Mac OS X |
Mac OS X is the latest version of the Mac OS, and is designed and developed by Apple Computer to run on their Apple Macintosh line of personal computers. Mac OS X is built on Darwin (operating system), an open source Unix-like environment which is based on the Berkeley Software Distribution source tree, and the Mach kernel. Both of these technologies have been adapted and further developed by Apple with involvement from independent developers. Apple has also designed and developed the Aqua (GUI) for Mac OS X. Portions of Mac OS X such as Aqua and Macintosh Finder, the file management system, are Proprietary software closed source software.
Mac OS X Server, although architecturally identical to its desktop counterpart, is designed to run on Apple s line of Macintosh servers. It includes workgroup management and administration software tools that provide simplified access to key network services, including a mail transfer agent, a samba software, a LDAP, and a Domain Name System.
=History=
Main article: Mac OS X history
Despite its branding as simply version 10 of the Mac OS, it has a history largely independent of the earlier Mac OS releases. It is based on the Mach kernel and the Berkeley Software Distribution implementation of Unix, which were incorporated into NEXTSTEP, the object-oriented operating system developed by Steve Jobs s NeXT company after he was forced from Apple in 1985. Meanwhile, Apple attempted to create a next generation operating system of its own (see Taligent and Copland), but with little success. Eventually, NeXT s OS—by then called OPENSTEP—was selected to form the basis for Apple s next OS, and the company purchased NeXT outright. Jobs was rehired, and later returned to the leadership of the company, shepherding the transformation of the programmer-friendly OPENSTEP into a system that would be welcomed by Apple s primary market of home users and creative professionals, as a project known as Rhapsody (OS). After some missteps which threatened the loyalty of independent developers to Mac OS, and changes of strategy to ease the transition from Mac OS 9 to the new system, Rhapsody evolved into Mac OS X.
=Description=
Mac OS X is a radical departure from previous Macintosh operating systems, as its underlying code base is completely different from previous versions. Although the most significant architectural changes were under the surface, the Aqua (GUI) GUI was the most striking and visible new feature. The use of soft edges, translucent colors, and pinstripes (similar to the hardware of the first iMacs), brought more color and texture to the windows and controls on the Desktop than OS 9 s Platinum appearance offered. Initially, this raised a great deal of controversy among users. Many older Macintosh users decried the interface as toy-like and lacking in professional polish, while others hailed the new GUI as another revolutionary Apple innovation. The look was instantly recognizable, and even before the first version of Mac OS X was released, third-party developers started producing skin (computing) for skinnable applications like Winamp that looked like the Aqua interface. Apple has threatened legal action against people who make or distribute software which provides an interface which they claim is derived from their copyrighted design.
This combination of GUI and kernel has become the most popular-selling Unix-like environment to date by number of systems shipped.
=Compatibility=
Mac OS X retains compatibility with older Mac OS applications by providing an emulation environment called Classic (Mac OS X), which allows users to run Mac OS 9 as a process within Mac OS X, so that most older applications run as they would under the older operating system. In addition, the Carbon (API) APIs for Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X were created to permit code to be written to run natively on both systems. The OpenStep APIs are still available, but Apple now calls the technology Cocoa (API). (This heritage is visible in the Cocoa APIs, in which the class names mostly begin with NS for NEXTSTEP.) A fourth option for developers is to write applications in the Java platform, which Mac OS X has supported 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 (Java), look almost exactly like native Cocoa interfaces. Traditionally, Cocoa programs have been mostly written in Objective C, with Java as an alternative. However, on July 11, 2005, Apple announced that features added to Cocoa in Mac OS X versions later than 10.4 will not be added to the Cocoa-Java programming interface. [http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/LanguageIntegration/index.html]
Mac OS X can run many BSD or Linux software packages, as long as they have been compiled for the platform. Compiled binaries are normally distributed as Mac OS X packages, but some may require command-line configuration or compilation. Projects such as Fink and DarwinPorts provide precompiled or preformatted packages for many standard packages. Since version 10.3, Mac OS X has included Apple X11, the company s version of the X11 graphical interface for Unix applications, as an optional component during installation. Apple s implementation is based on XFree86 4.3 and X11R6.6, with a window manager which mimics the Mac OS X look, closer integration with Mac OS X, and extensions to use the native Quartz (graphics layer) rendering system and to accelerate OpenGL. Earlier versions of Mac OS X can run X11 applications using XDarwin.
For the early releases of Mac OS X, the standard hardware platform supported was the line of Macintosh computers (laptop, desktop, or server) based on PowerPC G3, G4, and G5 processors. Later versions of Mac OS X discontinued support for some older hardware; for example, Panther does not support beige G3s, and Tiger does not support systems that pre-date Apple s introduction of FireWire ports. However, free tools such as XPostFacto have enabled installation of Mac OS X on certain older systems not officially supported by Apple, including some pre-G3 systems. The operating system offers the same functionality on all supported hardware, with the exception of fundamental hardware limitations (e.g. CD-ROM drives cannot write to CDs) and performance enhancements possible only with more advanced equipment (e.g. graphics acceleration).
On . Jobs also confirmed rumors that Apple has had versions of Mac OS X running on Intel processors for most of its developmental life. Such crossplatform capability already existed in OS X s lineage the predecessor of OS X, OPENSTEP, had been ported to many architectures, including Intel s x86, and a port to x86 of the core operating system of OS X, Darwin, has been available as a free download since OS X was first released. However, Apple has stated that OS X for x86 platforms will not support the Classic environment. Also note that Apple stated that MacOS would only run on Apple x86 systems, not PCs, but several people have been using a development version of the OS on x86 PCs (See links below).
= Notable features =
=Criticisms=
In comparison to Microsoft Windows, some critics point to the lack of upgrade pricing on Mac OS X; users of previous versions have to pay full price for a new version. This is in part a semantic argument, depending on whether a retail Mac OS X package is considered an upgrade or not. On one hand, it can only be used on a Mac, all of which were sold with some version of the Mac OS, so it is arguably an upgrade. On the other hand, no price distinction is made between upgrading version 9.0 or version 10.3 to version 10.4, suggesting that consumers are buying a full license in either case, or at least receiving no credit for intervening upgrades. Furthermore, customers who purchase a Macintosh between the time a new version of Mac OS X is announced and the time it starts shipping preinstalled on new machines have typically been given upgrades at a much smaller cost ($9.95-19.95 USD). Meanwhile, the upgrade price for Windows varies substantially depending on volume purchase agreements, Home vs. Pro editions, etc. making direct comparisons difficult. In some cases, the upgrade price for Windows exceeds that of Mac OS X, suggesting that this criticism is moot.
The Open Group has criticized Apple for use of the term Unix in advertisements for Mac OS X as Apple has not had the OS officially certified, and their use of the term could constitute a violation of trademark. Apple claims that they use the term as a genericized trademark and that the cost of certification would make the OS prohibitively expensive, although The Open Group has stated that there is a $110,000 USD upper limit on the cost of certification for one company. Though Mac OS X is Unix-based and features a BSD Unix compatibility layer, it is not compliant with the Single UNIX Specification. The reason for Apple not seeking official Unix branding may simply be that compliance is not a near- or medium-term goal for Apple.
=Naming=
The character X is a Roman numeral and is officially pronounced ten , continuing the numbering of previous Macintosh operating systems such as Mac OS 8 and Mac OS 9. However, it is a common mistake to read it as the letter X and pronounce it ex . One possible reason for this interpretation is the tradition of giving Unix-like operating systems names that end with the letter X as an ex sound (AIX operating system, HP-UX, IRIX, Linux, Minix, Ultrix, Xenix). Another possible reason is Apple s tendency to refer to specific versions in print (for example, Mac OS X version 10.4 ).
Mac OS X versions are named after big Felidae. Prior to its release, version 10.0 was code named Mac OS X v10.0 internally at Apple, and version 10.1 was code named internally as Mac OS X v10.1 . After the immense buzz surrounding Version 10.2, codenamed Mac OS X v10.2 , Apple s product marketing began openly using the code name to promote the operating system. 10.3 was similarly marketed as Mac OS X v10.3 . Version 10.4 is marketed as Mac OS X v10.4 . Mac OS X v10.5 has been announced as the name for the next release of the operating system. Apple has also registered Lynx and Cougar as trademarks.
Apple faced a lawsuit from a computer retailer named TigerDirect regarding its use of the name Tiger . However, on 16 May 2005 the Florida Federal Court ruled that Apple s use of the name Tiger does not infringe upon TigerDirect s trademark.
=Versions=
Internally, Apple uses a build number to identify each development version of Mac OS X. There may be many development versions each week. Under Apple s guidelines, the first development version of a product starts with build 1A1. Minor revisions to that are 1A2, 1A3, 1A4, and so on; the first major development revision becomes 1B1 (and minor revisions to that would be 1B2, 1B3, etc.), the next major revision would be 1C1, and so forth. The next major revision after the last 1_ series would be 2A, followed by 2B. The transition from one letter to the next occurs with changes in the minor release number. For instance, the first build of Panther (10.3) was 7A1. The first public release was 7B85; the last, 10.3.9, was 7W98. But the next build of OS X was 10.4, 8A1. When a build is chosen as the next public release of Mac OS X, it is given a public version number. Build 4K78 was chosen to be Mac OS X version 10.0, build 5G64 became 10.1, build 6C115 became 10.2, build 7B85 became 10.3, and build 8A428 became 10.4.
The current version of Mac OS X is version 10.4.2 (released on July 12, 2005) build 8C46.
== Mac OS X v10.0 (Cheetah) ==
On March 24, 2001, Apple released Mac OS X v10.0 (internally codenamed Cheetah). It was praised for its completeness and stability at such an early point in its development (it being a total departure from previous Apple releases). It was criticized for being slow, with performance not much improved over the previous September s release of Mac OS X Public Beta.
== Mac OS X v10.1 (Puma) ==
Later that year on September 25, 2001, Mac OS X v10.1 (internally codenamed Puma) was released, increasing the performance of the system as well as providing missing features, such as DVD playback. Because of the poor reputation of 10.0, Apple released 10.1 as a free upgrade CD for 10.0 users, in addition to the US$129 boxed version for people running only Mac OS. It was discovered that the upgrade CDs were actually full install CDs that could be used with Mac OS systems by removing a specific file; Apple subsequently re-released the CDs in an actual stripped-down format that didn t facilitate installation on such systems.
==Mac OS X v10.2 Jaguar ==
On August 24, 2002, Apple followed up with Mac OS X v10.2 Jaguar (the first release to publicly bear its cat name), which brought profound performance enhancements, a newer, sleeker look, and many powerful enhancements (over 150, according to Apple), among them: *Increased support for Microsoft Windows networks *Quartz Compositor for compositing graphics directly on the video card *An adaptive spamming mail filter, based on latent semantic indexing *A system-wide repository for contact information in the new Apple Address Book *Bonjour (protocol) networking (Apple s implementation of Zeroconf; renamed to Bonjour in 10.4)
Mac OS X v10.2 was never officially referred to as Jaguar in the United Kingdom due to an agreement with the automobile manufacturer Jaguar (car), although boxes and CDs still bore the Jaguar-skin logo.
==Mac OS X v10.3 Panther ==
Mac OS X v10.3 Panther was released on October 24, 2003. In addition to providing much improved performance, it also incorporated the most extensive update yet to the user interface. The update included as many or more new features as Jaguar the year before. On the other hand, support for some older beige era G3 computers was discontinued. New features of Panther include:
*Updated Finder (Mac OS), incorporating a brushed-metal interface and fast-searching *Exposé (Mac OS X): a new system to manipulate windows *Fast User Switching: allows a user to remain logged in while another user logs in *iChat AV which added Video teleconference features to iChat *Improved Portable Document Format rendering to allow for faster PDF viewing *Built-in faxing support *Much greater Microsoft Windows interoperability *FileVault: on the fly encryption and decryption of a user s home folder *Increased speed across the entire system with more support for the PowerPC G5
==Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger ==
Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger was released on April 29, 2005. Apple stated that Tiger contains more than 200 new features, but as with the release of Panther, certain older machines have been dropped from the list of supported hardware; Tiger requires a Mac with built-in FireWire ports. Among the new features of Tiger :
==Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard ==
Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard was announced at the Worldwide Developers Conference on June 6, 2005, due to be released at the end of 2006 or early 2007, roughly around the same time Microsoft would release Windows Vista (formerly known by the code-name Longhorn ). Apple has said that it will support both PowerPC- and X86-based Macintosh computers. No information on what features Leopard will add to the Mac OS have been announced, though it is said that its GUI will be fully resolution independent.
=See also=
=External links=
*[http://www.apple.com/macosx/ Apple: Mac OS X] — The official page for Mac OS X. *[http://www.kernelthread.com/mac/osx/ What is OS X (kernelthread.com)] — An overview of the Mac OS X operating system *[http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/macosx-10.4.ars/2 Mac OS X (arstechnica.com)] — Comprehensive reviews of Mac OS X (all versions) *[http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/free_issues/issue_01/osx_jungle Mac OS X: Welcome to the jungle] — A look inside the Mac OS X software ecology (Free Software Magazine, March 2005) *[http://wiki.osx86project.org/ OSX on x86 Wiki] — a Wiki of OS X on x86 *[http://www.xplodenet.com/ Running OSX x86 edition on a native x86]|
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