macOS Alive
macOS
KindOperating system
Appeared2001
StatusAlive
CreatorApple
FamilyUnix
PlatformPPC → x86 → ARM
Also known asMac OS X
Sourcewww.apple.com ↗
NeXTSTEP with a Macintosh soul — Mach/BSD underneath, Aqua on top; Unix certified and the longest-lived desktop lineage after Windows.
1960198020002020
Written in Objective-C
Ran on Macintosh 128K
Created by Apple Computer
Descendants iOS
Predecessors NeXTSTEP
Mac OS (1984) began as the Macintosh System Software — Finder, QuickDraw, Resource Manager — and became Mac OS 9 (the 'Classic' line) before Apple's 1997 NeXTSTEP acquisition rebuilt it as Mac OS X.\n\nThe two lines merged in 2001; macOS (renamed 2016) is now the desktop Unix that most developers actually use — NeXTSTEP's descendants wearing the Mac name.