Panther is Mac OS X 10.3

Panther is Mac OS X 10.3
Mac Tip #124/22-Oct-2003

Mac OS X 10.0 was released in April 2001. It wasn’t specially good, for a lot of reasons and only the keenest Mac fans started using it. Then 10.1 came along in October 2001 and there were quite a few improvements. With much fanfare the powerful, stable and attractive 10.2 (Jaguar) was released in August 2002 — a little over a year ago.

Actually the previous releases also had “big cat” code names. Version 10.0 was “Cheetah” and version 10.1 was “Puma” but they weren’t used in marketing.

Continuing the big cat tradition though, 24 October 2003 brings us the next cat in the series: Panther, 10.3. This promises over 150 improvements over Jaguar, including fast user switching, expose, file vault, font book and new versions of many applications such as the Address Book, Safari, Mail, iCal and others. There are heaps of details at the official website

I’ll be installing Panther as soon as my copy arrives and in next week’s Tip I’ll let you know what I think. In the meantime, if you run OS X 10.0 or 10.1 then definitely visit your dealer and buy this upgrade. If you have Jaguar I’m betting it will still be a good choice to upgrade.

Late breaker: A new series of books is available called Take Control.

The first two books (US$5 each, downloadable) are: Take Control of Upgrading to Panther, by Joe Kissell and Take Control of Customizing Panther, by Matt Neuburg. Although I haven’t yet seen these books I’m certain they will be invaluable for all those upgrading to Panther.