Meet Catalina: Apple's newest MacOS

At Monday's keynote address at WWDC, Apple revealed the next name of its Mac operating system.

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Shelby Brown (she/her/hers) is an editor for CNET's services team. She covers tips and tricks for apps, operating systems and devices, as well as mobile gaming and Apple Arcade news. Shelby also oversees Tech Tips coverage. Before joining CNET, she covered app news for Download.com and served as a freelancer for Louisville.com.

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Shelby Brown

June 3, 2019 12:46 p.m. PT

2 min read

Apple unveiled the new name of its MacOS Monday at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference held at the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose, California. According to Craig Federighi, senior vice president of software engineering, the new OS is called Catalina.

Catalina takes a turn from Apple's last few years of naming patterns. MacOS Mojave began a California geographical feature streak and ended what Apple's senior vice president of software engineering called a "four-year mountain bender." Before the mountain names, Apple was fond of big cats.

Here's the last 10 MacOS names:

MacOS 10.14: Mojave- 2018
MacOS 10.13: High Sierra- 2017
MacOS 10.12: Sierra- 2016
OS X 10.11: El Capitan- 2015
OS X 10.10: Yosemite-2014
OS X 10.9 Mavericks-2013
OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion - 2012
OS X 10.7 Lion- 2011
OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard - 2009
OS X 10.5 Leopard- 2007

In Catalina, users will see that Apple is replacing iTunes with its popular entertainment apps — Apple Music, Apple Podcasts and the Apple TV app. The new OS will also include the new Sidecar and security features. MacOS Catalina also gets security improvements to keep hackers at bay.

"Users will appreciate how they can expand their workspace with Sidecar, enabling new ways of interacting with Mac apps using iPad and Apple Pencil. And with new developer technologies, users will see more great third-party apps arrive on the Mac this fall," Federighi said in a release.

Catalina's beta releases Monday. The public seed goes live in July and it will be available to everyone in the fall.

Apple has more different operating systems than ever before. There's iOS for iPhones and iPads , MacOS for its computers, tvOS for Apple TV and watchOS for the Apple Watch. Then there's Apple Pay , iTunes, Apple Music , the App Store, iCloud, HomeKit and various other apps and services. It's critical that Apple make a strong impression at WWDC with the next versions of its software.

Shara Tibken contributed to this report. Follow our WWDC liveblog, and see all of today's Apple news.

Originally published June 3, 11:45 a.m. PT.
Updates, 12 p.m.: Adds background on previous MacOS; 12:44 p.m.: Includes more details; June 8: Adds more details.