To me it feels inauthentic.
Based on early comments, which say it makes sense, I’m an outlier.
However, this shifts from something that had semantic value (not saying Apple used Semver, but there were linear major and minor versions) to marketing driven version numbers.
This change makes a ton of sense
It makes sense to have all the product families on the same versioning scheme because they keep blurring the lines between iOS and macOS but that’s the part I don’t like as much
I don’t like my laptop/desktop OS to look and feel like a tablet interface but this is the way they have been going for a while
That's IMHO a critical distinction, as it's neither common nor natural.
For that, they'd need to release iOS 26 for all devices, including discontinued ones, and force people to upgrade (and prevent them from upgrading to iOS 27 in September 2026!)
Since all that won't happen, no, it does not make sense.
They have control over one thing: The year in which they make a new iOS version available. That's the year they should have named it after.
The new numbering makes sense to me, considering Apple have been on an annual release schedule for their OSes for some time. The question is, will they do this for hardware too? Will the iPhone 17 actually be the "iPhone 26"?
What? No. This is just silly.
And indeed, that specific Macbook was released in 2021, not 2020.
So they're breaking their own convention purely for the marketing benefits.
I’m not saying it’s a perfect system but I can see why they prefer that then having people use iOS 25 for the majority of 2026.
To say that they did not use the years sounds like some one commenting on something they are not as familiar as they’d like the rest of the internet to think they are.
Also, people refer to the OS by the cat or California location. I couldn’t tell you what year snow leopard or mavericks came out though
That wasn't a consideration in the past. e.g.
"MacBook Pro (13-inch, Late 2011)", introduced on October 24th 2011
https://support.apple.com/en-us/111341
> they prefer that then having people use iOS 25 for the majority of 2026.
I'm not blind to the advantage of their new naming scheme, and honestly they could name it iOS 2077 it would be their prerogative. It just sounds off to me to equate "they're just cheating a bit" to "it makes sense".
Ah, yes: "macOS Late 25" just rolls of the tongue.
Perhaps instead of release/update macOS 25.2 they could go with "macOS Early 26". :)
When I see a version number, what I really care about is how new/old it is, not how many releases it’s been since the first version. Which is why one of my most common Google searches is “when did <software> <version number> release”
It also helped that it was a moment where the market exploded considerably
It’s not marketing fluff, it is maximizing the amount of time out of each year that the year matches the current version number, given that macOS releases are in the second half of the year and not on 1 January.
Doing it with version = release year would mean more days each year where the year != version.
Why are strategic decisions like this always interpreted in the most superficial ways? Apple does scumbag shit frequently (monopolistic anticompetitive practices, walled garden price gouging, illegal wage fixing) but this isn’t that. It’s just math.
One could argue that this is simply a marketing concern.
Except for some brands like Peugeot and formerly Renault but those had nothing to do with the year.
But even even naming them after the year of release makes more sense than the year after. I think for cars it's sometimes done because people don't want to buy cars in the last 3 months because it affects the resale value.
Check out Dodge Chargers, over the years.
Most US models are not sold in Europe because they're unpractically big or don't meet our standards. Even the US brands that operate here like Ford make models specially for the foreign market. Like the Ford Escort (now Focus), Fiesta or Mondeo.