Today it’s been 20 years since Mac OS X was first launched

On March 24, 2001, a Saturday, Apple began allowing customers to purchase Mac OS X, the successor to the classic Mac OS. The first version of Mac OS X, “Cheetah”, was famous for its “Aqua” interface with a water bubble style design for everything from windows to buttons.

Today, March 24, 2021, marks 20 years since Mac OS X went on sale, and Apple’s Mac software has undergone many changes over the past two decades, but it was with Mac OS X that Apple had one of the first steps in transforming a company on the brink of failure into one of the most successful companies in the world. Mac OS X preceded the launch of the first iPod and announced what was reserved under Jobs’ leadership.

Mac OS X was presented at Apple’s January 2000 presentation at the Macworld Expo. Steve Jobs said at the time that Mac OS X would “delight consumers with its simplicity and surprise professionals with its power”. He also said it was Apple’s “most important software” since the original 1984 Macintosh operating system.

The Aqua interface introduced the now-known Dock for easy access to applications and documents, as well as including the redesigned Apple Finder for file management. And, of course, Aqua was best known for its iconic look, which included translucent buttons and scroll bars.

Other features include advanced power management to allow iBooks and PowerBooks to fall asleep instantly, dynamic memory management and Apple’s 2D Quartz graphics engine for “stunning graphics” and broader font support. It came with QuickTime 5, iMovie 2, iTunes and AppleWorks (Apple’s productivity software at the time).

The new software, which was built on the core of Apple’s “Darwin” operating system, had support for many existing Mac OS applications, but developers were forced to “tweak” their applications, so Apple ended up releasing it over a 12-month beta period before putting it up for sale.

At launch, Mac OS X was priced at $ 129, and its launch came at a time when Apple was still charging Mac users for updates. Mac updates have become cheaper over the years and Apple finally stopped charging for them in 2013.

Mac OS X’s debut was far from perfect and had some major stability issues that Apple needed to address. Apple followed up with Mac OS X 10.1 “Puma” just six months later and has since continued to iterate over the original 2001 release.

Mac OS X became OS X in 2012 with the release of Mountain Lion, an operating system that introduced a more minimalist design that transitioned from the schematic designs that Apple used under the leadership of Scott Forstall. OS X Mountain Lion came with iOS 7, which is known to be one of the biggest design revisions of the iPhone’s operating system.

Apple introduced another major name makeover in 2013 with the release of OS X Mavericks, the first version of Mac OS X that did not get the name of a big cat. Apple used big cats from Mac OS X 10.0 (Cheetah) to 10.8 (Mountain Lion).

The last significant change came in 2016, when Apple abandoned X and introduced macOS 10.12 Sierra, with the name macOS destined to better match iOS. We had several versions of macOS, culminating in the current release version of the software, macOS Big Sur.

MacOS Big Sur brought Apple’s biggest design update to macOS since the days of Mac OS X, revamping everything from the curvature of the window corners to colors and icon designs. Apple designed it to look new and familiar at the same time, including less intrusive menu bars, a more translucent dock, a uniform squirrel shape for app icons, and completely revamped system sounds.

The update also renewed the Notification Center to add quick access buttons to the Control Center, in addition to important updates for Safari, Messages, Photos, Maps and more, with details available in our summary. At the end of this year, we expect to see macOS 12, and while it probably isn’t the design overhaul that Big Sur was, Apple probably has useful new features in store.