The redesigned UI ought to be launched concurrently for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. The Mac final obtained a major facelift again in 2020 with macOS 11 Large Sur, although this was overshadowed on the time by the rather more vital shift from Intel’s chips to Apple Silicon. The present iOS and iPadOS design has its roots in 2013’s iOS 7, although with over a decade’s price of gradual evolution on prime.
An OS by another identify
With the brand new design will apparently come a brand new naming scheme, shifting from the present model numbers to new numbers primarily based on the 12 months. So we allegedly will not be seeing iOS 19, macOS 16, watchOS 12, or visionOS 3—as a substitute, we’ll get iOS 26, macOS 26, watchOS 26, and visionOS 26.
The brand new numbers may be just a little complicated at first, particularly for the interval of overlap the place Apple is actively supporting (say) macOS 14, macOS 15, and macOS 26. However in the long term, the consistency ought to make it simpler to inform roughly how previous your software program is and also will make it simpler to inform whether or not your machine is operating present software program with out having to recollect the quantity for every of your particular person gadgets.
It additionally unifies the strategy to any new working system variants Apple would possibly announce—tvOS begins at model 9 and iPadOS begins at model 13, for instance, as a result of they have been linked to the then-current iOS launch. However visionOS and watchOS each began over from 1.0, and the macOS model relies on the 12 months that Apple arbitrarily determined to finish the 20-year-old “macOS X” branding and leap as much as 11.
Word that these numbers will use the upcoming 12 months relatively than the present 12 months—iOS 26 can be Apple’s newest and best OS for about three months in 2025, assuming the conventional September-ish launch, however it will likely be the principle OS for 9 months in 2026. Apple normally additionally waits till later within the fall or winter to begin forcing individuals onto the brand new OS, issuing no less than a handful of security-only updates for the outgoing OS for individuals who do not need to be guinea pigs for a presumably buggy new launch.
