Apple is ‘formally’ working on next year’s OS updates: Here are the code names

At WWDC24 last month, Apple revealed the new features to its operating systems that will ship later this fall. However, technology is always about moving forward and as Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports, Apple has “formally begun work on 2025’s major operating systems,” even before the OSes that the company just revealed haven’t shipped yet.

Gurman states that the OSes that Apple is working on have the following code names:

• iOS 19/iPadOS 19: Luck
• macOS 16: Cheer
• watchOS 12: Nepali
• visionOS 3: Discovery

(Notably missing from the list is tvOS 19, but that doesn’t mean that Apple isn’t working on it. It likely means Gurman didn’t find out that code name.)

Sometimes code names have a hidden meaning. For example, Mac OS System 7.5 was code-named Capone (presumably referring to gangster Al Capone) in response to the code name for Windows 95, which was Chicago. And often, companies pick a theme for their code names, such as colors, historical places, or countries. But Apple’s code names for next year’s OSes seem random.

But then again maybe not Apple will likely expand on Apple Intelligence features, so maybe there’s an AI connection with “Luck” and “Cheer”–they’ll work so well that you’ll cheer each time you use them, and you’ll feel lucky to have them!  Discovery, well, that could mean a lot of things. Maybe Apple is going to do a big deal with the Discovery channel to make their content a major part of visionOS—or maybe it’ll have a bunch of features that’ll make you feel like you’re an astronaut!

Nepali for watchOS 12 is interesting because it’s been reported that Apple uses the names of beaches for its watchOS code names. Lighthouse was the code name for watchOS 10 and there are Lighthouse beaches in California and Florida. watchOS 11’s code name was Moonstone, and there are a few beaches with the same name. I haven’t been able to find a beach named Napali, but there’s Napili Beach in Hawaii, though Apple could be referring to Ngapali (pronounced “Napally”) Beach in Myanmar.

In all seriousness, we just don’t know what or even if there’s any meaning behind these code names. Tying them thematically to their features seems like a possibility, but as Gurman notes, “It’s far too early to tell what the actual features will be.” We’ll just have to wait until June 2025 to find out.