Talk:Mac operating systems

A common misconception among Mac users is that Mac OS is immune to viruses. Unfortunately viruses do exist for Mac OS though they are few in number. Below is a list of some of the most commonly found Mac Viruses over the past several years.

In 2006 there was a Trojan worm discovered known as OSX/LEAP that used iChat as its method of transfer. If an infected computer would iChat a friend a message would show up on the friends computer claiming to have pictures of then-upcoming OS X Leopard. Once the message was opened and downloaded the Trojan worm infected any recently opened application with malicious code rendering them useless. ^[1]

In 2007 three Zlob Trojan viruses known as OSX/DNSChanger, OSX/RSPlug, and OSX/Jahlav crossed over from Windows to Mac OS. The Mac OS versions had the same objective as the original Windows worms which was to alter the users DNS and direct its traffic to malicious websites by posing as a needed video codec to access internet pornography. ^[2]

In 2008 F-Secure discovered Mac's first malicious cleaning tool called MacSweeper. It mimicked a then-legitimate cleaning tool name Mac Sweeper and claimed to find problems in the users system and then asked for payment to fix the problems. ^[3]

In 2009 a backdoor spyware named OSX/KROWI infected computers through pirated versions of iWork 2009 and Adobe Photoshop. Once on the users computer it connected to a remote network allowing others to enter the computer without authentication. ^[4]

In 2011 Intengo discovered a OSX/FLASHBACK, a malware that uses Java vulnerabilities to enter a user's computer and harvest user information. The most common package of FLASHBACK was in a malicious Adobe Flash installer but there are newer packages that are disguised as a software update. ^[5] Ptapp22 (talk) 18:15, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Why did you find it necessary to mention this in the talk page? The article doesn't mention anything about viruses, nor does it point out the idea that no viruses, or little viruses exist in Mac OS. Groink (talk) 10:39, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Why is this screenshot of snow leopard? That is old. Perhaps update it to this? It's a screenshot of mountain lion, pretty much a new install. Another option would be to update it to update it to File:Osx-mavericks-screenshot.jpg. --Umadbrocuziamhere (talk) 17:18, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Early development history? Reading this Mac OS seems to appear by itself - no names. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.167.16.211 (talk) 00:32, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

If nobody objects, I will begin restructuring this article to focus on System versions 1-9, removing information that pertains specifically to OS X. The infobox on this page, to start, duplicates heavily the page on OS X, even though the article lead refers specifically to the prior version of Mac OS, before version 10.

Furthermore, the OS X section should be removed/merged with the OS X article, or at least, in a way that refers to that as the primary article on the subject.

Lastly, the screenshot, which refers to a version of OS X, should be changed to something from the classic Mac OS era to comply with the new factual accuracy.

Again, anyone have objections? I plan to start this project soon. Lucas "nicatronTg" Nicodemus (talk) 03:37, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

I assume this is dropped, since nothing has happened. But just in case... of course that is objectionable, as it's historical revisionism and thus substantially illogical and false. There is no new factual accuracy of history on this subject whatsoever, and sections of a topic do not get removed when a full article exists. The section exists, containing a summary which refers to the main article, exactly as it presently does. Even your entire assessment of the article (the infobox etc) as it existed on the day of your assessment is just false. Generally speaking, the overall structure and general content is essentially correct and complete (aside from citations and line editing). Sorry to say it! — Smuckola (Email) (Talk) 04:55, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

July 21 is more than 0 days ago. --Jobu0101 (talk) 20:11, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

That was apparently a temporary error, because it's working. — Smuckola (Email) (Talk) 00:31, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, now it's working again. --Jobu0101 (talk) 10:53, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Can anybody provide a citation of this? I'm as big a fan of Steve as the next guy, but as far as I know, he didn't make any contributions to the OS X codebase. And if he did, then surely that would just be listed as 'Apple', not 'Steve Jobs'? 118.209.10.175 (talk) 16:14, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

One part of the article says that Mac OS was introduced in 1977, while another part says it was introduced in 1984. ZFT (talk) 19:18, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

It doesn't say anything about 1977 now - which is good, because the Mac itself wasn't introduced until 1984. Guy Harris (talk) 17:54, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

This page covers two different OSes:

• the original Mac software, which started being called "Mac OS", with a capital "M" and a space between "Mac" and "OS", in the 7.6 release;

• the Mach+BSD-based UNIX, which started being called "Mac OS X", with a capital "M", a space between "Mac" and "OS" and an "X", and then got called "OS X", and is now being called "macOS", with a lower-case "m" and no space between the "mac" and "OS".

So the OS X page probably needs, either now or when Apple's desktop/laptop/server UNIX's 13th release comes out, to be renamed "macOS", and updated to give the additional naming history.

But what about this page? It shouldn't be called "macOS" or "MacOS", as that should be the name for the page about Apple's desktop/laptop/server UNIX - no "classic" version of Apple's system software was ever called "MacOS" or "macOS". Should it just be turned into a page for the classic OS, with no page covering both OSes? Should it remain "Mac OS", with a hatnote pointing people to "macOS" for the current OS? Or should something else be done? Guy Harris (talk) 17:52, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

In my opinion, OS X should now considered "finished", and macOS should be changed to talking about all the macOS versions since Sierra, and this page should be separate from both pages. --Emphrase 19:18, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

In actual fact, "macOS" is just a new name for the same Darwin-based desktop/laptop/server UNIX that was originally called "Mac OS X", renamed to "OS X", and again renamed to "macOS", and OS X should be renamed to "macOS". Guy Harris (talk) 19:24, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

Please move the actual OS X page to macOS. macOS is what it's called, it's confusing to people when an article about a cat says "cat used to be called dog. So this article is called dog even though this is a cat." Makes no sense. Jake Petroules (talk) 06:09, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

There's already a discussion on Talk:OS X about that. Not everybody seems to think it's the right thing to do now, as opposed to after the public release of macOS Sierra. (I'm fine with doing it now, but I wouldn't go on a crusade to do it now if the consensus is to wait.) Guy Harris (talk) 07:48, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

We're already seeing people who think this page has the wrong name, because Apple's OS for Macs is called "macOS". We'll probably see even more when macOS Sierra comes out.

I think, and some other people thing too, as per the two previous discussions, that it might be a good idea to have a page for the classic (pre-Mac OS X) system software, covering only that OS and not Mac OS X/OS X/macOS, and not covering the other OSes from Apple, such as A/UX and mkLinux and Macintosh Application Environment, either.

I'm not sure what the right name for that page would be - should it be "Classic Mac OS", or "Mac OS (classic)"? I don't think it should be called just "Mac OS", as Apple's current UNIX was originally called "Mac OS X". If we don't call this "Mac OS", should there be a "Mac OS" disambiguation page, pointing both to the page for classic Mac OS and the page for Mac OS X^W^W^WOS X^W^WmacOS?

Template:Mac OS History and Template:Apple Inc. operating systems already contain lists of Apple OSes, in case somebody wants such a list, so I'm not sure we need a page "List of Apple operating systems" or "List of Macintosh operating systems", or something such as that.

I propose that we pull any non-classic Mac OS-related stuff out of this page and, if it's not already in the pages for the other OSes, move it there, and make this page be a page for classic Mac OS.

Any comments? Guy Harris (talk) 02:53, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

This is an interesting conundrum. Both Mac OS and History of Mac OS have sections within them that mention Mac OS X/OS X/macOS and link to the corresponding main articles. The bottom of History of Mac OS also has a "timeline of Macintosh operating systems" that encompasses both.

Now, this article is not particularly well organized, either. Very little of it pertains to the Classic Mac OS, while the rest has to do with OS X, MFS/HFS and resource forks, the transition to Intel processors, 68k/PowerPC Macintosh emulators, Macintosh clones, OSx86, and other OS projects by Apple.

I think it would be possible to combine this article together with History of Mac OS into one article called Classic Mac OS, which I think is an acceptable common name for the operating system we're talking about.

What, then, to do with "Mac OS"? I think it would be acceptable to redirect "Mac OS" to "macOS", with a message at the top:

"Mac OS" redirects here. For the classic Macintosh operating system (1984–2001), see Classic Mac OS.

I discovered there's already a page called List of Apple operating systems. It might be worth it to rename that page to Apple operating systems and then flesh it out using the leftover content of this page, turning it into a broad overview of everything in Template:Apple Inc. operating systems, beginning with Apple I/II/III/Lisa and going all the way to macOS/iOS/watchOS/tvOS. It would be analogous to the Microsoft Windows page.

This would be a pretty significant undertaking. What do you think? —Samvscat (talk) 00:25, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

UPDATE 1: In the interest of WP:BOLD, I have created a new page that combines Mac OS and History of Mac OS into one article, which will be named "Classic Mac OS". Please see the proposal at Talk:Mac OS/Classic Mac OS and let me know what you think.

The only information that did not make it into either article is here: Talk:Mac OS/Mac OS on non-Apple-labeled computers. Most of this information is already covered in the macOS article, albeit written a little differently.

Note: Guy Harris, I am particularly interested in your thoughts since you seem to be the de facto curator. —Samvscat (talk) 07:51, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure I deserve credit for being a curator, but...

Talk:Mac OS/Classic Mac OS looks really good as a future Classic Mac OS page.

Once that happens, making Mac OS a redirect to macOS, with the appropriate hatnote, seems OK, although, before that's done:

1. links to Mac OS that are really just referring to the classic Mac system software should be fixed to go to Classic Mac OS;
2. links that are really referring to all the mainstream OSes for the Mac should perhaps have the text rewritten to distinguish between the classic Mac system software and Apple's main UNIX for Macs, linking to Classic Mac OS in the part that talks about the former and to macOS in the part that talks about the latter;

so that references to the classic Mac system software don't end up pointing to the page for Apple's current UNIX-for-Macs instead.

(I've changed a couple of articles to do that already.)

Your proposed "Apple operating systems" page also makes sense to me. Guy Harris (talk) 08:16, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. I will do a sweep of "what links here" sometime later today and see if I can pick up any others whose links might need to be changed or clarified. Related to that, I'm also cleaning up some of the templates that have to do with Mac OS/Apple OSes.

Once that is done, I will go ahead and make the WP:BOLD move soon-ish unless there is strong objection to it happening.

I think by making the "Operating systems by Apple Inc." template robust enough—as I just did—it will obviate the need for an article covering them all, unless someone else wants to take on that task. —Samvscat (talk) 10:40, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Fine to have a "Classic MacOS" page, but note the old one may have links from outside of Wikipedia.. (similar issue to, Power/PowerPC page merge elsewhere..) comp.arch (talk) 17:25, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

That is a good point. We will make sure the hatnote at the very top of macOS will point anyone looking for Classic Mac OS in the right direction, per Wikipedia guidelines on not creating a disambiguation page when there are only two major outcomes. —Samvscat (talk) 20:37, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

I am sorry, but this is a mess. It would have been enough to simply rename Mac OS → Classic Mac OS and incorporate History of Mac OS into it. Instead you created another article and redirected two articles, one with an existing talk page (this one). This is a major change and not at all uncontentious and I do have some reservations on History of Mac OS as well as redirecting Mac OS to OS X. Why all the rush all the time?–Totie (talk) 19:11, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

With all due respect, the state of the previous Mac OS article was a mess, and I took action to try to make it better because no one else had stepped up to the plate after a month passing by from the original suggestion being made. Let me describe the thought process so hopefully you do not feel it was a rush job that wasn't thought out with care. Note that I did not create a brand new article; it was a rename.

I knew that both Mac OS and History of Mac OS had long histories of edits and talk/discussion, which made the choice of which one to use as the basis a little difficult. (Note: Is it feasible and/or desirable to merge the edit or talk history?) However, the majority of the content that pertained to the classic Mac OS was already in the History of Mac OS article—so I fleshed out that article, added the rest of the content carried over from Mac OS, helped rewrite and organize it, and renamed it Classic Mac OS.

At that point, the remaining content in Mac OS had to do with the current macOS, so I made sure it was all covered there. The one remaining choice was where to redirect Mac OS. I looked over Wikipedia's disambiguation guidelines, asked myself "What is the primary meaning of this term, now?", noted that the lead and infobox in Mac OS referred to the current macOS, and so I chose macOS as the destination. I imagined a user searching for "mac os" with or without the space in the middle would be better served going to the same place: the article about the current Mac operating system with a hatnote referring to the classic one. I think a redirect discussion would be warranted if you'd like to start one.

I hope this makes sense; thanks for reaching out. —Samvscat (talk) 08:10, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

The rationale for choosing the primary topic seems sound to me. Dresken (talk) 08:52, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

UPDATE 2: This is a WP:BOLD action. Following a discussion (immediately above), this page's content was merged with effort and care into "History of Mac OS", which is now Classic Mac OS. The term "Mac OS" will now redirect to macOS.

I understand that the common response to bold actions is an undo/revert, but I encourage you to take a look at the discussion above and read the new Classic Mac OS article, which has been greatly improved from the old article on this page, which was a hodgepodge of items that were added over the years and was never truly organized from the top down. Now it has been thought out and considered as a coherent whole.

There is a hatnote at the top of both macOS and Classic Mac OS that will point readers to the other page, per Wikipedia guidelines on not creating a disambiguation page when there are only two major outcomes. I will continue looking for pages that link to Mac OS that should instead link to Classic Mac OS now, and I encourage you to do the same.

If you have any suggestions for improvement, please discuss here or just do it! Thank you. —Samvscat (talk) 20:37, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Great work, well done. I fixed a incoming link to show my support. Dresken (talk) 06:50, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

I am not persuaded that Mac OS should be redirected to OS X. In my opinion, we should keep Mac OS for "classic" Mac OS and use a hat-note to refer to macOS.–Totie (talk) 19:13, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

Thank you, Dresken, I appreciate it. Please see my comment above, Totie. —Samvscat (talk) 08:10, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

UPDATE 3: I see Mac OS is now a disambiguation page. In some ways, that makes sense: the previous version of this article did not know what it wanted to be. Was it the place for information about the current system, the old system, or all Mac-related OSes? The answer: all of the above. Incoming links to this page—many of them still out there—were targeting any one of those things. I still think a redirect and hatnote would be sufficient, but I think it's up for debate which destination is more relevant:

• You could very well argue the majority of incoming links here might have meant to refer to the classic Mac OS, so that's where it should redirect. (Also note that many references to the classic Mac OS specifically were already linking to History of Mac OS, which was renamed last week to become the Classic Mac OS article.)
• On the other hand, let's face it: "Mac OS" and "macOS" are the same name. It is purely a stylistic difference. The current macOS is infinitely more relevant to people today than a system of 15-30 years ago, and the infobox/lead of the previous article primarily referred to the current macOS, so that's where it should redirect.
• Finally, as I floated previously, maybe there should be an article that's a brief overview of Apple's Mac-related OSes. But if there is, the name of that page needs to be something other than "Mac OS". Perhaps "Mac OS family" or "Apple operating systems"? It's way too confusing to have "Mac OS" and "macOS"—the same name—be separate articles.

I don't know if there's a correct answer to that conundrum, but it's an interesting thought. The previous content of this article, and the intent of the incoming links to it, were all over the place. In many respects, this has been a problem all along. It was only exacerbated by Apple's rebranding of "OS X" to "macOS": with Apple making the name of its new system the same as its old system, now we are forced to do something about it. —Samvscat (talk) 17:17, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

You can expect a bot to slap an {{Incoming links}} tag on the new dab page shortly. You have the choice of either:

1. Disambiguating 1800+ links
2. Making one of the two the primary topic, with a hatnote to the other
3. Restoring an earlier version of the page, as a broad-concept article about all Mac operating systems, past and present, and their variant MOS:TM names (with a space, without a space, capital "M" or lower case "m", with a version number "X" or not...

Hmm, Macintosh operating system and Macintosh operating systems. Template:Timeline of Macintosh operating systems is a timeline for which we have no single corresponding article. That's transcluded in both History of macOS and Classic Mac OS. It does show there was an overlap between "classic" and "X" between 1999 and 2002, so they really are two different operating systems. I recall the massive number of link changes I made to implement this RM just five months ago. So I was a little disheartened to just see this new RM. Hopefully we don't go to all the effort of changing links from Mac OS → Classic Mac OS, only to see Apple come out with a new version in a few months, that they decide to call OSmac. – wbm1058 (talk) 18:08, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

"Disambiguating 1800+ links" is definitely a pain - I first tried fixing all the links to Mac OS, then said "what about just doing the non-video game links and letting Somebody Else(TM) handle them", then said "what about just picking what look like the "most important" non-video game links", then said "even that's a huge task". That's probably going to have to be a group effort - and is a necessary cleanup if Mac OS either redirects to macOS or is a disambiguation page.

"Making one of the two the primary topic, with a hatnote to the other" is going to leave a significant number of Mac OS links going to the wrong place, no matter which is made the primary topic - a lot of Mac OS references in the articles I fixed thought it was talking about either 1) the classic OS or 2) both families of OS, and a number of them even thought it meant Mac OS X/OS X/macOS.

"a broad-concept article about all Mac operating systems, past and present" would, I guess, work, although if it's truly about all Mac operating systems (presumably "from Apple"), "Mac OS" would be the wrong name. In some articles that I cleaned up, Mac OS was being used in that fashion, which I fixed to separately mention classic Mac OS and macOS; as I remember, a lot of those tended to deal with UI topics common to both OSes, such as "option+FFF gets you the XXX character" and the like, so that might be what an article covering both classic Mac OS and macOS would cover. (It certainly wouldn't cover the code base, or the architecture, or how to program for it, as they're completely different in that regard, with the exception of using the original version of Carbon for both.)

And even if Apple marketing were to get bored and rename the OS again, that wouldn't affect the effort of changing links from Mac OS to something else, as presumably "macOS" would become a redirect to "OSmac", and all we'd need to do would be to get rid of double redirects (assuming some bot doesn't just do that before us). Guy Harris (talk) 18:40, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

You nailed it and underlined my observation: incoming links to Mac OS were not at all consistent; they could be targeting the classic OS, the current OS, both, or all Mac-related operating systems.

For what it's worth, in addition to the timeline of Macintosh operating systems, there's also a template that encompasses all Macintosh operating systems — so, I could potentially see the utility of a "main article" for these items that covers the whole group: a brief introduction to the common/shared elements of these systems, followed by brief sections (roughly organized the same way as the template) for 1. Classic Mac OS, 2. Mac OS X/OS X/macOS, 3. Other projects.

This could also serve as a more coherent "main article" for Macintosh#Software that doesn't go off the rails into details that belong in other articles.

If that were to happen, I'd recommend a couple of things: keep it very lean (do not duplicate the macOS infobox or top section); and write it here at this article (Mac OS) and then propose to move + redirect this article to a final name such as "Macintosh operating systems" or "Mac OS family".

Thoughts? Needed or not? –Samvscat (talk) 19:21, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

As I've said elsewhere, there isn't a thing that is "Mac OS". There are two things, the classic Mac OS and macOS, and their pages have infoboxes describing them; an infobox trying to describe both of them would either have to give, for many of its parameters, a string giving two items, one for the classic Mac OS and one for macOS, or omit those parameters as you can't, for example, say what platforms "MacOS" supported/supports (classic Mac OS never supported x86 except in the unreleased Star Trek; macOS never supported 68k).

Furthermore, the intent is that this page describe OSes from Apple for Mac other than those that had the string "Mac OS" in their names at some point in their history, which makes it even harder to describe the topics of this page in a single {{Infobox OS}} template invocation.Guy Harris (talk) 07:22, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

I was on the fence about that, too. I followed the example from the Unix article, which tried to do a similarly impossible task and thus left out any specific information about latest releases. If the infobox goes, it might be nice to keep the screenshot of the original Macintosh system software as an illustration of the GUI concept that ties together most of these systems. —Samvscat (talk) 07:54, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

I tried implementing this and I think it's better now. Thanks for suggesting this. —Samvscat (talk) 08:29, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

the related systems section was last updated in 2015. some research should be done, maybe add AudioOS or whatever — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chriscush765 (talk • contribs) 18:49, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

It occured to me that there are other various OSes out there that run on Macintosh hardware that weren't developed by Apple. The example that immediately comes to mind is Be OS by Be Inc., but I'm sure there were others as well. This would be a very small section towards the end of the article. Would this make sense to add to this article? - Paul^T+/_C 16:41, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

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• Screenshot mac os 9.0.4.png

You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 11:51, 16 May 2025 (UTC)