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Every macOS version in order: from the first public beta to macOS 15
May 18, 2025
Apple’s macOS operating system has changed a lot over the last 25 years, with new features and designs coming and going as the decades have passed. Even the name has been adjusted, starting out as Mac OS X before shortening to OS X and eventually settling on macOS. The world the original version inhabited back in 2000 is very different to today.
Including the initial public beta, Apple has released 22 versions of the Mac operating system so far, with new launches becoming an annual occurrence. But it wasn’t always this way, and there have been some fascinating updates and developments in the time since the first version appeared. Let’s see how macOS has changed over the years.
Mac OS X Public Beta (2000)
The world’s first glimpse of what was then called Mac OS X came in 2000 with the launch of the Mac OS X Public Beta. Codenamed Kodiak, this preview version cost $29.95 and was intended to gather feedback from users.
The biggest advance over previous Mac-based operating systems was the introduction of the famous blue-and-gray Aqua user interface, which Steve Jobs touted as looking so good you wanted to lick it. Aside from that, it introduced the Dock, the menu bar, and protected memory, as well as a host of apps still in use today, such as Mail, Preview, QuickTime, Terminal, and TextEdit.
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