Today marks the 20th anniversary of the first release of Mac OS X.

On a Saturday, March 24, 2001, Apple began allowing customers to purchase Mac OS X, the successor to the classic Mac OS. The first version of Mac OS X, “Cheetah,” was famous for its “Aqua” interface with a water bubble-style design, from windows to buttons.

Today, March 24, 2021, marks 20 years since Mac OS X went on sale and Apple’s Mac software has undergone many changes over the past two decades, but it was with Mac OS X that Apple took one of the first steps toward transforming a company on the brink of failure into one of the most successful companies in the world. Mac OS X preceded the release of the first iPod and announced what was in store under Jobs ’leadership.

Mac OS X was presented at Apple’s main presentation in January 2000 at the Macworld Expo. Steve Jobs at the time said that Mac OS X “would delight consumers with its simplicity and surprise professionals with its power.” He also said it was Apple’s “most important software” since the original 1984 Macintosh operating system.

The Aqua interface introduced the well-known Dock for easy access to applications and documents, as well as including Apple’s revamped File Management Finder. And of course, Aqua was well known for its iconic look, which included translucent scroll bars and buttons.

Other features include advanced power management to let iBooks and PowerBooks wake up instantly, dynamic memory management and Apple’s Quartz 2D graphics engine for “stunning graphics” and font support wider. It came with QuickTime 5, iMovie 2, iTunes and AppleWorks (Apple’s productivity software at the time).

The new software, which was based on the core of Apple’s “Darwin” operating system, had support for many existing Mac OS applications, but developers had to “fine-tune” their applications, so Apple released it in a 12-month beta. before putting it up for sale.

At launch, Mac OS X was priced at $ 129 and its release was at a time when Apple was still charging Mac users for updates. Mac upgrades were less expensive over the years, and Apple eventually stopped charging them in 2013.

The Mac OS X debut was far from perfect and had some major stability issues that Apple needed to address. Apple tracked down Mac OS X 10.1 “Puma” just six months later and has since continued to repeat the original 2001 version.

Mac OS X became OS X in 2012 with the release of Mountain Lion, an operating system that introduced a more minimal design that moved away from the skeuomorphic designs that Apple had used under the leadership of Scott Forstall. OS X Mountain Lion accompanied iOS 7, which is known to be one of the most important design revisions of the iPhone operating system.

Apple introduced another major name revision in 2013 with the release of OS X Mavericks, the first version of Mac OS X that did not bear the name of a big cat. Apple used large cats from Mac OS X 10.0 (Cheetah) to 10.8 (Mountain Lion).

The last significant change came in 2016 when Apple dropped the X and introduced macOS 10.12 Sierra, with the name macOS intended to better combine with iOS. We have had several versions of macOS, culminating in the current version of the software, macOS Big Sur.

macOS Big Sur brought Apple’s biggest design update to macOS since the days of Mac OS X, revamping everything from curvature of window corners to colors and docking icon designs . Apple designed it to feel fresh and familiar at the same time, including less intrusive menu bars, a more translucent dock, a uniform squirrel shape for app icons and completely revamped system sounds.

The update also revamped the Notification Center to add Control Center quick access switches, as well as having major Safari updates, messages, photos, maps, and more, with details available in our summary. Later this year, we expect to see macOS 12, and while it’s probably not the design review that Big Sur did, Apple is likely to have some useful new features in store.