Mac OS X v10.3

From AudioLexic

Mac OS X version 10.3 "Panther" is the fourth major release of Apple Computer's Mac OS X operating system. It follows Mac OS X v10.2 "Jaguar" and precedes Mac OS X v10.4 "Tiger". Apple released Panther on October 24, 2003. The cost from Apple was US$129 for a single-user license and US$199 for a Family Pack (5 user, 1 household) license.

[edit] System requirements

• Supported Computers - Power Mac G3, G4, G5, iMac, eMac, PowerBook G3 (bronze keyboard models only) or G4, or iBook G3 or G4
• RAM required - 128 megabytes
• Hard Drive Space - 1.5 gigabytes

Since Panther requires a computer with a built-in USB port, certain older computers (beige Power Mac G3s and "Wall Street" PowerBook G3s) are unable to run 10.3 by default. 3rd party software (such as XPostFacto) can override checks made during the install process; otherwise, installation or upgrades from 10.2 will fail on these older machines.

[edit] New features

Apple advertises that Panther has at least 150 new features, including:

• Finder updated interface
  • Brushed-metal interface
  • Real-time searching (like iTunes)
  • Customizable sidebar (like iTunes)
  • Modified Icon
• Fast User Switching, that allows a user to remain logged in while another user logs in feature, featuring the desktop on an animated cube (the effect is only seen on systems with Quartz Extreme).
• Exposé, a program to help the user manage windows, especially large numbers of them.
• Fax support built-in.
• Zip support built in.
• X11 support built-in.
• TextEdit support for Microsoft Word (*.doc) documents.
• Microsoft Windows interoperability improvements, including support for SecurID-based VPNs.
• Security
  • FileVault: on the fly encryption and decryption of a user's home folder
  • Secure deletion
• Xcode Developer Tools, which speeds compile times greatly with gcc 3.3.
• iChat AV video-conferencing software
• PDF rendering speed increase
• File labels
• Pixlet high definition video codec
• CoreAudio and Audio Units
• Font Book font manager

[edit] External links

• Apple: Mac OS X 10.3: Chart of available Mac OS software updates
• Ars Technica: Mac OS X 10.3 Panther

This article was started using a Wikipedia OS X v10.3 article