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Mac OS X 10.0 (code named Cheetah) is the first major release of Mac OS X, Apple's desktop and server operating system. It was released on March 24, 2001, for a price of $129 after a public beta.

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Developer:
Apple Computer

OS family:
Macintosh Unix-like

Source model:
Closed, with open source components

General availability:
March 24, 2001; 22 years ago

Latest release:
10.0.4 / June 22, 2001; 22 years ago

Platforms:
PowerPC

Kernel type:
Hybrid (XNU)

Default user interface:
Aqua

License:
Apple Public Source License (APSL) and Apple end-user license agreement (EULA)

Preceded by
Mac OS 9
Mac OS X Public Beta

Succeeded by
Mac OS X 10.1

Official website:
Apple - Mac OS X

Tagline:
The future is here. The power of UNIX with the simplicity and elegance of Macintosh.

Support status:
Historical, unsupported as of November 13, 2006

Mac OS X was Apple's successor to the classic Mac OS. It was derived from NeXTSTEP and FreeBSD, and featured a new user interface called Aqua, as well as improved stability and security due to its new Unix foundations. It introduced the Quartz graphics rendering engine for hardware-accelerated animations. Many technologies were ported from the classic Mac OS, including Sherlock and the QuickTime framework. The core components of Mac OS X were open sourced as Darwin.

Boxed releases of Mac OS X 10.0 also included a copy of Mac OS 9.1, which can be installed alongside Mac OS X 10.0, through the means of dual booting (which meant that reboots are required for switching between the two OSes). This was important for compatibility reasons; while many Mac OS 9 applications could be run under Mac OS X in the Classic environment, some, such as applications that directly accessed hardware, could only run under Mac OS 9.

Six months after its release, Mac OS X 10.0 was succeeded by Mac OS X 10.1, code named Puma.