Software

Operating system

The Macintosh operating system was originally known as the System Software or more simply System. With the release of System 7.6, the official name became Mac OS. From 2001 onward, the "classic" Mac OS was phased out in favor of the new, Unix-based Mac OS X. Apple had offered another UNIX system, A/UX, for their Macintosh servers earlier, but without much success. The Mac OS operating system is generally considered one of the Macintosh platform's main selling points, and its releases are heavily touted by Apple with large special events, and release day events. Apple has generally chosen to stick with some loose user interface elements in all of its releases, and many similarities can be seen between the legacy Mac OS 9 and the modern Mac OS X. Non-Apple operating systems for today's Macintoshes include Linux and free BSD variants.

Mac OS, or "System" as it was originally known, was the first widely-used operating system with a graphical interface. In fact, no versions of the "classic" Mac OS featured a command line. It was originally a single-tasking OS, but optional cooperative multitasking was introduced in System 5. The next major upgrade was System 7 in 1991, which featured a new, full color design as well as built-in multitasking, AppleScript, and more user configuration options. Mac OS continued to evolve up to version 9.2.2, but its dated architecture (such as using cooperative multitasking instead of the more modern preemptive multitasking) made a replacement necessary.

In March 2001, Apple introduced Mac OS X, a modern and more secure Unix-based successor (using Darwin, XNU and Mach as foundations). Mac OS X is directly derived from NeXTSTEP, the operating system developed by Steve Jobs' company NeXT before it was bought by Apple. Older Mac OS programs can still run under Mac OS X in a special virtual machine called Classic, but this will no longer be possible when Apple switches from the PowerPC architecture to Intel processors in 2007. Even though Mac OS X was never certified as an UNIX implementation by The Open Group, it is the most common Unix-based desktop operating system of today. Mac OS X is currently at version 10.4 (released on April 29, 2005), codenamed Tiger. The next version, Mac OS X v10.5, codenamed "Leopard", is scheduled to be released at the end of 2006.

A/UX

A/UX, the third official operating system for the Macintosh, was a System V based UNIX variant offered from 1988 to 1996. It ran on non-PowerPC Macintoshes, and featured a System 7-style interface as well as a command line. It was not very successful, and was phased out in favor of a AIX variant. When Mac OS X was released, there was no longer a need for a separate UNIX OS. Mac OS X Server, which is very closely tied to Mac OS X, is now Apple's main server OS.

Software history

Since its introduction the Macintosh has been criticized for the lack of software available for its operating system. In 1984, it was apparent that the IBM PC had a wider range of software available, because it used the most popular operating system of the time, MS-DOS. Apple struggled to encourage software developers to port software titles to the Macintosh, however Bill Gates at Microsoft realized that the GUI would become an industry-standard, and that his software would sell in large quantity if it was available for the Macintosh. In 1984 Microsoft Word and Microsoft MultiPlan were available, and were a large selling point for the Mac. However, it lacked games and business software. In 1985, Lotus introduced Lotus Jazz after the success of Lotus 1-2-3 for the IBM PC, although it was largely a flop.

In 1987 Apple spun off their software business as Claris. They were given the code and rights to several programs that had been written within Apple, notably MacWrite, MacPaint and MacProject. In the late 1980s Claris released a number of revamped software titles, the result was the "Pro" series including MacPaint Pro, MacDraw Pro, MacWrite Pro and FileMaker Pro. In order to provide a complete office suite they also purchased the rights to the Informix WingZ spreadsheet on the Mac, re-branding it as Claris Resolve, and added the new presentation program Claris Impact. By the early 1990s Claris programs were shipping with the majority of consumer level Macintoshes, and were extremely popular. In 1991 Claris released ClarisWorks, which soon became their second best-selling program.

Today, all Macintosh computers come prepackaged with a suite of consumer level applications called 'iLife.' The first iLife application was iMovie, which was released in 1999 for use on the iMac DV. Next in line came iTunes, a digital jukebox designed to work with Apple's iPod digital music player, and on January 7th, 2002, Apple released iPhoto, an easy-to-use, consumer grade digital photo organizer. Finally, in 2004, Apple marketed the aformentioned applications, as well as iDVD and GarageBand, into a US$49 suite called iLife. Today, every Macintosh computer comes preinstalled with the iLife suite. The suite is intended to make the Mac extremely versatile out of the box by providing several consumer media applications. The most popular tool in the suite is iTunes, which now has a Windows version available as well, and has spawned the most popular online music store, iTunes Music Store.

From Wikipedia.