Mac OS X was officially released on
March 24, 2001, as announced at
MacWorld San Francisco 2001. Mac OS X 10.1 was released on September 28th, bringing great improvements which brought the OS, in my opinion and that of many others, to a level where it is ready to be used as one's full-time OS. The retail price is $129. Mac OS
X is now shipped with all new
Macs as of MacWorld 2002 in January.
Improvements of Mac OS X 10.0 over the beta version included:
Improvements of Mac OS X 10.1 over 10.0 include:
- Greatly improved speed, especially with respect to application launches and window resizing. Almost as fast as Mac OS 9.
- DVD support (finally)
- iTunes: Apple version of SoundJam, MP3 player and Audio CD burner
- CD burning integrated into the Finder
- "Menu Extras": controls such as for volume, AirPort, networking, &c., as well as battery level display and a clock (digital or analog) in the menu bar on the right side, to avoid taking up space in the Dock
- Dock customization: can be placed at bottom or on left or right sides of screen
- Greatly reduced power drain during sleep on laptops, which was a significant problem under 10.0
Sources: MacOSrumors.com, Apple.com