Among the many interesting things discovered in OS X Mountain Lion is its name. Apple has now officially dropped the ‘Mac’ from Mac OS X. The official name change has even been confirmed with Apple.
The Verge reports:
Apple’s making a big deal out of Mountain Lion today, but there’s an equally big change quietly afoot: the “Mac” in “Mac OS X” is no more. Instead, Apple’s desktop operating system is now simply called OS X. We confirmed the official name change with Apple, who told us that the preferred full name is “OS X Mountain Lion,” and a quick look around the company’s new Mountain Lion pages reveals that the tweak is already well in effect.
While this is significant, and may have long-term implications about OS X and iOS, and their possible convergence in the future, the Mac brand is still very much alive and well, and is still used through Apple’s website and product listings, and I suspect that the Mac as we know it isn’t going anywhere in the near future.
The transition was hinted at with the release of OS X Lion. Even though Lion was referred to as “Mac OS X” in Apple’s press release, the product is referred to only as “OS X Lion” on both the Mac App Store (link) and Apple’s webpage.