No more Cat's, please

The next release of OS X will debut next month (August 2006). It may be called Leopard, though it's obvious that there aren't many good cat names left and Apple is going to have to move to a different species soon or suffer the embarrassment of a "Tabby" release.

Personally, I've had enough of the names anyway.

Oh, nothing wrong with cutesy project names, of course. And if you can tie it into marketing, fine. What I'm objecting to is the assumption by tech writers that their readers know which is which.

For example, I was recently offered a choice of installing an application built for Panther or one for Tiger. I had a momentary brain freeze. Which is it that I have now? I know it's 10.4, but is that Tiger or Panther? These OSes come out pretty fast, and About This Mac only reminds me that we're at 10.4.7 - it has nothing to say about cats.

OK, it was Jaguar, then Panther, then Tiger.. or was it?

Trouble is, it's just going to get worse. Two years from now Leopard will be old news but some apps are still going to have different versions. And some people just are not going to upgrade. Are we supposed to remember these names forever?

Let's just stop. Since OS X itself doesn't report anything but version numbers, people offering version limited apps should just state the version and forget the names. Or if you must use the name, at least put the version with it in parentheses.

Then forgetful old folks like me might have a chance of picking the right one.

Buy Take Control of Your Domain Names

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