I recently read that Apple (formerly Apple Computer) has filed for a trademark for OS X along side its current trademark for Mac OS X™. This is just another step in a methodical move away from the computer industry into the main stream of consumer electronics. Apple no longer sees them as a Computer Hardware or computer software company but as a consumer electronics and media company. Apple did the same thing with our beloved iTunes Music Store once it started selling Movies and Applications. Apple has the ability to come out with something completely new and convince you that it is just the evolution of something you already know and love.
Look at the iPod Touch. It has very little in common with its forbearers other than the name iPod and the fact that it has a headphone jack. Apple has keenly put this in the product line so now you have to decide between the $79 iPod and the $399 iPod. They are all iPods, right.
The trademark for OS X would probably be used for the family of products that run the same code base originally known as NeXT. This would mean that Mac OS X would be the version that we run on our desktops. But there may be a different OS X for your AppleTV, your iPod, and for your Apple Netbook.
I’m going to have to disagree with you on your last point. One thing that AAPL (that’s one name that WON’T change anytime soon!) have learned by watching Microsoft, is that you can’t mess with your core OS. It’s what let them switch virtually overnight from PPC to Intel, and it’s the fact that it’s the same OS at the core of the TV, the iPod, and the Mac, that gives them the power to innovate these suckers at the rate they do.
Apple already changed their branding for their OS. We used to call it System 7. Later it became Mac OS 8.
-Douglas