throwaway mini-rant

[baxil]

What is it about modern consumer operating systems that has cast the perfectly useful idea of "version number" into disfavor?

I mean, it's bad enough that Windows gave it up after Y2K ... ME, XP, and now Vista (née Longhorn, aka Aero).

... But Apple? Okay, seriously, guys: Enough is enough. Yes, the cat thing was cute. But it's overstayed

Comments

[makuus]

My understanding, having previously worked for a software company, is that increasingly high version numbers denotes 'age' (and not so much 'product maturity') in the mind of the end-user. Dropping the version number kind of does the same thing marketing-wise as doing facial botox -- the about dialog, like the driver's license, still shows the right age, but the face is a little prettier.

[gchpaco]

You'd think that, but there was a big kurfuffle on Bugtraq a few years back about Apple being slow about making security releases for 10.3.x AKA Panther. Some folks just don't want to upgrade.

[packbat]

I gotta back up gchpaco here - I'm still running 10.3, not being willing to fork over $150 just to make my four-year-old computer run even slower.

[packbat]

Well, yeah - I expect I'll be running 10.5 as soon as I get around to buying a MacBook.

[baxil]

> increasingly high version numbers denotes 'age' (and not so much 'product maturity')

For the average user, that might be spot on. For me, changing the name feels like "Hi! We're back to 1.0 now!" and I don't want to touch it with a ten-foot pole until the bugs are starting to work themselves out.

Although I do sort of see your point. Photoshop CS vs. Photoshop 9? If Adobe really wants to keep cranking out pseudo-updates that basically do the same thing on faster machines, past a certain point a name change might be their only real way to convince people to upgrade.

[makuus]

For me, changing the name feels like "Hi! We're back to 1.0 now!"

Fully agree. Just as a product can have 'too high' a version number, it can have 'too low' a version number.

Photoshop CS vs. Photoshop 9? If Adobe really wants to keep cranking out pseudo-updates that basically do the same thing on faster machines, past a certain point a name change might be their only real way to convince people to upgrade.

Bingo.

Although, for Apple, calling each point release by another name is gratuitous, on that count I don't disagree. However, as you noted with Adobe above, it's probably the best marketing way of getting users to buy into a point release as being something 'new and exciting'. It's not "hey, upgrade to OS 10.5 for the latest features and fixes." Rather, it's "hey, buy Leopard, the brand new, revolutionary OS from Apple."

[mithent]

I was going to note that.. giving each release an exciting new name covers the fact that Apple haven't made a major OS release since 2001 with OS 10.0 - there have been evolutionary updates and 10.5 is obviously better, but they're coaxing $129 out of people on a very regular basis by claiming that each release is massively improved compared to the last.

[roaminrob]

Yes, and a regular update cycle is how we get to things like OpenBSD 4.2. I would also point out that OpenBSD -- run by a relatively small circle of volunteer developers -- politely requests that you purchase a $50 CD set at every release. They release twice a year, bringing them to $100/yr versus $129/yr for Mac OS X. I don't mention this to detract from OpenBSD, but rather to point out that Mac OS X's price is sort-of reasonable.

This cycle is also known as "churn", and it's one of the ways you tell the good companies from the bad.