Mac OS X beta was released ten years ago yesterday

Happy (belated) birthday today to Mac OS X. Yes, the OS itself actually released to the public on March 24, 2001 (which means its actual "birthday," in my mind, isn't until next March), but Macworld points out that, on September 13, 2000, Steve gave us the very first peek at the foundation of modern Apple computing at the Apple Expo in Paris. That's ten years ago yesterday -- we never were all that good with remembering birthdays.

Macworld lists out the ten most significant contributions of the OS to the Mac experience, but things like the Time Machine and Spotlight are on there, and of course, those weren't introduced until much later. The OS itself was actually announced six days after the year 2000 started, and the Apple Expo announcement was the beta reveal. Steve Jobs had just come back to the company, bringing his NeXT experience with him, and OS X made waves early on for being a Unix-based operating system. The Aqua user interface was the other big feature of the OS right away -- as Jobs said at that first Macworld Expo, "when you saw it you wanted to lick it." Customers found that out immediately: the beta product itself was released in stores for US$29.95.

I'm sure we'll have more coverage of the past ten years of OS X as we move forward into next March, but it's pretty amazing to think how far both we and Apple have come over the last ten years already, all the way from OS X to iOS and everywhere in-between.

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Source: http://www.macworld.co.uk/digitallifestyle/news/index.cfm?ne…

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Mac OS X

Happy (belated) birthday today to Mac OS X. Yes, the OS itself actually released to the public on March 24, 2001 (which means its actual...

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macserv

What's this "Mac OS X" crap I keep hearing about? Rhapsody forever! :D

September 14 2010 at 9:03 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

phlavor

I was working my first real IT job doing Mac tech support at a Madison Avenue ad agency and I installed it on a 233mhz G3 Desktop at work within a week of its existence. I played around with it for a few days (It was pretty bare bones) and to my horror, I couldn't get the disk reformatted to install OS9 on it. My boss found out and thought it was cool as hell and instead of reaming me for ruining a machine he commended me for looking forward.

It was a very cool job for a Mac fan, stashed in various lockers build rooms and basements we had almost everything everything Apple ever produced. Newtons? All of them including the eMate. Printers? Every one plus parts. Quicktake cameras? Yes. 20th Anniversary Mac? We used one as a CD player in our build room. We even had a Lisa. The only pieces of gear I know we didn't have (and I've still never seen) was a Network Server 500/700 and a PowerCD. Good times.

September 14 2010 at 5:25 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Nicola D'Agostino

I'm afraid that's the wrong box.
The one you are showing is from the definitive 10.0, from march 2001.

The Public Beta had a slimmer packaging, which you can see at this address:
http://www.storiediapple.it/wp-content/img/macosx_beta_folder.jpg

nda

September 14 2010 at 5:22 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

GOD

AWESOME! I share my birthday with OS X.

September 14 2010 at 4:26 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

adam_____

OS X has come a long way since then! I'm only 22 but I remember installing a copy on my blue clamshell iBook.

September 14 2010 at 3:54 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

AriX

Uhh... Steve Jobs came back to the company in late 1996, not 2000 :p

September 14 2010 at 3:31 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

InSaNeBoY

and I still have my copy of OSX beta...