Mac OS X 10.0 (

code name A code name, call sign or cryptonym is a code word or name used, sometimes clandestinely, to refer to another name, word, project, or person. Code names are often used for military purposes, or in espionage. They may also be used in industrial c ...

d Cheetah) is the first major release of

Mac OS X macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. Within the market of ...

, Apple's desktop and server

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...

. It was released on March 24, 2001 for a price of $129 after a

public beta A software release life cycle is the sum of the stages of development and maturity for a piece of computer software ranging from its initial development to its eventual release, and including updated versions of the released version to help impro ...

. Mac OS X was Apple's long-awaited successor to the

classic Mac OS Mac OS (originally System Software; retronym: Classic Mac OS) is the series of operating systems developed for the Macintosh family of personal computers by Apple Computer from 1984 to 2001, starting with System 1 and ending with Mac OS 9. The ...

. It was derived from

NeXTSTEP NeXTSTEP is a discontinued object-oriented, multitasking operating system based on the Mach kernel and the UNIX-derived BSD. It was developed by NeXT Computer in the late 1980s and early 1990s and was initially used for its range of proprieta ...

and

FreeBSD FreeBSD is a free and open-source Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), which was based on Research Unix. The first version of FreeBSD was released in 1993. In 2005, FreeBSD was the most popular ...

, and featured a new user interface called

Aqua Aqua is the Latin word for water. It is used in many words which relate to water, such as aquatic life. In English, it may also refer to: Arts * Aqua (color), a greenish-blue color Business * Aqua (skyscraper), an 82-story residential skysc ...

, as well as improved stability and security due to its new

Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and ot ...

foundations. It introduced the Quartz graphics rendering engine for

hardware-accelerated Hardware acceleration is the use of computer hardware designed to perform specific functions more efficiently when compared to software running on a general-purpose central processing unit (CPU). Any transformation of data that can be calculat ...

animations. Many technologies were ported from the classic Mac OS, including Sherlock and the

QuickTime QuickTime is an extensible multimedia framework developed by Apple Inc., capable of handling various formats of digital video, picture, sound, panoramic images, and interactivity. Created in 1991, the latest Mac version, QuickTime X, is avai ...

framework. The core components of Mac OS X were

open sourced Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose. Open ...

as Darwin. Six months after its release, Mac OS X 10.0 was succeeded by

Mac OS X 10.1 Mac OS X 10.1 ( code named Puma) is the second major release of macOS, Apple's desktop and server operating system. It superseded Mac OS X 10.0 and preceded Mac OS X Jaguar. Mac OS X 10.1 was released on September 25, 2001, as a free update ...

, code named Puma.

Development

New and updated features

The features of the release include the

Dock A dock (from Dutch language, Dutch ''dok'') is the area of water between or next to one or a group of human-made structures that are involved in the handling of boats or ships (usually on or near a shore) or such structures themselves. The ex ...

which was a new way of organizing one's Mac OS X applications on a user interface, and a change from the classic method of Application launching in previous Mac OS systems. It included the

Terminal Terminal may refer to: Computing Hardware * Terminal (electronics), a device for joining electrical circuits together * Terminal (telecommunication), a device communicating over a line * Computer terminal, a set of primary input and output devic ...

, it was a feature that allowed access to Mac OS X's underpinnings, namely the Unix core; Mac OS had previously had the distinction of being one of the few operating systems with no

command line interface A command-line interpreter or command-line processor uses a command-line interface (CLI) to receive commands from a user in the form of lines of text. This provides a means of setting parameters for the environment, invoking executables and pro ...

at all. Also, it included the

Mail The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letter (message), letters, and parcel (package), parcels. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems. Since the mid ...

email client, it’s features included the ability to configure the software to receive all of a user's email accounts in the one list, ability to file emails into folders, ability to search for emails, and ability to automatically append signatures to outgoing emails. The Address Book was a new application which had features including exporting and importing cards to and from

vCard vCard, also known as VCF (Virtual Contact File), is a file format standard for electronic business cards. vCards can be attached to e-mail messages, sent via Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), on the World Wide Web, instant messaging, NFC or ...

format, API to interface with other applications, change of address notifications, contact groups, auto-merge when importing vCards, customizable fields and categories, the automatic formatting of phone numbers. TextEdit replaced the

SimpleText SimpleText is the native text editor for the Apple classic Mac OS. SimpleText allows text editing and text formatting (underline, italic, bold, etc.), fonts, and sizes. It was developed to integrate the features included in the different versions ...

application with new features. PDF support was added, it allows the user to create PDFs from any application. The OS introduced the new

UI. Several features of Mac OS 9 were ported to Mac OS X, including the Sherlock desktop and web search engine.

Removed features

*File-sharing client — The system can only use TCP/IP, not

AppleTalk AppleTalk is a discontinued proprietary suite of networking protocols developed by Apple Computer for their Macintosh computers. AppleTalk includes a number of features that allow local area networks to be connected with no prior setup or the n ...

, to connect to servers sharing the Apple Filing Protocol. It cannot use SMB to connect to

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

Samba Samba (), also known as samba urbano carioca (''urban Carioca samba'') or simply samba carioca (''Carioca samba''), is a Brazilian music genre that originated in the Afro-Brazilian communities of Rio de Janeiro in the early 20th century. Havin ...

servers. *File-sharing server — As a server, the system can share files using only the Apple Filing Protocol (over

TCP/IP The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the set of communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the suit ...

HTTP The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application layer protocol in the Internet protocol suite model for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web, ...

SSH The Secure Shell Protocol (SSH) is a cryptographic network protocol for operating network services securely over an unsecured network. Its most notable applications are remote login and command-line execution. SSH applications are based on a ...

, and

FTP The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standard communication protocol used for the transfer of computer files from a server to a client on a computer network. FTP is built on a client–server model architecture using separate control and data ...

. *Optical media —

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...

playback is not supported, and CDs cannot be burned to.

Architecture

Mac OS X is built on Darwin, a

Unix-like A Unix-like (sometimes referred to as UN*X or *nix) operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, although not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. A Unix-li ...

operating system derived from

. It also adopted a new

XNU XNU is the computer operating system (OS) kernel developed at Apple Inc. since December 1996 for use in the Mac OS X (now macOS) operating system and released as free and open-source software as part of the Darwin OS, which in addition to macOS ...

kernel, derived from

Mach Mach may refer to Mach number, the speed of sound in local conditions. It may also refer to: Computing * Mach (kernel), an operating systems kernel technology * ATI Mach, a 2D GPU chip by ATI * GNU Mach, the microkernel upon which GNU Hurd is bas ...

, as a replacement for the

Mac OS nanokernel The Mac OS nanokernel is an operating system Kernel (operating system), kernel serving as the basis of most PowerPC based system software versions 7 through 9 of the classic Mac OS, predating macOS, Mac OS X. The initial revision of this software ...

used in classic Mac OS. Unlike

Mac OS 9 Mac OS 9 is the ninth major release of Apple Inc., Apple's classic Mac OS operating system which was succeeded by macOS, Mac OS X (renamed to OS X in 2011 and macOS in 2016) in 2001. Introduced on October 23, 1999, it was promoted by Apple as "T ...

, Mac OS X had protected memory and preemptive multitasking. This meant that if an application's memory becomes corrupted due to a bug, the application would crash without the entire system crashing and needing to be rebooted. Mac OS X also had support for

OpenGL OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D and 3D vector graphics. The API is typically used to interact with a graphics processing unit (GPU), to achieve hardwa ...

, AppleScript, and the

Carbon Carbon () is a chemical element with the symbol C and atomic number 6. It is nonmetallic and tetravalent In chemistry, the valence (US spelling) or valency (British spelling) of an element is the measure of its combining capacity with o ...

and

Cocoa Cocoa may refer to: Chocolate * Chocolate * ''Theobroma cacao'', the cocoa tree * Cocoa bean, seed of ''Theobroma cacao'' * Chocolate liquor, or cocoa liquor, pure, liquid chocolate extracted from the cocoa bean, including both cocoa butter and ...

APIs.

Language support

Mac OS X 10.0 began a short era (that ended with

Mac OS X 10.2 Mac OS X Jaguar (version 10.2) is the third major release of macOS, Apple's desktop and server operating system. It superseded Mac OS X 10.1 and preceded Mac OS X Panther. The operating system was released on August 23, 2002 either for sin ...

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 Simplification, Simplify, or Simplified may refer to: Mathematics Simplification is the process of replacing a mathematical expression by an equivalent one, that is simpler (usually shorter), for example * Simplification of algebraic expressions, ...

Traditional Chinese A tradition is a belief or behavior (folk custom) passed down within a group or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common examples include holidays or ...

, 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 are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...

). A variant of 2Z CDs were introduced when Mac OS X v10.0.3 was released to the

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...

n 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.

Marketing

Mac OS X 10.0 was not externally marketed with its codename, a practice which began with

Mac OS X Jaguar Mac OS X Jaguar (version 10.2) is the third major release of macOS, Apple's desktop and server operating system. It superseded Mac OS X 10.1 and preceded Mac OS X Panther. The operating system was released on August 23, 2002 either for sing ...

Reception

Release history

System requirements

*Supported Computers:

Power Macintosh G3 Beige The Power Macintosh G3 (also sold with additional software as the Macintosh Server G3) is a series of personal computers designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Inc., Apple Computer from November 1997 to August 1999. It represented Apple's fir ...

, G3 B&W, G4, G4 Cube, iMac G3,

PowerBook G3 The PowerBook G3 is a series of laptop Macintosh personal computers designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer from 1997 to 2001. It was the first laptop to use the PowerPC G3 (PPC740/750) series of microprocessors, and was marketed as t ...

, 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 v10.0 review
at

Ars Technica ''Ars Technica'' is a website covering news and opinions in technology, science, politics, and society, created by Ken Fisher and Jon Stokes in 1998. It publishes news, reviews, and guides on issues such as computer hardware and software, sci ...

* from apple.com {{Apple Inc. 0 2001 software PowerPC operating systems