20 years ago, Apple presented the future: Mac OS X

We brought this article from more than a decade ago to celebrate the anniversary of the launch of macOS X.

Since March 24, 2001, Apple has launched Mac OS X, despite the fact that all versions of this operating system have maintained a certain uniformity in concept, their boxes have changed quite a lot from one version to another.

The first version of Mac OS X, "Cheetah" became famous for its "Aqua" interface, with a design that resembled bubbles (or jellies, as you prefer) to such an extent that Steve Jobs said he "wanted to lick it."

Mac OS X came before the first iPod and was a hint of what Apple had in store under the leadership of Steve Jobs.

Mac OS X was unveiled at Apple's January 2000 conference to kick off the Macworld Expo. Steve Jobs said at the time that Mac OS X "would delight consumers with its simplicity and surprise users with its power." He also added that it was the "most important software" Apple had made from the original Macintosh operating system released in 1984.

The Aqua interface also introduced the Dock, the lower taskbar that allowed quick access to applications, folders and documents, as well as the redesign of the Finder, taking advantage of the UNIX fundamentals that provided the foundation on which the system was built. operating.

Other distinguishing features introduced by Mac OS X were advanced power management, which allowed iBooks and PowerBooks to come out of sleep immediately, dynamic memory management, and the Quartz 2D graphics engine which enabled animations and graphics that populated the gaming experience. user, as well as improving font support.

The first version of Mac OS X included QuickTime 5, iMovie 2, iTunes and AppleWorks (Apple's productivity software at the time).

The new software was based on Apple's Darwin kernel and included compatibility with many Mac OS applications, although the developers had to make some changes to adapt their applications, so Apple decided to launch - for the first time in its history. - a public beta for one year to allow developers and users to get used to and adapt to changes.

At the time of its launch, Mac OS X cost € 161 (if we remember correctly), and at that time Apple was charging for each new version. Over the years, prices have dropped - Snow Leopard cost $ 29, and Apple stopped charging for OS updates (as well as removing serial numbers for registration) in 2013.

The launch of Mac OS X, despite being in public beta for a year, hasn't been particularly favorable. It had stability issues that Apple had to fix, so six months later it released Mac OS X 10.1 "Puma", and from there it continued to roll out new annual versions of the operating system (a practice that hasn't changed to this day).

In 2012, Mac OS X became OS X, with the launch of Mountain Lion, an operating system that has honed graphics to the bare minimum and definitively abandoned realistic representations (which were favored by division director Scott Forstall). OS X Mountain Lion was released alongside iOS 7, which ranks as one of the most significant design advances in iPhone operating system design history.

In 2013, Apple ditched the feline names that had driven each version in favor of California area names, calling its operating system Mavericks.

The last significant change for OS X occurred in 2016 when Apple ditched X and introduced it as macOS 10.12 Sierra, so that macOS would have a better match with iOS. Since then every year there has been a new version of macOS, up to the current one, macOS Big Sur, which has already kicked off the macOS 11 nomenclature.

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This is the story of these boxes and how they changed in the first 8 years.

We connected Time Machine and went back to see what the different Mac OS X presentations looked like.

Mac OS X 10.1

Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar

Mac OS X 10.3 Panther

Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger

Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard

The next version of the operating system, Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, no longer had a physical box and could only be downloaded via the Internet.

The header photo: left to right: Mac OS X 10.0 Public Beta, Mac OS X 10.0, Mac OS X 10.1 Update, Mac OS X 10.2, Mac OS X 10.3, Mac OS X 10.4 and Mac OS X 10.5. photo joewhk

Article originally published March 24, 2009