It looks like Apple will continue to name versions of its macOS operating system after scenic areas in California, as it seems macOS 26 will carry the moniker “Tahoe.”
In his Power On newsletter over the weekend, Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman said that macOS 26 will be named macOS Tahoe, after California’s scenic Lake Tahoe.
Apple has named its Mac operating systems after scenic locations in California since OS X Mavericks in 2013. Other versions have been named (in no particular order) El Capitan, Sierra, High Sierra, Mojave, Catalina, Big Sur, Yosemite, Monterey, Sonoma, and Sequoia.
Apple previous named its Mac operating systems after big cats like Cheetah, Tiger, Leopard, and Lion.
Lake Tahoe is a freshwater lake in the Sierra Nevada of the Western United States, straddling the border between California and Nevada. The lake is known for its reflective waters, which Gurman said that would align with macOS 26’s rumored glass-like design with more translucent windows, buttons, and icons.
Apple is expected to unveil macOS 26 alongside iOS 26, iPadOS 26, watchOS 26, tvOS 26, and visionOS 26 at its WWDC 2025 keynote, which kicks off on Monday, June 9 at 10 a.m. Pacific Time.
(Image Credit: Lara Farhadi, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
