Mac OS X History

ByMike Moffit

I’m a somewhat recent convert to the Apple world. My first Mac was a hand-me-down from a friend: a first-generation white MacBook from 2006. I got that machine in the winter of 2011. It had Mac OS 10.6 (AKA Snow Leopard) on it when I got it, and that is where my personal experiences with Mac OS X began.

We’ll start with Mac OS 10.5 (AKA Leopard) which is no longer supported by Apple. It was the first Mac OS to include Time Machine, Apple’s fantastic backup utility. It was also the first Mac OS to include Dashboard, where you can have widgets that can be really useful, or just fun (although there are a few that leave me wondering why they exist).

Mac OS 10.6 (AKA Snow Leopard), as the nickname reflects, isn’t a major overhaul, so much as a refinement of Leopard. Most of the changes were under the hood and were designed to use less system resources and run more smoothly. Steve Jobs felt like the features could wait while the code was tightened up. Many users reported that it felt like they got a new machine after this OS upgrade. This was the last version of Mac OS to be sold on an physical disc – a DVD in this case.

Snow Leopard is a gold standard of sorts. It’s recommended for older machines that might be capable of running a later version, but users will likely experience the best performance on 10.6. A very important feature/aspect of 10.6 is that it is the last Mac OS to include support for Rosetta, the software that allowed the Intel processor in post-2005 Macs to run software coded for the PowerPC processor. If you have old apps that you can’t afford to upgrade, or if you don’t want to deal with changes, you should really stick with 10.6 Snow Leopard.

Mac OS 10.7 (AKA Lion) is a whole different cat, and a significant evolutionary development. This version of the Mac OS was the first to be only available as a download. There was no physical medium and at no point was there ever a physical disc that you could buy from Apple with Lion on it. For $30, the lowest upgrade cost ever, you could get Lion. It was very forward thinking, and really was looking into the future. There was a crossover of features between iOS and Mac OS, gestures for one, so now that fabulous Magic Trackpad (the only trackpad I’ve ever loved, I used to be a ThinkPad fanboy and the TrackPoint was bar none for pointing, in my far from humble opinion). All of the OS updates and software were downloaded through the Mac App Store. This makes for a really clean and easy spot to do all of your system updates and many program updates. One of the strangest features of Lion was Launchpad, a very iOS like grid of apps that looked just like the iOS home screen, and behaved similarly. Many folks have been confused by this and don’t really understand the utility. Another very important thing to be noted for Lion is that they dropped Rosetta support. If you have old PowerPC programs, they will no longer work on Lion.

We’ll continue this adventure down memory lane in a future Tech Tails. I know this has been by no means completely exhaustive, and I’m sure there are many significant features and developments I’ve left out. What is above is what I remember as the most significant bits that really stuck out for me. Until next time…

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