Proof of the upcoming OS version surfaced

Nov 18, 2009 09:46 GMT  ·  By

Cupertino-based company Apple seems to have already started the work on the next version of its Mac OS X platform, which is expected to hit the market as Mac OS X 10.7. The latest flavor of the operating system, Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, was launched only three months ago, yet there are already some pieces of evidence that Apple is already moving forward with the next OS release.

The information comes from an entry posted earlier today in a database of changes to the open source 'launched' framework, which oversees booting of Mac OS X and administers processes running on the system. In particular, today's entry cites an error message containing the text string '11A47', a reference to the Mac OS X build number being used. < rdar://problem/7386864> 11A47: SecurityAgent no longer visible via Accessibility,” is what a recent post on macrumors states.

It seems that the “11A47” build number is the one that points towards the next iteration of the platform, based on the previously used numbering schemes from Apple. The company uses “a numerical prefix indicating the major release version, followed by a letter code indicating the minor release version and a numerical suffix indicating iterations of that version throughout its development,” the news site points out.

Basically, this is showed by the fact that the older Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard had the build number of 9A571 at launch, and that the Mac OS X Snow Leopard platform came around initially as Build 10A432, while the 10.6.1 update was tagged Build 10B504. The next release, Mac OS X 10.6.2, came as Build 10C540.

Moving forth, the “11A47” build can only suggest that it refers to the next version of the platform, which should be the initial flavor of Mac OS X 10.7. Moreover, the '47' suffix shows that Apple is already hard at work with the development of the OS. There are no details on what the next platform release might bring to the market, yet the word is that there will be some radical end-user changes included with it.