Puma arrived with a solid performance boost and a few other functional improvements such as simplified CD and DVD burning, new features in Finder, and more extensive printer support. September 25, 2001: As you might have noticed, the first generation of Apple’s operating systems was named after animals. Graphics improvements made Cheetah very slow, which prompted Apple to shift focus from visual experience to performance in the next release. Cheetah featured a water theme, which, according to Steve Jobs, 'one wanted to lick when they saw it.' Beauty comes at a cost, though.

It’s a big step in the evolution of graphical interfaces, with 2D and 3D graphics support, granting an all-new visual experience. March 24, 2001: Aqua interface is born with Mac OS X Cheetah.

Let’s recount the stories of all Mac OS X versions, up to the current macOS. The first ancestor of the macOS family was Mac OS X Public Beta released in 2000, followed by a public release of Mac OS X 10.0 in 2001. That’s when it became obvious Apple could grow to become a big player. The same year, Jobs returned to Apple and helped build the first Mac OS that could compete with Windows. In 1996, Apple purchased NeXT, the company Steve Jobs built after he had left Apple. The latter helped standardize the naming of Apple’s operating systems - macOS, iOS, tvOS, iPadOS, etc. Finally, Apple shifted to 'macOS' with the release of macOS High Sierra in 2016. In the next four years, the OS X names were used. Mac OS X was the official naming through version 10.7, from 2001 to 2011. In fact, three terms were used at different times with reference to Apple’s operating system: Mac OS X, OS X, and macOS. No, they are essentially the same thing - just named differently. Is there any difference between Mac OS X and macOS?

In this article, we guide you through the evolution of Apple’s operating system, from the first public release in 2001 to the latest macOS Monterey announced at WWDC 2021 on June 7. As Apple grew and strengthened the ecosystem through the years, macOS operating system version history evolved too. MomacOS is the operating system designed to run on Apple laptops and desktop computers. Tackle your tasks with dozens of helpful apps on Setapp.

Current mac operating system