Apple has confirmed the new macOS 10.14 name to be Mojave, but what else could it have called it? Here are 13 Californian cities and landmarks that will make fine names for macOS 10.15.
Versions of Apple’s Mac operating system used to be named after big cats, but that all changed with
Mac OS X 10.9, which took its name from a Californian surfing spot (or possibly a dog). Apple said future macOS updates would all be named after places in the company’s home state.
Executives jokingly claimed that Apple had simply run out of suitable cats. But the switch to American landmarks is a nice branding manoeuvre for a company often criticised for outsourcing its manufacturing – and locating its profits – overseas.
Sure enough, the
next Mac OS followed the new policy and was named after the Yosemite National Park;
El Capitan after a rock formation in that same park; and
macOS Sierra (and
High Sierra) after the Sierra Nevada mountain range.
The latest,
Mojave, is a desert in North America. It’s rough-hewn and outdoorsy, ultra-American yet exotic-sounding, and (needless to say, when we’re discussing America’s great physical landmarks) makes for stunning photography.
But where will Apple turn next for inspiration? Here are a few Californian cities, neighbourhoods and geographical landmarks that we think would work well as a name for macOS 10.15.
Composite images created by our talented intern
Jake Williams; original photographers are credited individually. Their (modified) work is reproduced here with our thanks, under the appropriate creative commons licence.
macOS Sequoia
California’s Sequoia National Park contains not just the largest tree in the world (General Sherman) but five of the 10 largest. And as well as colossal redwood trees, the park features mountains (the Sierra Nevada, which we pointed out would make a decent OS name long before Apple decided
it agreed with us), waterfalls, meadows and hundreds of caves.
Sequoia also appeared in the March 2018 trademark filings, alongside Mojave, Sonoma and Ventura.
Cupertino is the small west-Californian city where Apple’s global headquarters are located. (The company recently moved into
even more futuristic dwellings in the same city.)
Apple and Cupertino are often thought of as essentially synonymous, with the company employing about 15,000 of the city’s 58,000 inhabitants, but other Silicon Valley firms have facilities there too. Other than Apple folk, Cupertino’s most famous son is probably the actor
Aaron Eckhart, which leads us neatly to our next possibility…
As well as sharing with Mavericks the honour of appearing as a call sign in Top Gun, Hollywood would be a visible reminder of Apple’s strong links to the creative industries. The Mac – and the
Mac Pro in particular – has long been the tool of choice for creative professionals working in visual effects, film editing and post production.
As the majority shareholder of Pixar, Steve Jobs was a major player in the film business himself, of course.
Our logic goes something like this: Apple has done the sea (Mavericks), and it’s done the mountains (El Capitan and Sierra), so it’s about time it did something to do with trees. Such as this tree-studded city in Ventura County.
Even if it can’t compete with Yosemite’s Half Dome, Thousand Oaks does contain some high places for the hikers; including one called Tarantula Hill, which we are never ever going to visit.
Original (public-domain) image sourced from
Flickr.
macOS Apple Valley
Can’t believe we’ve not mentioned this one before.
Aside from the obvious, Apple Valley is perfect fodder for a macOS name thanks to its natural scenery.
Like some of the other locations we’ve mentioned, Apple Valley has strong connections with show business: a load of Hollywood films have been shot in the area (and an episode of Perry Mason!), and Cuba Gooding Jr went to school here.
Go to
AppleValley.org for more information if you’d like to visit. That’s also where we got the original photo used in our artwork.
macOS San Francisco Bay
Aside from the beautiful scenery of the bay itself, San Francisco’s reputation as a home for the arts, polyglot culture and liberal free thinking makes it ideal for an Apple brand.
What a perfect choice this would be: the catchphrase of inventors and geniuses everywhere. OS X Eureka!
Eureka is home to California’s oldest zoo – an odd claim to fame, that – and some quite astonishing Victorian architecture, including the Carson Mansion pictured in our artwork. (Original photo by
Cory Maylett and released into the public domain.) And it is the only city I am aware of whose motto, Pokemon-like, is also its own name.
The city’s
official website has lots of information for visitors.
macOS Death Valley
A little morbid, perhaps, but Death Valley is a bona fide American landmark and, let’s face it, a super-cool name. Would also tie in with the same outdoorsy, extreme-sports feel of Mavericks, and allow Apple to decorate the interface with buffalo skulls.
Hopefully its being the hottest place in the world wouldn’t make macOS users worry about their fans packing in.
The city of Shafter was named after the highly decorated Civil War officer
William Rufus Shafter and celebrated its centenary in 2013. It was the setting for a landmark in human-powered aviation in the 1970s when the
Gossamer Condor completed a figure-eight course at Minter Field.
Almost as pleasingly musical to say as
Tolkien’s beloved “cellar door”, Buttonwillow’s claim to fame is as California’s estimated geographic centre of population: as
Wikipedia explains it, “the point on which a rigid, weightless map would balance perfectly, if the population members are represented as points of equal mass”. Sounds unsafe to us.
Aside from having a lovely sound to it, macOS Hillcrest would also sit well with Apple’s political affiliations. It’s San Diego’s gay neighbourhood: at the time of the 2000 census 43 percent of Hillcrest’s households were headed by gay or lesbian couples.
(Since we originally put this feature together Apple’s boss has publicly confirmed that he is gay, in the hopes that this will make life a little easier for “someone struggling to come to terms with who he or she is, or bring comfort to anyone who feels alone, or inspire people to insist on their equality”.)
A sunny south-Californian city with a Mediterranean climate and the word ‘beach’ in the name – hard to think of a more breezily optimistic name for Apple’s next Mac OS.
The second-largest city in the Greater Los Angeles area, Long Beach has plenty of sporting activities on offer, with motor racing and (unsurprisingly) aquatic sports among the local favourites. It’s also seen more than its fair share of film and TV filming.
The enormous and majestic Lake Tahoe lies along the border between California and Nevada, but since two thirds of the coastline is in Californian territory we’re going to claim ownership.
It ticks every box you can name: stunning natural scenery (tick); glamorous, dangerous sporting subcultures (skiing, parasailing, diving, tick, tick, tick); connection to the creative arts (much of The Godfather Part II was filmed here, tick); an American landmark known around the world (tick).
Also gets a grisly name check as the site of a mass drowning in Nick Cave’s ‘Curse of Millhaven’. Bonus!
David has loved the iPhone since covering the original 2007 launch; later his obsession expanded to include iPad and Apple Watch. He offers advice to owners (and prospective owners) of these devices.
