Suddenly with version 10.9 Apple switched its code names to places in California (Mavericks, Catalina). After that, releases got a code name with the number, starting with man-eating felines (Mountain Lion, Snow Leopard). The Nextstep operating system became Mac OS X (as in the Roman numeral 10). Then the company purchased NeXT, the firm Apple co-founder Steve Jobs started after he left Apple.

For now.Īpple used numbers for the Macintosh operating system too. In 2009 the company moved back to numbers with Windows 7 and is sticking with it through Windows 11. After Windows 2000 and ME (Millennial Edition), Microsoft switched to Windows XP, then Vista. Microsoft's Windows began with version 1.0 in 1985, but 10 years later started using years to identify versions with Windows 95. Sometimes that can be a little confusing. There are still more tablets using Apple's iPadOS, but Android is making up ground there, too.Įach operating system developer has its own method of distinguishing revisions of its operating systems so that users and developers know what system they're using. True, more of those installations are on phones. Only four years later Android had the largest mobile operating system market share, a distinction it continues to hold as of this writing. The T-Mobile G1, launched in October 2008, was the first major mobile device to use the Android operating system.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab S8+ 5G, the latest tablet presented by the South Korean multinational, is exhibited at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, 2022.

Android system update