its own, but a hacked version of the OS compatible with conventional x86 hardware was developed by the OSx86 community." in the "Apple–Intel transition" section? :-) Guy Harris (talk) 21:52, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Either more than a sentence which I missed when I was reviewing the article, or a sub section of under versions which can give a brief explanation and link to the appropriate article with more information. BDBJack (talk) 23:18, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Imprecise statements: graphical OS and hardware exclusivity.

Yes, OS X has a graphical user interface and it's important to the whole concept.

Yes, Apple designs OS X with Mac hardware in mind.

For both facts the lead paragraph has related statements written in a buzzy/peacock style, and both mislead users into erroneously thinking OS X cannot be booted to a command line interface and be exclusively used like that, or that OS X is hard or impossible to install on non-Apple devices.

There's no reason, other than buzz-wording, to mention the GUI and exclude the CLI when both exist for OS X, and because OS X is not fundamentally different to other operating systems in its use of a graphical interface. In fact the text shell exists at a more basic level than the GUI, as with any other Unix-like system: you can uninstall Quartz and Aqua and have OS X, but you can hardly not include a command line interpreter and still call yourself a Unix system.

To say OS X is designed to run exclusively on Mac computers is almost a blatant lie, allowable just because it doesn't explicitly claim that OS X only runs on Mac computers. The fact is that as long as OS X is written in a programming language with multi-platform compilers, or as long as the official binaries are for x86 or PPC or any other platform architecture not exclusive to Apple, Apple is consciously designing OS X to work on non-Apple hardware. People install OS X in non-Apple computers all the time, just as easily as they would do if they had to reinstall it on Macs.

Wikipedia is not a place to express fanaticism. If you want to present facts please write them objectively, in the proper context and style, and back them preferably with secondary and tertiary sources. On the contrary better have them removed. --isacdaavid 05:55, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Simply stating that OS X is designed to run on Apple equipment is not the same as stating it cannot run on other equipment. It's hardly fanatical. A simple point of fact is that the people writing the software (e.g. designing it) work for Apple; everything they do is for the company. The system is designed to work with the GUI and CLI together. To argue that because OS X can be installed on other equipment without a GUI indicates it is somehow not exclusively designed for Apple equipment seems to completely miss that point. I can install a BMW logo plate on a Toyota, however it doesn't mean the BMW logo was designed to fit on non-BMW made cars. Further, as far as I understand, installing OS X on non-Apple equipment, with or without the GUI, violates the terms of use and is not allowed in the license—indicating again that not only is it designed for Apple equipment, purchasers of the software are legally compelled to only install it on Apple equipment. (See Psystar Corporation for a good example.) Lexlex (talk) 09:27, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

I think the phrase doesn't simply states that OS X is designed for Apple stuff, it goes on saying it is exclusively designed for it, and this is where confusion lies. Whether Apple employees are working for Apple doesn't imply all they do, included OS X, is tied to Apple. I think you misunderstood the 2 separate arguments: one is concerned with the claim that OS X is a graphical interface operating system whatever that means, which is somewhat correct but also irrelevant for an intro and possibly misleading because of the command line possibility, etc. The other one is about OS-hardware relationship, claimed to be an injective one as currently read. In summary I also think these portions of the article could be improved to reflect more clarity. Your analogy with cars isn't helpful to say the least. A better one would be to think of OS X as a set of tires with specific measures, designed to fit on any car from any manufacturer as long as rims match (x86_64/AMD64 processors), regardless of partnership and deals between the tires maker and certain car manufacturer (vigorous Apple marketing in terms of software-hardware integration and exclusivity). Also see Hackintosh --Sisgeo (talk) 05:45, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

OS X is a set of tires from an automobile maker who doesn't really give much of a damn whether the tires will work on anybody else's car. In fact, the tires have spikes in them that, unless you make an effort to remove them, will give you a flat tire if you try to use them on a car that doesn't have the special wheels that the automobile maker produces. Yes, people have figured out how to remove the spikes, but the spikes are there.

I worked in the Core OS group at Apple, and, no, no particular effort was made to ensure that it run on anybody else's hardware (and the tire maker and car maker are the same company, so there's no "partnership and deal" here). Guy Harris (talk) 06:40, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

"A better one would be to think of OS X as a set of tires with specific measures, designed to fit on any car from any manufacturer as long as rims match" Sorry, but that's a terrible analogy. Apple doesn't go out of their way to make sure the OS "fits" any hardware but theirs, not since the CHRP days. MFNickster (talk) 05:04, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Yosemite Intro Date

The article states that the Yosemite intro date is "Autumn 2104" Is that Autumn in the Northern or Southern Hemisphere?LorenzoB (talk) 03:43, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

@LorenzoB: Neither, literally speaking, because that's disallowed by WP:SEASON for just that reason. I rewrote it to "Q4 2014" as per standardized speech. Again. Because this is the perennial issue with each release by the likes of Apple and Nintendo. — Smuckola (Email) (Talk) 03:57, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

10.1 <>10.10?

v10.10 seems a weird numbering.--85.103.248.22 (talk) 01:47, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

The answer to the question in the section title is "yes, they are, in fact, not the same". A version number is NOT a decimal representation of a rational number, it's an N-tuple. Guy Harris (talk) 06:50, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Unix certification-no longer certified?

I was looking at the UNIX 03 specification lists and noticed that OS X is no longer listed as a certified Unix. According to the internet archive it was in July, with Mavericks and Mountain Lion certified, but that's now vanished. I suppose it's possible that this is a run-up-to-Yosemite thing, but if anyone knows if OS X is no longer trying to be certified it would be great if they could explain what's happening. (I have no compsci background, just was curious about something and noticed this.) Blythwood (talk) 04:52, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

It's no longer on the summary page, but the individual pages (used as references in the article) are still there. My guess is that it's a run-up-to-Yosemite thing. Guy Harris (talk) 06:04, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, it's back. 85.210.46.232 (talk) 16:37, 18 October 2014 (UTC)