OS X



Mac OS X is the latest version of the Mac OS for Macintosh computers. Developed and published by Apple Computer, it provides the stability of a Unix operating environment and adds popular features of the traditional Macintosh user interface.

Development on Mac OS X began in May 1998 following the announcement of Carbon. Four Developer Preview releases passed before the first Mac OS X Public Beta was made available in September 2000. The public beta contained a version of Mac OS X which was again enhanced and modified when the final product officially debuted on March 24, 2001.

The pronunciation of X as ten is favoured by Apple, to emphasise continuity with previous Macintosh operating systems such as Mac OS 9. Some people (incorrectly) pronounce it ex because of the presence of the roman numeral X in the name of the operating system, to emphasise the relationship with Unix, or because Apple often refers to specific versions as "Mac OS X 10.4" or variants thereof.

Mac OS X consists of two parts: Darwin, an open source Unix-like environment which is based on the BSD source tree and the Mach microkernel, and a proprietary GUI named Aqua, developed by Apple Computer.

A server version of Mac OS X, named Mac OS X Server, is available. It is identical to the regular version except for the inclusion of tools to run various network services on a computer, such as a mail server, a Samba server, a directory server, and a domain name server.

Versions

 * Mac OS X Developer Previews
 * Mac OS X DP
 * Mac OS X DP 2
 * Mac OS X DP 3
 * Mac OS X DP 4
 * Mac OS X Public Beta
 * Mac OS X 10.0.x Series
 * Mac OS X 10.0.0
 * Mac OS X 10.0.1
 * Mac OS X 10.0.2
 * Mac OS X 10.0.3
 * Mac OS X 10.0.4
 * Mac OS X 10.1.x Series
 * Mac OS X 10.1.0
 * Mac OS X 10.1.1
 * Mac OS X 10.1.2
 * Mac OS X 10.1.3
 * Mac OS X 10.1.4
 * Mac OS X 10.1.5
 * Mac OS X 10.2.x Series
 * Mac OS X 10.2.0
 * Mac OS X 10.2.1
 * Mac OS X 10.2.2
 * Mac OS X 10.2.3
 * Mac OS X 10.2.4
 * Mac OS X 10.2.5
 * Mac OS X 10.2.6
 * Mac OS X 10.2.7
 * Mac OS X 10.2.8
 * Mac OS X 10.3.x Series
 * Mac OS X 10.3.0
 * Mac OS X 10.3.1
 * Mac OS X 10.3.2
 * Mac OS X 10.3.3
 * Mac OS X 10.3.4
 * Mac OS X 10.3.5
 * Mac OS X 10.3.6
 * Mac OS X 10.3.7
 * Mac OS X 10.3.8
 * Mac OS X 10.3.9
 * Mac OS X 10.4
 * Mac OS X 10.4.0
 * Mac OS X 10.4.1
 * Mac OS X 10.4.2
 * Mac OS X 10.4.3
 * Mac OS X 10.4.4
 * Mac OS X 10.4.5
 * Mac OS X 10.4.6
 * Mac OS X 10.4.7
 * Mac OS X 10.4.8
 * Mac OS X 10.4.9
 * Mac OS X 10.4.10
 * Mac OS X 10.4.11
 * Mac OS X 10.5
 * Mac OS X 10.5.0
 * Mac OS X 10.5.1
 * Mac OS X 10.5.2
 * Mac OS X 10.5.3
 * Mac OS X 10.5.4
 * Mac OS X 10.5.5
 * Mac OS X 10.5.6
 * Mac OS X 10.5.7

History

 * ''See: Mac OS X history

Installation

 * ''See: Installing Mac OS X

Specifics
Many of Mac OS X's users consider its Aqua GUI to be the most attractive and functional in existence, though many older Macintosh users found the new interface to be "toy-like" and lacking in professional polish. It has been imitated by many others; there are Aqua lookalikes for other operating systems. In addition, interface skins imitating the Aqua look exist for many Microsoft Windows programs, such as Winamp.

This combination of GUI and kernel has recently become the most popular-selling Unix environment to date by sheer numbers.

(Note that Mac OS X is not officially a UNIX OS, as Apple has not sought The Open Group branding, claiming that the cost of certification would make the OS prohibitively expensive. The Open Group has sued Apple over alleged violation of the UNIX trademark and has stated that the maximum fee required to certify OS X as a UNIX would be USD 110,000 total.)

Mac OS X is compatible with older Mac OS applications by using Classic, an application which allows users to run Mac OS 9.x within Mac OS X, so that most older applications, such as the ubiquitous SimpleText, etc., run as they would under Mac OS 9.x. In addition, the Carbon APIs were added to permit legacy code to be quickly ported to run natively on both Mac OS X and Mac OS 9.x. The NeXTSTEP/OpenStep APIs are still available, but Apple now calls the technology Cocoa. You can see the NeXTSTEP heritage in the Cocoa APIs by the fact that class names mostly begin with "NS" (for NeXTSTEP). A fourth option for developers is to write applications in the Java platform, which OS X supports as a "first class citizen" - in practice this means that Java applications fit as neatly into the operating system as possible while still being "cross-platform", and that GUIs, while being written in Swing, look almost exactly like native Cocoa interfaces.

Mac OS X can run many BSD or Linux software packages once compiled for the platform. Compiled binaries are normally distributed as Mac OS X Packages; but some may still require command-line configuration or compilation. Projects like Fink and DarwinPorts provide precompiled or preformatted packages for many standard packages.

Version 10.3 was the first to include Apple X11, Apple's version of the X11 graphical interface for Unix applications, as an optional component during install. Apple's implementation is based on XFree86 4.3 and X11R6.6, with its own window manager which mimics the native look, closer integration with Mac OS X and extensions to use the native Quartz rendering system and accelerate OpenGL.

Notable features

 * Uses the Portable Document Format (PDF) as the basis of its imaging model (Quartz)
 * Full color, continuously scalable icons (up to 128x128 pixels)
 * Drop shadow around window and isolated text elements to provide a sense of depth
 * Global spell checking and other powerful tools thanks to NeXT style application services
 * Anti-aliasing of widgets, text, graphics and window elements
 * New interface elements including sheets (non-modal dialogues attached to specific windows) and drawers
 * Interweaving windows (not necessarily adjacent in the visible stacking order)
 * ColorSync color matching built into the core drawing engine (for print and multimedia professionals)
 * OpenGL composites windows onto the screen to allow hardware accelerated drawing. This technology is called Quartz Extreme, and was first featured in Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar.
 * Exposé quickly tiles open windows and reveals files on your desktop, first featured in Mac OS X 10.3 Panther.
 * Pervasive use of Unicode throughout the operating system
 * Straightforward architecture for localisation of applications and other code, fully separates language dependencies from the core code of a program