14 DAY TRIAL // Pictures are starting to emerge from the Moscone West in San Francisco, California, depicting the artwork used by Apple to literally designate the “nature” of its upcoming OSes, including the next-generation OS X which appears to be dubbed Yosemite.
A photo bearing the flagship X in the middle with a mountainous background almost certainly points to OS X 10.10 being called “Yosemite.” Eagle-eyed observers have correlated the image to the national park’s El Capitan rock formation, and while the latter also sounds cool, it isn't likely that Apple will use the two-word fixture.
The name further makes sense as Apple has recently trademarked a number of upcoming potential names for its desktop operating system, including Yosemite, Redwood, Mammoth, California, Diablo, Miramar, El Cap, Redtail, Condor, Grizzly, Tiburon, Skyline, Shasta, Sierra, Mojave, Sonoma, Ventura, and Sequoia.
There have been very few leaks from within Apple’s upcoming Mac OS, but the consensus among pundits is that OS X 10.10 will gain a much simpler, flatter look, borrowing key design elements from iOS 7.
Although Apple executives have been quoted as saying that OS X and iOS will remain separate, many still believe the Cupertino giant will one day mash them together forming a hybrid OS to power keyboard-enabled tablets like the Microsoft Surface Pro.
OS X 10.10 will undoubtedly be demoed by software engineering chief Craig Federighi, and there’s a good chance developers will be offered preview builds to toy in the weeks leading up to its official public debut.
As for iOS 8, Apple is using water-themed artwork to highlight its presence at WWDC.
In all fairness, it could be just a wallpaper. In fact, the names Apple chooses for its various OS X installments don’t have anything to do with the OS itself, except maybe for the built-in wallpapers (i.e. the Mavericks surfing/wave background).
Nevertheless, this is practically the first real confirmation of the existence of iOS 8, and the first piece of graphics coming out of Apple to designate the software.
According to a number of leaks, iOS 8 will include at least one new application called Healthbook, which resembles Passbook and tracks health and fitness information for the user, possibly leveraging a new set of sensors on the upcoming iPhone 6 and iWatch. An enhanced version of Apple Maps is also expected to be part of the iOS 8 showcase.