this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2025
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How would you prefer they handle it?
Just to look at macOS version history,
The first public release was "Mac OS X 10.0", this continued until "Mac OS X 10.7 Lion". The "big cat" became part of the marketing name because the OS & version were a mouthful and throwing numbers around wasn't helpful.
We drop the "Mac" next year, then switch to mountains, but it's not long before we reach, "OS X 10.10" aka "OS ten ten ten".
Well it wasn't long before we simplified further and just said "macOS", but then took a while before we dropped the "10". Now we just get "macOS 15 Sequoia".
For nearly 18 years the Mac operating system had an unnecessary "10" that conveyed zero information.
Yeah, I remember when Mac OS X came out. It was a pretty significant improvement from Mac OS 9 (I grew up on System 7/Mac OS 8, dicked around a bit with 9). Unfortunately, they beat that horse until it lost all meaning, and then dragged the corpse until there was nothing left. It was ridiculous 10 years in (looking at you, Microsoft), and was borderline meme status when they finally dropped the OSX branding altogether.
They were doing fine once they dropped "10". Major version updates have a major version number. It was fixed. Done. Why fix what isn't broken? Just because the version numbers of your various operating systems don't match, doesn't mean it's "broken". They're different operating systems. Versioning has lost all meaning at this point. Shit, even Windows 11 still uses NT kernel 10. And before NT Kernel 10? It was 6.3.
What the fuck even is proper versioning anymore.
I'm just ranting into the void now.
See but I would argue that five different version numbers across five different operating systems is broken. (Ok two of them do match up.)
Specifically the watchOS version is the important one that stands out. watchOS version 1 works with which version of macOS? Which version of iOS or iPadOS?
Also when it comes time to end support for devices, how do you keep track? If Apple provides 5 years of updates, do you know if your phone is still supported?
If my phone is running iOS 14, is that supported? Is that new? Is that old?
The key thing to keep in mind is that the entirety of this ecosystem is based on yearly releases.
Just for "fun" let's look at Windows. The current version is 11. It was released in 2021. So I guess as long as I have Windows 11, I am up to date. But... That's not true. Windows 11 does have a version number that's not directly end user facing. That version is 24H2.
Now the "24" is the year, that's useful. Now what's stupid is the "H2". Because sitting here in June 2025 I would expect "25H1" to be released anytime now. But Microsoft only used the H1 once, about five years ago. Now "Window 11 version 24H2" is better SEO vs "Window 11 version 24", so maybe that's why they kept it.
Major version numbers are used when stuff changes, and especially when shit breaks. Can the latest OS X 10 run the same software and on the same hardware as the first OS X 10? If not, increase the major number.