Mac OS X 10.0, codenamed "Cheetah", is the first major release of Apple's Mac OS X (now macOS) operating system. Released on March 24, 2001, it served as a successor to Mac OS 9 and the classic Mac OS as a whole.
Mac OS X introduced major changes to the Mac OS architecture and user interface; it adopted a new Unix-like architecture derived from elements of BSD and NeXTSTEP, which are intended to improve the operating system's stability and multitasking capabilities in comparison to the classic Mac OS. It incorporates a new graphical user interface known as "Aqua", which features increased use of transparency and animation effects, and a new application launcher known as the Dock. Mac OS X uses two main frameworks for applications, including Carbon, an updated version of the original Mac OS APIs, and Cocoa, an object-oriented infrastructure based on that of NeXTSTEP.
Development
NeXT acquisition, Rhapsody
After the collapse of several other attempts to build a modernized replacement for the aging classic Mac OS (including the ill-fated Copland project), Apple Computer CEO Gil Amelio elected to pursue acquiring another operating system vendor to leverage their existing technology instead. The search was narrowed down to two companies both founded by Apple alumni: Jean-Louis Gassée's Be Inc., and Steve Jobs' NeXT. On December 20, 1996, Apple announced that it would acquire NeXT for $400 million; as part of the acquisition, Apple planned to use the NeXTSTEP operating system and its Mach kernel as the basis for a future release of Mac OS, and announced that Steve Jobs would return to the company in a consulting role.
At its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in May 1997, Apple first demonstrated the Rhapsody project—which combined the NeXTSTEP architecture with adaptations of key Mac OS technologies such as AppleScript, Apple events, and QuickTime, and an user interface incorporating elements of Mac OS (including Mac OS 8's new "Platinum" theme); the company promoted that the new platform would be more stable and reliable than the existing Mac OS, while Jobs stated that the object-oriented OpenStep APIs (which would be referred to as the "Yellow Box") would make it faster and easier for developers to write software, and provide opportunities for cross-platform applications that could be ported to Windows (as well as the possibility of the OS also being available for Intel compatible systems). Apple planned to support the classic Mac OS for a period of time in parallel with Rhapsody, while also providing a compatibility environment known as the "Blue Box" to run most existing software via an emulated Mac OS.
Rhapsody was met with hesitation from third-party developers such as Adobe, who did not want to rewrite their existing Macintosh applications for the Yellow Box platform, showed a lack of confidence in Apple due to the mismanagement of the Copland project, and feared a second-system effect due to Rhapsody co-existing with the classic Mac OS.
Retool as Mac OS X
At WWDC 1998, it was announced that this new platform would be known as "Mac OS X" (pronounced "Mac OS 10"), and would be released in late-1999, following Rhapsody and Mac OS 8.5 in 1998. Jobs revealed that Mac OS X would feature a new API—later named "Carbon"—which would adapt the existing Mac OS APIs to run atop the new NeXTSTEP-based platform. Carbon would allow existing Mac OS software to be ported natively to Mac OS X with only "minor adjustments" to their code. It was also announced that Adobe, Macromedia, and Microsoft had committed to supporting their software on Mac OS X.
Mac OS X Server 1.0 would be released in 1999 as a stopgap product based on Rhapsody.
Developer previews of Mac OS X were released later in the year; while still having some elements of Rhapsody such as the "Platinum" user interface, they began to incorporate interoperability improvements such as Carbon, an updated version of the Yellow Box APIs known as Cocoa, support for being installed on HFS+ volumes (as opposed to Rhapsody and NeXTSTEP's use of UFS), and an updated version of the Blue Box known as the "Classic Environment" (which, unlike the Blue Box, would allow Mac OS X and OS 9 applications to co-exist in the same desktop environment, and not operate as a standalone, full-screen application). Apple had projected Mac OS X to be released in 2000. During the keynote, Jobs announced that Mac OS X would be "on sale as a software product starting this summer". Mac OS X Developer Preview 3 (DP3) was released in February 2000, as the first build released to developers that included the Aqua interface. This was followed by DP4 in May 2000 during WWDC.
During the conference, the promised summer release was revealed to actually be a public beta build, rather than the final release as was originally implied; the Mac OS X Public Beta was released on September 13, 2000, and sold for US$29.95.
Launch events were hosted over the weekend by Apple's retail outlets and local Macintosh User Groups (MUGs), including midnight releases, live demonstrations of the operating system, and promotional giveaways. One launch event held by Elite Computers & Software—an Apple reseller located across the street from its headquarters in Cupertino, California—was promoted as "California's largest Mac OS X launch party", and was attended by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. A separate server release known as Mac OS X Server 10.0 was released the following May. not AppleTalk, to connect to servers sharing the Apple Filing Protocol. It cannot use SMB to connect to Windows or Samba servers.
- As a server, the system can share files using only the Apple Filing Protocol (over TCP/IP), HTTP, SSH, and FTP.
- Neither DVD playback nor burning CDs or DVDs is supported. However, audio CD burning was added in the Mac OS X 10.0.2 update, roughly two months after initial release.
Language support
Mac OS X 10.0 began a short era (that ended with Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar's release) where Apple offered two types of installation CDs: 1Z and 2Z CDs. The difference in the two lay in the extent of multilingual support.
Input method editors of Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, and Korean were only included with the 2Z CDs. They also came with more languages (the full set of 15 languages), whereas the 1Z CDs came only with about eight languages and could not actually display simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese and/or Korean (except for the Chinese characters present in Japanese Kanji). A variant of 2Z CDs were introduced when Mac OS X v10.0.3 was released to the Asian market (this variant could not be upgraded to version 10.0.4). The brief period of multilingual confusion ended with the release of v10.2. Currently, all Mac OS X installer CDs and preinstallations include the full set of 15 languages and full multilingual compatibility.
Reception
Mac OS X 10.0 received mixed reviews, with the new Aqua interface receiving a positive reception, but criticism centered primarily around its performance, hardware support, and missing features in comparison to Mac OS 9. but suggested that most users should wait for Mac OS X 10.1 later in the year. No official adoption numbers were stated by Apple until 8 months after the release of Mac OS X 10.1, where they stated that they had shipped over 3 million Macs with Mac OS X preinstalled. Following the release of 10.0, the Mac OS X development team reserved six months to focus primarily on performance improvements, which were incorporated into 10.1
Release history
{| class="wikitable"
|-
!Version
!Build
! style="width:99px" |Date
! style="width:80px" |Darwin version
!Notes
|-
| style="text-align:center" |10.0
|4K78
|March 24, 2001
|1.3<!--10.0 kernel string is Darwin Kernel Version 1.3: Thu Mar 1 06:56:40 PST 2001; root:xnu/xnu-123.5.obj~/RELEASE-PPC-->
|Original retail CD-ROM release
|-
| style="text-align:center" |10.0.1
|4L13
|April 14, 2001
| rowspan="6" |1.3.1
|Apple: Mac OS X 10.0: Software Update 1.3.1, 10.0.1 Update, and Epson Printer Driver Update Provide Feature Enhancement, Address Issues
|-
| style="text-align:center" |10.0.2
|4P12
|May 1, 2001
|
|-
| style="text-align:center" |10.0.3
|4P13
|May 9, 2001
|Update and Before You Install Information
|-
| rowspan="3" style="text-align:center" |10.0.4
|4Q12
|June 21, 2001
|Apple: 10.0.4 Update and Before You Install Information
|-
|4R14
|July 18, 2001
|For Quicksilver Power Mac G4
|-
|4S10
|August 20, 2001
|For Quicksilver Power Mac G4 (Dual 800 MHz)
|}
System requirements
- Supported Computers: Power Macintosh G3 Beige, G3 B&W, G4, G4 Cube, iMac G3, PowerBook G3, PowerBook G4, iBook
- RAM:
- 128 MB (unofficially 64 MB minimum)
- Hard Drive Space:
- 1,500 MB (800 MB for the minimal install)
Timeline
References
External links
- Mac OS X 10.0 review at Ars Technica
- from Apple