‘Apple is going to realign operating systems, skipping iOS 19’

Apple is reportedly planning to make major changes to the numbering of its operating systems.

iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS, visionOS: Apple has a plethora of operating systems, each serving a specific product.

And to be honest, it’s quite a mess. That’s because Apple assigns operating systems by its version number. As of writing, Apple handles iOS 18, iPadOS 18, macOS 15, watchOS 12, tvOS 18, and visionOS 2 for its products.

To end this confusion and bring consistency to the names of various operating systems, Apple is going to name them by year. Starting this year, we won’t get to see a new iPhone running ‘iOS 19’, but rather ‘iOS 26’.

This goes for the other operating systems as well. So before the end of the year, Apple will launch iPadOS 26, macOS 26, watchOS 26, tvOS 26, and visionOS 26. At least, that’s what sources have told Bloomberg.

Why Apple has decided to start numbering its operating systems with the number ‘26’ is unclear. It’s striking because a lot of new Apple devices are launched in September, meaning they would still be released in 2025. Therefore, adding the number ‘25’ to the name of the operating system would make more sense.

Allegedly, the major overhaul to the naming and numbering of operating systems will be announced on June 9, during Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). An Apple spokesperson declined to comment on the report to Bloomberg.

During the WWDC event, we expect Apple to announce that it will be opening up its AI models to third-party developers, meaning that developers will be able to take advantage of on-device AI processing without having to integrate a full large language model (LLM) or other AI model into their app.