Mac OS X
Its History and Why It Is Important
I
have to confess: growing up in a world of computers, I have
a bias towards the Mac. The first computer my family ever
owned was an Apple IIc, a computer that served us well for
many years, allowing my siblings to type their homework out and
play Lode Runner on a color TV. Ah, good times. But it really
wasn’t until my school started to create computer labs full of Ma-
cintosh LCIIs that I really started to grow a fascination with this
thing called the Macintosh. At an early age (let’s say, 5), I became
absolutely obsessed with everything produced by Apple Com-
puter. It didn’t matter whether I was making something on Kid Pix
or Adobe Photoshop, I wanted to use the Mac to create.
When I was five years old, my father and I would scan in pages
from my coloring book. We would then open up Adobe Photo-
shop, and I would go through and fill in the pictures using the
Paint Bucket tool. At age 8, I designed and published my own
newsletter in Aldus PageMaker entitled “Newsamania” which
covered events pertaining my school and the city I lived in, Vi-
enna, Austria. Though I only published three issues, it goes to
show that the Macintosh was a platform that makes it so easy for
people to produce something and publish it.
Though it has been fifteen years since I first touched a Mac and
created something on it, and multimedia had evolved immensely
since that time, the same principles for the Mac still hold true to-
day: it is an easy platform to simply create. Take a look around the
College of Imaging Arts and Sciences at RIT. The entire college
is filled with Macs for Video Production, Web Design, Printing, or
Audio Production. This paper will examine the history of the Mac
OS, its influences, and its effects on modern multimedia.
Origins of the Mac OS
One of the core elements of the Mac OS is its ease for people to
use through its Graphic User Interface (GUI). Previous personal
computers used command line based operating systems such
as DOS (Disk Operating System) owned by Microsoft. Apple
themselves licensed a version of DOS for their very popular Apple
II line.
Let it be told, the Macintosh was the not the first computer ever
implement a GUI. In 1973, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center
(Xerox PARC) developed a computer called the Xerox Alto. The
Xerox Alto laid the foundation for a number of things that we
Mac OS X: Its History and Why It’s Important 1
 Mac OS 1.0
take for granted in the modern GUI today, such as the “desktop”
metaphor, and the computer mouse. In 1979, Apple CEO and
co-founder Steve Jobs made a visit to Xerox PARC to see the
new technologies that the company was implementing.
Following Steve Job’s visit, a number of Xerox PARC employees
left PARC to join Apple “Lisa” project. Lisa was a project by Apple
much like the now familiar Macintosh. It implemented a GUI simi-
lar to the Macintosh, incorporating office applications including
a word processor, a spreadsheet, and a drawing application. It
introduced the mouse to the world as an interface. The oper-
ating system even supported multi-tasking, something that did
not occur until the mid to late 90s again in a personal computer.
The machine was released in 1983 as a computer for business,
priced at $9,995 (equivalent of $20,893 in modern time). No mat-
ter how revolutionary the product was, it was too expensive to
be adopted by many businesses. Many developers of Apple’s
complained that Apple was developing their own software that
competed with 3rd party developers.
While the Lisa project was happening, Apple also began devel-
2 Mac OS X: Its History and Why It’s Important
Mac OS 9
oping the Macintosh, which was designed as the GUI personal
computer for normal people. Similar to its sibling Lisa, it did not
implement all of the same technologies as the Lisa, such as multi-
tasking. These features were omitted due to memory constraints.
Unlike the doomed Lisa project, Apple chose to leave the ap-
plications to 3rd party developers to develop for the platform.
Microsoft created Excel and PowerPoint first on the Mac (both
were acquired by other small developers, but were first on the
Macintosh platform.) With the development of the LaserWriter in
1985, Apple became the default platform for desktop publishing.
This allowed users to easily use Adobe PostScript Type1 type-
faces to print their documents. The system’s dependence on the
68000 Motorola processor divided the Macintosh from the rest
of the industry for years to come. It would not join the Intel x86
bandwagon for another twenty years.
The Finder
Since the very beginning, the Mac OS has included an appli-
cation called the Finder. The Finder is the system’s file browser
that allows us to navigate and access files visually. The original
 NeXT Step
Macintosh was only able to run one application at a time. When
one application was open, the Finder would quit. An Apple pro-
grammer named Andy Hertzfeld created an application called the
“Switcher” that allowed users to switch between applications. In
Mac OS 6 they implemented the MultiFinder, which allowed mul-
tiple programs and windows to run co-currently. Between the re-
lease of Mac OS 7 in 1991 and Mac OS 9 in 1999, tweaks were
made, but the Finder did not drastically change. As it came to the
mid-90s, Apple began to look for its next generation operating
system, which will be covered in more detail in “Rhapsody: Too
Bohemian for the Rest of Us.”
What’s NeXT for Apple?
After leaving Apple in 1985, Steve Jobs invested seven million
dollars to found a new company called NeXT Computer Inc., with
him went a number of the key architects that created the Apple
Lisa. Jobs set out to create an ideal platform for higher education
computing needs. To meet their needs, they realized no current
operating system could fulfill their needs. The company would
have to develop both the software and the hardware for their
Mac OS X Leopard
platform. The platform was the first platform to implement object
oriented programming environment, a trait that was not popu-
larized until Java was released by Sun Microsystems Inc.. The
system was based on the Mach kernel developed at Carnegie
Mellon, and a UNIX platform, as well as a full-fledge GUI that
pushed the limits of graphics cards at the time. Like the Macin-
tosh, the NeXT computers were based on the Motorola 68000
processors.
NeXT computers never were popular in the mainstream. NeXT
dropped their proprietary hardware and switched to purely a soft-
ware company, re-titling the company NeXT Software Inc. NeXT
Step operating system to x86, as well as PA-RISC, SPARC, and
continued support for its 68000 NeXT machines.
The NeXT Step platform helped create significant advances to
our world today. The world’s first WYSIWYG HTML web browser,
editor, and web server, “World Wide Web” was first developed on
NeXT Step. The famous games Wolfenstein 3D and Doom were
created by John Carmack on a NeXT machine.
Mac OS X: Its History and Why It’s Important 3
On December 20, 1996, as Apple Computer was desperate to
develop their failing developing effort “Copland.” Apple purchased
NeXT Software for $400 million. This brought Steve Jobs back to
the company he helped found, bringing a bullet proof grounding
for a new operating system.
Rhapsody: Too Bohemian for the Rest of Us
Apple’s failed efforts to create an in-house next generation op-
erating system led Apple to purchase NeXT. Work began imme-
diately to merge the powerful framework of NeXT Step with the
usability of the Macintosh. This was called Rhapsody.
As it happened, it was very difficult for them to produce a new
operating system. Many developers were unwilling to adopt the
APIs that Apple was proposing. Developers were not convinced,
and it was back to the drawing boards for Apple.
Apple released their Rhapsody efforts as Mac OS X Server 1.0.
Apple then took all the code and released it as Darwin, the open-
source core of Mac OS X. Rhapsody was a stepping stone for
the development of Apple’s riskiest and most revolutionary oper-
ating system: Mac OS X.
by Adobe’s resolution independent PDF engine and OpenGL.
It introduced two segments of its Quartz graphic engine: Core
Graphics rendering for drawing and Core Graphics services to
render layer effects. The operating system could natively render
graphic effects like transparencies, and other visual effects. Crit-
ics criticized these features for being unnecessary and overbear-
ing on their CPUs, but it gave more human feel to the operating
system, and gave the system a more human feel.
Another trait that the new interface added was the Dock. The
Dock was a toolbar placed at the bottom of the screen, replac-
ing the Launcher application and Control Strip that was used in
later versions of the previous Mac OS. This allowed for users to
access their currently active applications, their commonly used
applications, and their commonly accessed system preferences.
There were several criticisms that were made with the Public
Beta. Fortunately, Apple took this feedback and used it to further
improve Mac OS X.
Mac OS X 10.0 Cheetah and 10.1 Puma On March 24, 2001,
MacOS X Leopard in its childhood years.

The Evolution of Cats

Mac OS X was the biggest risk Apple could ever make. Apple
had lost a lot of market share in the early 90s due to mismanage-
ment and poor leadership. Jobs sought to create the next gen-
eration of operating system. However, he did not see the Macin-
tosh as a computer simply for productivity. He saw the computer
as a lifestyle. He saw it as a means to create media and become
the “center of the digital lifestyle.” This revolution started with the
introduction of the iMac in 1998. New iMacs in 1999 came stan-
dard with an application called iMovie, allowing consumers to
affordably edit and publish their home movies. As digital cameras
and camcorders became more affordable, Jobs wanted the Ma-
cintosh to be the center of it all. Jobs wanted the ease, style, and
power of the iMac in the operating system.

MacOS X Public Beta In the core level, Mac OS X was heaps

and bounds better than the Mac OS that it was replacing. Much
like its NeXT roots, it was based on UNIX, had protected memo-
ry, native multi-tasking, resources were based on system librar-
ies, Mach kernel, file extensions, memory management, and for
the first time in the history of the Macintosh, a command line!
Core services and other services could run real-time in the back-
ground. Initial critics criticized it required more system resources,
but it laid further potential for the uses of the operating system.

In Mac OS X Beta, the biggest reaction came from the interface.

The interface was based on a GUI called Aqua. Aqua gave the
entire interface a very liquid natural feel, ran on a graphics engine
called Quartz, developed by Apple that was heavily influenced

4 Mac OS X: Its History and Why It’s Important

Apple released the first commercial release of Mac OS X: Mac
OS X 10.0 (codenamed Cheetah, but not marketed that way,)
Many criticized it as not ready as a main operating system. On
that note, however, Apple was commended for releasing the op-
erating system, as it had been working on the project for five
years. It added support for “Classic,” which ran Mac OS 9 within
the framework of Mac OS X, allowing users to use their old ap-
plications. This was an important transitional technology for early
adopters to use their familiar applications while developers con-
tinued to work on native applications for Mac OS X.
The minimum system requirements to run Mac OS X were sig-
nificantly higher than that of Mac OS 9. People who had bought
computers in the last three years were fine, while many of the
older machines would be left behind. It recommended 128Mb of
memory, and required 1.5Gb of hard drive space, and at least a
G3 processor.
The operating system included features such as an Address
Book for organization of contacts that could be universally ac-
cessed by all applications, a basic email client called Apple Mail,
native PDF support, and the ability for any native application to
output to PDF. At this point, the major developers such as Adobe
and Microsoft were working on their porting their software to Mac
OS X. Cheetah was shipped with every Macintosh as an optional
install.
On September 25th of the same year, Apple released a free up-
date to 10.1 (codenamed Puma, though again, not marketed
with the codename.) It tightened many loose screws that existed
in Cheetah, and added several new features. It allowed the Dock
to be placed on different sides of the screen. CD and DVD burn-
ing support and DVD playback support was also added. It added
further support with CUPS for over 200 different printers natively,
and ColorSync 4.0 for color management. On August 23, 2002,
Apple announced that Mac OS X 10.1 would be the default oper-
ating system on all shipping Macs. Adobe released Adobe Pho-
toshop 7 for Mac OS X. Microsoft released Microsoft Office for
Mac X. Mac OS X was now ready to leap into action.
Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar On August 23, 2002, Apple released its
new cat, Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar. This time, Jaguar was part of
the name branding. This version was heaps and bounds better
than its predecessors, adding dozens of features, and optimizing
the system further.
It introduced a number of new features including full native Blu-
etooth support, allowing users to connect their PDAs and Mobile
Phones to their computers. It added Rendezvous (later renamed),
an implementation of the IETF zero configuration protocol that al-
lowed the computers to interact with peripherals and other com-
puters without configuration. It added easy search in each Finder
window, allowing users to search the contents of directories and
files easily and conveniently. It added Samba server support, al-
lowing the Macintosh to become interoperable with Windows
servers. It further advanced the Quartz rendering engine, allowing
graphics to be processed directly on supported graphics cards.
Apple also introduced three new applications: iChat, iSync, and
iCal. iChat was an AIM-client that allowed users to chat using
AOL’s large instant messaging network. They added the calendar
organizer application iCal, as well as iSync, allowing users to syn-
chronize their information with all their peripherals.
In January 2003, Apple released a public beta of their new web
browser based on the KHTML rendering engine, Safari. This new
was extremely fast compared to its main competitor, Internet Ex-
plorer 5 for Macintosh. It would become version 1.0 in the next
revision of the OS.
MacOS X 10.3 Panther In October 24, 2003, Panther was re-
leased. The release provided a new interface for its Finder, adding
the Brushed Metal look that people grew familiar with in Quick-
Time and iTunes. It allowed users to access their connected
drives, network volumes, and most commonly accessed files
directly in the Finder window. It also added an application called
Mac OS X: Its History and Why It’s Important 5
Expose which allowed users to view all of their active windows at
the stroke of a button. Fast User switching was added, allowing
multiple users to use the same machine without inconvenienc-
ing each other. iChat was updated to iChat AV, allowing users
interact with other users using high quality video conferencing.
The FontBook application was added for typographers. It added
the development suite Xcode, making it simple and easy for de-
velopers to produce native applications for the Macintosh. They
also added support for X11, allowing savvy users to use the large
collection of applications made for the Xsystem.
on par with the offerings from Microsoft. Apple manages to do an
amazing job of making something that can seem intimidating and
implement it in a way that even a child can do it.
Apple created a very strong set of tools for developer’s to create
applications for the platform called Xcode. Initially, Apple support-
ed the Carbon and Cocoa applications. Carbon was an easy way
for developers for the classic Mac OS to recompile their applica-
tions for the new OS. These applications, however, did not take
full advantage of the resources of the operating system. When

Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger While

Microsoft was still trying to
get Longhorn out the door,
Apple released Mac OS X
10.4 Tiger. While it was tak-
ing Microsoft seven years to
produce their operating sys-
tem, Apple was releasing a
major update almost every
year, constantly remaining
one step ahead of Microsoft
development. Posters in
the lobby of Worldwide De-
veloper’s Conference 2004
stated: “Redmond, start
your photocopiers” and “In-
troducing Longhorn.”

Tiger was a significant up-

date to Mac OS X. It added
Spotlight, a search utility to
search the entire computer
categorize the results for
easy access. Spotlight also had the ability to search metadata.
Apple shifted their architecture to Intel x86, it was no longer pos-
Frequent search queries could be saved and as “smart folders”
sible for Carbon-based applications to run natively. Apple devel-
that update live according to the search parameters. Similar to
oped an emulator called Rosetta that allowed the old code to be
the program Konfabulator, Apple introduced a feature called
emulated on new machines. In order to run at full potential, all
Dashboard that allowed users to run several small applications,
developers were required to recode their software and all future
such as weather, a calculator, etc..
software in Cocoa. Cocoa was the native coding language that
Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard is the latest was designed for Mac OS X.
cat in town. It has only been out since October. It is the first op-
erating system to come from Apple after its transition to the Intel Developing for Mac OS X
x86 architecture, allowing it to take full advantage of all the ser-
vices that the x86 architecture has to offer. Almost every piece of Xcode compiles in C, C++, Objective C, Objective C++, Java,
the operating system seems to have been improved in this revi- and AppleScript. Because of the transition to Intel x86, Xcode
sion. Among some of the major additions include Time Machine, allows code to be easily compiled in a universal binary that is
a very graphical and convenient way to backup files. Apple inte- able to be run on both PowerPC chipsets as well as Intel x86
grated a feature called Boot Camp that allows user to dual boot chipsets.
both Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows XP or Vista. The Finder
was redesigned to be faster and more efficient. Screen sharing iLife: The Center of the Digital Hub
and other document sharing support has been added to the sys-
tem through the application iChat AV. Apple once-again stepped People buy Macs because of the operating system and the soft-
ahead of Microsoft with this release, adding features beyond or ware that it offers. iLife is a bundle of applications for the Mac

6 Mac OS X: Its History and Why It’s Important

that is included with every new Mac sold. These applications are
the core of why so many people switch to the Mac. iLife includes
applications such as iMovie, iPhoto, iDVD, GarageBand, iTunes,
and iWeb All of these applications took production that was pre-
viously expensive and put it within clicking distance of its Mac
users to create professional quality content.
iMovie iMovie was the first application of the suite to be cre-
ated. In 1999, it was originally made for the classic Mac OS and
came bundled with the new iMac DVs that were released that
year. It popularized the idea of using your home computer to edit
and publish your home videos, adding transitions and titles. It did
this through the industry adoption of FireWire (IEEE1394) on the
new consumer digital camcorders. Anyone with one could come
home and start creating professional looking movies. As the pro-
gram evolved, it added more sound features, more effects to give
movies the extra little touch.
iPhoto What iTunes was for music organization is what iPhoto
was meant to be for photos. As Mac OS X was becoming more
popular at the beginning of the 21st century, so was the use of
digital cameras. Unfortunately, many consumers never really had
a good organization for their photos. Often they would be lost in
random folders on a computer. Worst yet, unknowing consum-
ers would write over their files, destroying valuable data in their
images. To help organize the chaos, in January 2002 Apple re-
leased iPhoto. The program organizes the photos, allows users
to create fancy slideshows, create web galleries, email photos,
create photo albums, and touch photos non-destructively. It gave
a solution to all the disorganized people in the world that never
organize their digital photos (sadly, on the PC, there are still mil-
lions of people that still don’t organize their photos.)
iDVD As DVD burners began to become affordable and standard
in computers, Apple released iDVD. iDVD allowed for quick and
easy creation of professional looking DVDs. This program would
take people’s iMovie projects and place them into predefined DVD
menus so that the user can burn not just their movie to DVD, but
have the entire experience on the DVD as well. Along with video
content, it allows for chapters to be produced for easy scene
skipping, and the creation of
slideshows for photos. Before
GarageBand, the cost to create
an equivalent professional qual-
ity would have made the aver-
age home bankrupt. This was
the first DVD producing soft-
ware on the market that pro-
duced content at such a high
caliber at such a low price.
GarageBand Like the other in-
novations, GarageBand did to
music what iMovie did to mov-
ies: it brought the music studio
into the home. Average to pro-
fessional musicians could now
record their music at home,
without paying several hun-
dreds of dollars for studio time.
The program was recording
studio all in one. It allowed for
multi-track recording. It came
with a large collection of sound
loops so musicians could easily add drums or other instruments
to their music. It added several MIDI instruments, so musicians
with MIDI keyboards could simulate other instruments. The qual-
ity was not poor either. The technology used for GarageBand
came from its high-end recording software Logic Pro. People
could produce professional sounding recordings free with their
new Mac. GarageBand was designed so simply that even users
that have no musical experience can still create music by mixing
different sound loops around. In later versions, GarageBand now
has several features to allow users to easily produce a Podcast
and publish it.
iWeb iWeb is a program that allows users to easily create profes-
sional looking websites and post them via Apple’s .Mac online
subscription service. The program allowed users through pre-
defined templates create different elements of a website, such as
a blog, or a photo gallery, without having to know a single line of
HTML. It also allowed for easy publishing of podcasts or videos
that can be downloaded directly into iTunes.
Mac OS X: Its History and Why It’s Important 7
iTunes Everyone in the western world I would imagine these
days has heard of iTunes. Why? The iPod of course. iTunes is
necessary for computers to interact with iPods to add music or
remove music. When iTunes was first introduced in 2001, it of-
fered superior organization to any other jukebox music player. It
made it easy for users to rip their music off their CDs onto their
computers, and have all the artist and album information with the
file so organization is a breeze. In 2003, Apple added the iTunes
Music Store, allowing customers to download music directly from
the store at 99 cents per song without any hassle and put them
on their iPod or CD. In later revisions, they also added download-
able TV shows and feature length movies. iTunes has become
the center media.
Apple’s Professional Applications for Mac
The following applications are not standard on Macs, however
they are pieces of software created by Apple that are available on
Mac OS X only. Each of these products are leaders in their indus-
try, despite the limitations of being on a minority platform.
Final Cut Studio Final Cut Pro, originally a Macromedia proj-
ect that was never released, Apple purchased the application in
1998 following the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB)
exposition. Apple added support for FireWire DV into the applica-
tion and released at the NAB expo the following year. Similar to its
work with consumer products, made tools available for one thou-
sand dollars what would have been available for fifty thousand
previously. The product quickly picked up momentum as a strong
alternative to Adobe Premiere, as well as the offerings from Avid.
It is a non-linear editing system, allowing users to stack different
layers of scenes on top of each other much like Adobe Photo-
shop. It supports a number of different video formats such as
DV, HDV, DVCProHD, XDCAM, and IMAX. Quickly growing mo-
mentum, Adobe Premiere eventually was dropped from the Mac
OS because of being unable to compete with Apple’s superior
product.
Apple also added a number of complementary applications,
eventually titling the software suite Final Cut Studio. These in-
clude DVD Studio Pro, Shake, LiveType, Cinema Tools, Com-
pressor, Soundtrack Pro, Motion, and Color. DVD Studio Pro is
extensive DVD authoring software, allowing for easy creation of
advanced DVD menus and features. Shake is an advanced com-
positing software much like Adobe’s After Effects, allows for high
end movie animations to be created. Cinema Tools is a helpful
tool to help organize where different bits of footage came from.
Compressor is a highly functional application to compress movies
into a variety of different formats for a variety of different markets.
Soundtrack Pro allows for editors to create quick royalty-free
background music for their movies using an extensive collection
of sound loops, much-like GarageBand. Users can then synchro-
nize their music up directly with their movies, so the music goes
exactly in cue with the music. These additional applications make
8 Mac OS X: Its History and Why It’s Important
Final Cut Studio an entire all in one postproduction suite, capable
of creating all the things necessary to develop a movie.
As things have progressed Apple has won a number of awards
as well as been influential in a number of blockbuster movies. In
2002, Final Cut Pro received the Primetime Emmy Engineering
Award for its on the television industry. Popular TV show Scrubs
is edited entirely on Final Cut Pro. Graphic intensive movie 300
was created with help of Apple’s advanced compositing software
Shake. 2003 hit Cold Mountain was also produced using Final
Cut Pro. It has also grown great popularity among independent
film makers for its functionality at a reasonable cost.
Logic Studio While Logic was owned by eMagic, Logic was the
tool of choice in professional studios for producing high-quality
MIDI for recording on both the Mac and the Windows PC. Several
additional plug-ins were created for Logic to add functionality and
instruments to the software, such as software instruments, the
EXS sampler, and other plugins. When Apple purchased Logic in
July 2002, it quickly dropped support for the Windows platform
with the release of Logic 6. When Apple released Logic Pro 7 in
2004, it integrated a number of the most common plug-ins for
Logic as well as additional support for ProTools configurations
into one application suite. It also included a number of additional
plug-ins including Guitar Amp Pro, and over seventy new plug-
ins. Like its other professional applications, it allowed musicians
and studios to create high-level results without the need of rent-
ing a full studio always.
Conclusion
At the end of this entire paper, one goes back to the original
question: how has Apple contributed to multimedia? My re-
sponse would be in every way. Apple popularized the Graphic
User Interface, making it easy for anyone to create visually on the
Macintosh. Every standard personal computer today comes with
an operating system with a GUI. It founded desktop publishing,
as we know it today with the implementation of Adobe PostScript
and the first laser printers, the LaserWriter. Its NeXT roots helped
build the first web browser, which is the center of most of our
media today. It made several expensive medias such as Audio
Production, Video Production, and Web production accessible
to the public. It brought the visual interface to a new standard
with the creation of Mac OS X, influencing operating systems
such as Microsoft Windows XP and Microsoft Windows Vista,
as well inspired certain styles for internet web pages that wanted
to simulate the look and feel of their operating system. All major
vendors produce versions of major software for the Mac. The
Mac OS set the benchmarks for operating systems today, and
creates the ideal and powerful platform for creative professionals
to create content, as well as everyone else. •BV