There's a lot of speculation about the as-yet-unannounced Mac OS X 10.4, which, if history is any indication, will probably first meet the public at WWDC in June. In addition to the few official tidbits Apple has already told us about the next release (such as the planned inclusion of Spoken Interface), there are all sorts of wild and not-so-wild rumors about what's going to wind up in the mix. Insane levels of G5-specific optimization? Built-in transparent compatibility with off-the-shelf Windows apps? The ability to cook hot dogs and toast their buns at the same time? Hey, whatever-- all we know is, that stuff pales in comparison to the one really important issue-- the one central to the entire Mac experience: which big cat will 10.4 be named after?

Now, we've gotten tips on the subject from folks who claim to be in the know, but we always like to wait until we can point at someone else's report as a source, just so we have someone to blame if everything falls to pieces. So now that MacRumors reports that Apple has chosen a feline moniker (and cites MacMagazine as its source-- here's a BabelFish auto-translation for the Portuguese-impaired), we can relax comfortably in a cloud of unaccountability when we say that a couple of anonymous sources told us the same name last week. Of course, we're not sure that adds any believability, since three anonymous sources told us that 10.4 would be named "Garfield." (Big cat, get it? Big... cat... oh, never mind.)

Regardless, without further ado, alduce us to introlow Apple's next major operating system release: Mac OS X 10.4, aka... TIGER.

Yes, Tiger. Which isn't actually much of a surprise, since we all knew that Apple registered Tiger as a trademark along with Cougar, Leopard, and Lynx last year, so it was pretty much a toss-up between those four. Personally, we were rooting for Cougar, because then we'd have a good excuse to broadcast iTMS links to "Pink Houses"-- but actually, we've just discovered that the iTMS's entire selection of early-'80s J.C. [Mellencamp] is sorely lacking (no "Jack and Diane"? No "Hurts So Good"? Philistines!), so Tiger's fine with us now. Although we do wish that Apple's original plan to call the release "Tigger" could have come to fruition, but with the whole Eisner-Disney flap, well, you know.

So start getting used to it now, folks, because you know that otherwise it's going to be just like writing the wrong year on all your checks from January through March (or, if you're as absent-minded as we are, September... of two years later). We recommend that you repeat the question "So have you upgraded to 'Tiger' yet?" out loud six or eight thousand times until it stops sounding weird. And if Steve struts out on stage in June and introduces Mac OS X Leopard instead, well, you'll be sorta boned... but hey, isn't it worth the risk?