Filed under: Rumors, Flickr Find
Flickr Find: WebKit references Mac OS X 10.6
WebKit, the open source foundation that many Mac apps use to draw HTML, seems to be preparing for some kind of operating system update in the near future. Intrepid Flickr user factoryjoe posted an image of a screenshot showing a recent WebKit nightly build. In the Frameworks folder inside the application package, there's an alias named "10.6." The alias points to the "10.5" folder immediately above it.
What could this mean? Most likely, there's a new release of the operating system on the horizon, and WebKit developers are ready to get cracking on it. The fact that the file is a symbolic link and not an actual folder could suggest that development is either very early on at this point, or web services for the next Mac OS X are very similar to Leopard's.
Thanks, Chris!

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Luigi193 said 8:48AM on 6-03-2008
Web services are probably very similar to leopard now, but will probably change as time goes by...
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tukan said 8:52AM on 6-03-2008
I very much doubt that apple is going to release 10.6 within 'the near future', but I'm certainly looking forward to it :P
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lurch_mojoff said 9:35AM on 6-03-2008
I thought the common wisdom was that 10.6 is coming between 18 and 24 months of Leopard's release. That would mean that right about now is exactly the point, at which the code will start diverging (i.e. actual development will begin).
Tom said 9:05AM on 6-03-2008
Chris Messina boosts his popularity once again by digging through files and providing nothing of value
and I say this as a person that once considered Messina a friend, but he did not reciprocate.
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DJCarbon43 said 12:35PM on 6-03-2008
Well at least you have a few million other friends tom. ...
h said 1:33PM on 11-18-2008
Myspace can do that, yes.
jon said 9:06AM on 6-03-2008
I'd imagine Apple started working on 10.6 almost as soon as Leopard was released, and somebody needed Webkit built for it so that they could work on something web related.
As tukan pointed out, you probably shouldn't start queueing up outside Apple stores to get your copy of the latest Mac OS X just yet.
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Topslakr said 10:04AM on 6-03-2008
So, let me get this straight. You are suggesting that Apple may still be working on an operating System? Do you mean to say that in the future something called 10.6 might be released? I would consider this an unfounded rumor.
Good to see Apple is plugging away. I wonder if something about the upcoming release will be mentioned at WWDC. The time between Tiger and Leopard was unusually long for OS X releases, perhaps they are shortening the gap once again...
Topslakr
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johnny poon said 10:31AM on 6-03-2008
I highly doubt that Apple would ever release a 10.6 version of their operating system. History doesn't support your claims. Since when have they ever improved the OS?
Sorry to be the one to say it folks, but we'll be stuck on 10.5 for all eternity.
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Caltonian said 10:43AM on 6-03-2008
I have it on good authority that 10.6 will include multiple improvements in the areas of networking, user interface, stability, and peripherals connectivity. There will also be surprise features that will not be announced until its release to prevent competitors from copying them.
You heard it here first!
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xja said 11:08AM on 6-03-2008
I reported this in an italian forum some time earlier http://www.macitynet.it/forum/showthread.php?t=62731&page=7 and this http://www.calmug.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1137
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Billifer said 5:55PM on 6-03-2008
I wouldn't read too much into it. When I was a kernel engineer with "another hardware/software vendor" we were working on, oh, version 10 before version 9 ever shipped out the door. It's common to start the next build cycle before the current one is even finished. You have one team that works on the current build, and when it's finished, they sustain it; another team works on the next build and spend those 18-24 months getting everything integrated before it ships.
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GadgetGav said 6:42PM on 6-03-2008
Zzzzz. Well, TUAW you've reminded me why I gave up reading this site, but like a fool I came back. Yesterday it was a story about moblieme about a day after everyone else was talking about it, today it's this.
Hmmm... will there be a version of the OS called 10.6 at some point in the future...? I wonder...
The only question is whether it will go to 10.10, 10.11 or what before it rolls over to 11.0
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