hey guys it's Greg with Apple explained
and today we're gonna explore the
history of mac OS this topic was the
second-place winner of last week's
voting poll and if you didn't get to
vote make sure you're subscribed that
way the voting polls will show up right
in your mobile activity feed and you can
let me know which video you'd like to
see next so Apple is known for their
well designed hardware but even more
recognizable are the advanced operating
systems they create for their hardware
right now they ship four different
operating systems for four different
lines of products TV OS for Apple TV
watch OS for Apple watch iOS for iPhone
iPad and iPod Touch and Mac OS for the
Mac they all provide an excellent user
experience and optimization for the
hardware they run on but one operating
system stands out from the rest and that
is Mac OS because it's the oldest of the
four operating systems since it's been
around for 18 years so let's go back to
January 1997 before Mac OS was even
publicly available because this was when
Apple announced their software roadmap
for the following years and one of the
biggest announcements was a new
operating system codenamed Rhapsody it
was the product that resulted from the
next acquisition with next step serving
as the underlying architecture of the
operating system and Mac OS eights
Platinum UI overlaid on top of it
because it was a dramatically new
operating system previous Mac OS apps
weren't compatible with it and beta
testers were ultimately stuck with a
handful of stock apps Apple had included
in the software installation disk later
this software was packaged and sold to
system administrators on March 16 1999
under the new name Mac OS 10 server 1.0
and included a tool called classic
environment which allowed users to run
Mac apps previously available in Mac OS
8 now Apple saw the incredible response
to the technologies inside server 1.0
and built a developer preview of Mac OS
10 the operating system built for
average consumers the first two
developer previews of OS 10 looked
really similar to server 1.0 but the
third preview included an entirely new
user interface
named aqua which was clearly influenced
by the fruity colorful iMac in iBook
it featured glossy buttons pinstripes
and all sorts of digital lustre now
rendering all these different elements
may be easy for today's video cards in
CPUs but back in early 2000 when
machines had sixteen megabytes of video
memory it got pretty sluggish ARS
Technica's John Sarkis called aqua
unbearably slow in a huge resource hog
and after optimizing the user interface
a bit Apple released Mac OS 10 public
beta codenamed Kodiak to the general
public via a cd-rom in September 2000 it
cost $29 for an installation disk and
was primarily released to gather
feedback from users and after listening
to what they had to say
Apple tweaked more elements of the UI
squashed some bugs and optimized the
operating system's performance once
things were cleaned up Apple released
Mac OS 10 point o cheetah to the public
in March 2001 and while it was a
landmark release that doesn't
necessarily mean it was an outstanding
operating system the Aqua user interface
was still pretty slow compared to its
competition kernel panics were quite
common and it was missing critical
features like a DVD player disc burnin
and printer driver support later on in
2001 an incremental release called Mac
OS 10.1 Puma was shipped to address the
majority of concerns users had with OS
10 cheetah
the most notable improvement was the
speediness of the Aqua user interface it
was not only much quicker but different
elements were reorganized in streamlined
making the operating system more
intuitive
it also included features like DVD
playback disc burnin expanded printer
support and image capture for importing
photos from a digital camera which is
still around today it also marked the
first release of Mac OS 10 to serve as
the default operating system for Mac's
right out of the box now less than a
year later after that release Apple was
ready to give Mac OS 10 its first full
featured update called Mac OS 10.2
Jaguar it was regarded as the first
version of Mac OS 10 that Pro users
could push
it's limits the same way they could with
OS 9 it solidified the decade-long
transition of naming Mac OS 10 releases
after big cats and on posters of the
disk artwork for Jaguar the Roman
numeral 10 featured 3d rendered fur
thanks to the folks at Pixar even one of
the wallpapers was a Jaguar fur texture
along with many performance
optimizations Jaguar also included over
150 new user features including mp4
support and QuickTime junk-mail flagging
in the mail app and a better
compatibility with Windows although
there was something that Jaguar did not
have and that was the happy Mac startup
icon now a little over a year after
Jaguar the next update to Mac OS 10
arrived this time called Panther it was
the most substantial release to date
boasting hundreds of new features
including a redesigned finder with a
sidebar for recently accessed drives in
folders along with a much faster search
field in brushed metal accents expose
for a one-click bird's-eye view of all
active windows and I chat av a video
conferencing app for the mass market now
Panther also came with a bunch of
updated or branded new applications like
a font book for installing and browsing
installed typefaces xcode for app
development and for the first time
Apple's own web browser called Safari
previously they were using a port of
Microsoft's Internet Explorer and once
Safari was released it paved the way for
other browsers to use it's incredible
open source WebKit framework including
Google Chrome in 2008
now Panther cost $130 for a single use
upgrade which may seem pretty steep
considering new releases of Mac OS today
are free but $130 was pretty reasonable
compared to the price of other operating
systems like Windows now the next
release OS 10 point for Tiger was
critical for multiple reasons aside from
the over 200 new features it was the
first OS 10 release to break the annual
release cycle since Tiger came out two
years after Panther and Tiger dropped
support for quite a few machines by
requiring a firewire port for
installation
it was also the release that powered the
first Apple TV and served as the
framework for the first iPhones
operating system in 2007 finally it was
the first public release to support two
types of processors the legacy PowerPC
architecture and the new Intel
architecture that was used in newer
Mac's now Tiger introduced some really
useful features including spotlight
search Dashboard widgets RSS support in
Safari and unabridged virtual dictionary
and the classic photo booth application
in Akko was improved even further with
the pinstripes being replaced by more
subtle glass and brush stainless steel
elements Tiger was the longest-running
version of Mac OS 10 with 11
supplemental updates released over three
years beginning in 2005 and ending in
2007 when OS 10.5 leopard was released
speaking of which leopard had a bit of
an unconventional release since it was
delayed twice likely because of the
iPhone taking away resources from Mac
projects but at Apple's 2006 WWDC they
previewed a few features of Leopard
which would be released a year later a
few of those features were time machine
and easy backup solution a much improved
mail app with no support and stationery
I chat AV with photo booth filters
spaces which organized your windows into
different desktops and support for
64-bit applications now leopard was
finally released in October 2007 and
included even more new features that
weren't mentioned at the 2006 WWDC like
a redesigned desktop and dock with more
3d elements and file stacks bootcamp for
easy switching between Mac OS and
Windows and quick look which allowed
users to press the spacebar to preview a
selected item in finder now Mac OS 10
Snow Leopard was the next update and
it's regarded by many to this day as the
single best Mac OS 10 release ever while
the majority of the appeal of Snow
Leopard were under the hood improvements
like a more responsive finder rewritten
in cocoa and sandbox
apps for heightened security there were
a number of visible improvements like
over 7 gigabytes of recovered disk space
when you upgrade from leopard the
redesigned quick
10 and the Mac App Store and I should
also mention that Snow Leopard was the
final version of Mac OS 10 to be solely
released on physical disks because from
OS 10 lion and onwards the system could
only be updated via the Mac App Store
with a small exception of Lion being
available on USB drives for a short time
now Mac OS 10.7 lion was released eight
months after and I think this was one of
the coolest updates in the modern
history of OS 10 in a big reason why was
that elements from iOS were finally
being included in Mac OS things like
FaceTime was finally bundled in with
Lion mail and address book were really
reminiscent of the iPads interface most
system apps gained autosave fullscreen
and auto resumed there was system-wide
implementation of autocorrect and emoji
Pickers and multi-touch gestures were
implemented across the entire operating
system and while some people considered
this transformation to be dumbing down
Mac OS I'd argue that the features added
to Lion increased productivity by a very
large margin also these new features
propelled the Mac even further ahead of
its Windows counterpart there was also
the introduction of airdrop for easy
File Sharing without the use of Wi-Fi
and Mission Control which consolidated
spaces dashboard and expose now OS 10.8
mountain lion further integrated iOS in
with a Mac in July 2012 by introducing
Notification Center iMessage as a
replacement for I chat
Game Center reminders and notes apps
like address book and iCal were renamed
to contacts and calendar to better match
their iOS counterparts and Mac OS 10.9
Mavericks was released a year later
making it the second annual release in
years
Apple joked on stage at WWDC 2013 that
they'd run out of big cat names for new
versions of Mac OS 10 so they decided to
use names of California landmarks
instead the first being Mavericks now
this upgrade was an incremental release
featuring improved performance and
improved battery life of MacBooks and
had achieved this by using a new memory
management technology called compressed
memory
which according to Apple shrinks
inactive data to keep your Mac fast and
responsive many other features were
included like iCloud keychain to
generate store and sync passwords and
credit card numbers tabbed windows and
file tagging and Finder the ability to
take action on notifications directly
inside the banner and ported versions of
iBooks and maps it was also the first
version of Mac OS in history to be
released for free via the Mac App Store
a year later at WWDC 2014 Mac OS 10
point 10 Yosemite was introduced and
released to developers although it
featured a flatter user interface that
was more in line with the now iconic
design of iOS 7 it was pretty light on
features we got handoff which seamlessly
allows you to work on a document on one
device and hand it off to another device
without skipping a beat and the ability
to take and place calls on the Mac via
your iPhone but that was pretty much it
feature wise in 2015 OS 10.11 El Capitan
iterated upon the already minor Yosemite
update adding the metal API to make
graphically intense apps run smoother a
system-wide transition from the
Helvetica typeface to San Francisco and
public transport in the Maps app but the
big update wouldn't arrive until 2016
with the release of Mac OS 10 point 12
Sierra now there were quite a few things
that made this a major update first the
name Mac OS 10 was simplified to Mac OS
adopting the same naming scheme as their
other operating systems like iOS and DV
OS also there were a lot of useful
productivity features like Auto unlock
which uses your Apple watch to detect
when you are in close proximity and
unlocks your Mac automatically Universal
clipboard used Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to
share clipboard content between all
devices using your Apple ID we also got
picture-in-picture for videos nightshift
series support and the Apple file system
which allows solid state and flash based
Mac's to use more complex file system
features like snapshot for file recovery
and system encryption now the following
update in 2017 was called high sierra
and introduced new features like HIV
see video support metal to EGP you
support for some max with Thunderbolt 3
ports although high seer was completely
devoid of any visible end-user features
but fortunately this year's release of
Mac OS is a much different story
since 2018 brought maca West Mojave
easily the most Pro focused release of
Mac OS in a while
Mojave introduced a full dark mode
toggle and System Preferences to reduce
eye strain at night and new dynamic
wallpapers were included to sort of
complement dark mode Stax has been
expanded from the dock to the desktop to
reduce clutter and help with
organization FaceTime now supports up to
32 people in a video call the App Store
was redesigned to better align with the
iOS App Store and for iOS apps were
included as Mac versions to demo how
seamless porting apps from iOS to Mac OS
will become so Mac OS has evolved
dramatically over its 18 years on the
market and trying to predict where it's
headed is almost impossible
some people believe Apple is trying to
merge iOS and Mac OS but Apple
themselves dismissed that claim
personally I think Mac computers will
always have their own operating system
optimized for it but we'll continue to
see iOS and Mac OS become more deeply
integrated in reasonable ways that make
using Apple products even more seamless
so that is the history of Mac OS and if
you want to vote for the next video
topic don't forget to subscribe thanks
for watching and I'll see you next time
[Music]