Wednesday, February 24, 2016

The Apple OS Map

In 2013 Apple switched from naming its operating systems (OS) after large cats to California landmarks. The company trademarked numerous California place names. Here is a map I created showing places that could end up as future OS names.
For better resolution click the image above.

Map Notes: I came across several trademark lists while researching the El Capitan OS before purchasing a new MacBook. Some of the place names are ambiguous. For example, Miramar could refer to a beach on Half Moon Bay south of San Francisco, or to a neighborhood of San Diego. Other names such as Mojave or Sierra refer to very large areas. I placed the points as best as I could.

The color scheme is generally monochrome in parallel with much of Apple's corporate branding. I could have gone more minimalist by removing the parks and forests but I liked those details. I used Apple's San Francisco typeface adopted to publicize El Capitan.

Mavericks and Yosemite were not included because they are previous, not "future" OS's. Also both are in busy areas of the map so it was less cluttered to leave them off.

Technical Notes: This map was done as an exercise in learning some open source software packages, notably Mapbox.  I created a base map in Mapbox Studio using Apple's logo to mark the locations. The basemap can be opened with this link. I took a couple of screen shots from the basemap and did a bit of manipulation using Paintbrush. Inkscape was used for the apple icons. The final layout was done using Keynote. I probably could have found a good free and open source (FOSS) package to do this with but since I have a MacBook, Keynote is readily available.

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