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Apple is planning on renaming its operating systems

Apple is reportedly making a change to the name of its operating systems. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports that the company will start using the year instead of a version number for its software.

Samsung does it with its Galaxy flagship phones lineups, but it uses the year in the phone's name. For example, the current flagship devices are part of the Samsung Galaxy S25 series. Apple wants to do the same, but for its software.

This news has drawn mixed reactions from users, some feel that it won't make a difference, but others think it could cause further confusion among buyers. They are right, an iPhone 17 that runs on iOS 26 does sound odd. But this change might be good. Take a look at Apple's current naming convention for its products, the latest versions are iOS 18, iPadOS 18, macOS 15, tvOS 18, watchOS 11, visionOS 2. It's all over the place, isn't it? This might explain why Apple wants to rename it.

Changing all of these numbers to represent the current year will make it a bit easier for users to understand whether their device is running on the latest software. However, this is where things get odd. Apple won't use the current year in the name, instead it will use the next year's number for the naming convention of its operating systems. This is similar to how car manufacturers name their vehicles.

So, iOS 19 could actually be called iOS 26. Similarly, the other software could be named iPadOS 26, macOS 26, tvOS 26, watchOS 26 and visionOS 26. Well, it might take a while to get used to the new naming strategy, but at least there is some consistency across devices.

The real concern is the actual names of the devices, these are the models in the current iPhone series - iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, iPhone 16 Pro Max, and the iPhone 16e. This is confusing, perhaps Apple should rethink the naming of its hardware too.

Apple is expected to announce the shift in its naming strategy at the Worldwide Developers Conference on June 9. It will also unveil redesigned interfaces for its operating systems. Apple is working on making the iPad more Mac-like.

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