macOS 11 Won’t Be Coming Soon

We might have just been giving a glimpse at Apple’s upcoming macOS upgrade — and the evidence suggests it could be called macOS 10.13 instead of macOS 11.

The first possible public sign of the new macOS update was first discovered by Pike’s Universum, an Apple blog focused on the Mac platform. Specifically, the clue is an App Store CatalogURL hosted on Apple’s servers that contains the phrase “10.13seed.”

When followed, the URL leads to a text file that contains a list of downloads. While the link is probably used by Apple engineers working on the macOS upgrade, the contents of the text file reveal little about macOS 10.13 as of now.

Notably, this clue seems to point toward the fact that that this year’s update will be an incremental one, and we won’t see a jump to macOS 11. Of course, as Apple could switch the update’s version name at any time, that could certainly change between now and the final release.

Beyond the macOS 10.13 / macOS 11 distinction, we’re still not sure exactly what the next version of the operating system will be called. Starting with Mavericks in 2013, Apple has taken to naming its operating system updates after cities, locales and landmarks in its home state of California. Names that have been discovered in Apple trademark filings, but have not yet been used by the company, include Big Sur, Mammoth, Miramar, Monterey, Mojave, Redwood, Rincon, Shasta, Skyline, Sonoma and Sequoia, according to MacRumors.

Apple is expected to unveil the new macOS update at this year’s Worldwide Developer Conference, slated to take place in early June in San Jose, California. Historically, Cupertino has released preview versions of new macOS upgrades to developers at WWDC. A final version of macOS 10.13 is likely to be publicly released sometime this fall.

[The information provided in this article has NOT been confirmed by Apple and may be speculation. Provided details may not be factual. Take all rumors, tech or otherwise, with a grain of salt.]