With WWDC26 just days away, the annual guessing game over California place-names that could become the new macOS name is in full swing. Various clues and speculation about macOS 27 suggest this year’s leading candidates are Big Bear and Emerald.
What will Apple call macOS 27?
Apple naming each major iteration of macOS after a California place — and rampant speculation about it ahead of time — became something of a ritual after Mac OS X Mavericks in 2013. Apple software honcho Craig Federighi‘s annual keynote bit about Apple’s “crack marketing team” dreaming up the moniker usually gets a laugh.
As usual, real clues are driving the guessing game this time around, ahead of the WWDC26 keynote on June 8.
A clue hiding in a filename
There’s a subtle hint in the #WWDC26 image. Is Apple teasing the next macOS name: Big Bear? pic.twitter.com/I675LbIZpH
— Andreas Storm (@avstorm) June 2, 2026
The Big Bear theory gained traction Tuesday when designer Andreas Storm posted to X.com, pointing out something curious. The image file Apple uses for its WWDC26 hashtag graphic on X — the small, emoji-style logo that appears alongside #WWDC26 — carries the filename Project_Big_Bear_2026_Hashmoji_only.png. A user posting on Reddit made a similar discovery independently around the same time.
Others confirmed the filename, and the detail has since lit up Apple-focused forums and social media. The popular attraction Big Bear Lake sits in Southern California’s San Bernardino Mountains, squarely within the California-location tradition Apple has maintained since OS X Mavericks. It would follow recent releases like Sonoma, Ventura and Tahoe in drawing from the Golden State’s geography.
But Apple has misdirected us before
Here’s the catch: Apple has a long history of burying misleading breadcrumbs in places exactly like this. The company is well aware that obsessive fans and journalists scrutinize every asset, filename and metadata tag for hints. A planted filename would be a straightforward — and very Apple — way to send the rumor mill in the wrong direction.
So while Big Bear may well be the name of the next Mac operating system, it’s at least equally plausible that it’s a deliberate distraction or simply unrelated.
Emerald: the thematic alternative
The other strong contender is Emerald — specifically a reference to Emerald Bay, a picturesque inlet on the southwestern shore of Lake Tahoe. MacRumors noted that this option carries an appealing narrative logic. Most people expect macOS 27 to be a polish-and-stability release built on the recent macOS Tahoe foundation.
Apple used related names for overlapping releases in the past. It would be similar to how macOS High Sierra essentially refined macOS Sierra following macOS Yosemite, named for a major Sierra Nevada national park.
The long list Apple may be drawing from
Neither Big Bear nor Emerald came out of nowhere. Apple’s use of Cali place-names goes back to a long list of California-themed trademark applications filed through shell companies many years ago. Many of those names — Yosemite, Sierra, Mojave, Monterey, Ventura, Sonoma, Sequoia — eventually became macOS releases.
Names from that list that haven’t been used yet include Condor, Diablo, Farallon, Grizzly, Mammoth, Miramar, Pacific, Redwood, Rincon, Shasta, Skyline and Tiburon, among others. All of these remain in play. Apple has never committed to exhausting the list in order, or to using the names at all.
We’ll find out next Monday during the WWDC26 keynote.
- See also: What to expect from iOS 27 at WWDC26
David Snow, an expert on Apple hardware and software, writes on a variety of technological and cultural topics for Cult of Mac. They include Apple news, technology buying guides, and features about computer setups and Apple TV shows and movies.
With 30 years of experience covering technology and other subjects, he has written and edited for numerous print and online publications, including CMP Media, TechTV.com, CNET, Wired News, Red Herring magazine, Law.com, The National Law Journal and Law Technology News magazine. Among other roles, he served as executive editor of the Law.com network of websites and editorial director, technology, for ALM Media.
Snow graduated with a B.A. from Syracuse University with majors in magazine journalism and psychology. While there, he worked as a reporter for The Daily Orange newspaper and associate editor of Equal Time magazine.
Founder of the blog At the Waterline, he can be reached on X (formerly Twitter) via @atthewaterline and on Mastodon via @dsnow.
