Mein Gott! Apple OS’s Named After German Tanks?
For anyone that has been following the string of Apple OS names the compulsion for big cats is puzzling - Cheetah, Puma, Jaguar, Panther, Tiger, and Leopard. Sure, maybe Steve Jobs just has an unhealthy love of whiskers. Or perhaps, Apple has been naming their operating system after German armored vehicles. From blog-for-a-homepage:
But why does Mac OS X and german tank models share the same naming convention and other similarities? Could it be something having to do with the shared, well deserved, feeling of being the best in engineering on the respective fields? Maybe the tendency of both parties to respond well to strong leadership? The desire for total control over the different territories and the need to enforce this with great tanks, well organized armies, DRM and operating systems locked to run on specific hardware?
Of course, the naming could be a run-down of a clone-maker’s product line that was conveniently crushed back in 1997. Somehow Steve Job’s rubbing a former competitor’s nose in trademarked spoils seems a tad more scandalous than the German tank bit. However, how often do we get to use the phrase ‘Mein Gott’ in a post title?







March 12th, 2007 at 12:54 pm
“However, how often do we get to use the phrase ‘Mein Gott’ in a post title?” - heh, true.
“Sure, maybe Steve Jobs just has an unhealthy love of whiskers.” - Lets start a new (hopefully false) rumour on digg.com that his Steveness is a furrie. That should rattle things up a bit
Thanks for quoting my blog - and nice picture