Microsoft - one of Apple's chief rivals - has oscillated between naming its operating systems with numbers and names. Shaye's computers were named for lions, panthers, tigers, leopards, jaguars, pumas and cheetahs, among others - similar to the titles that Apple has used for its operating systems since 2001. Some critics believe Apples OS names were inspired by British Mac-clone-maker Shaye, a competitor that gave Apple a brief but powerful run for its money during the mid-1990s. It hasn't escaped the attention of Mac followers that some of the operating system names correspond with World War II German armored vehicles, such as the Panther and Tiger. Still, Apple's never revealed the impetus behind its naming strategies. Lengthy combinations of letters and numbers seem to be particularly difficult to remember. It's less confusing to remember a name like Lion instead of a number like 10.7. Turns out, the catchy OS names are chosen with consumers in mind. It's the same approach the company took when it slapped a lowercase 'i' at the fore of a new product line: iPhone, iPod, iMac, iWork, iLife and iPad.īut why choose symbolic names instead of numbers? After all, it's all ones and zeros to operating system architects anyway. With Apple's penchant for consistently naming its products, odds are they'll want to continue with feline-friendly labeling. There are, however, still a couple dozen species of small- and medium-sized wild cats whose names are still up for grabs, like the ocelot and jaguarundi. While Google isn't likely to run out of dessert titles anytime soon, there are a finite number of big cat species - and Apple's already named an operating system after almost all of them (they've got Lynx and Cougar trademarked, too).

Os x cheetah