MacOS has supported three major processor architectures, beginning with PowerPC-based Macs in 1999. After sixteen distinct versions of macOS 10, macOS Big Sur was presented as version 11 in 2020, and every subsequent version has also incremented the major version number, similarly to classic Mac OS and iOS. Apple shortened the name to 'OS X' in 2011 and then changed it to 'macOS' in 2016 to align with the branding of Apple's other operating systems, iOS, watchOS, and tvOS. The derivatives of macOS are Apple's other operating systems: iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, tvOS, and audioOS.Ī prominent part of macOS's original brand identity was the use of Roman numeral X, pronounced 'ten', as well as code naming each release after species of big cats, or places within California. All releases from Mac OS X Leopard onward with the exclusion of Mac OS X Lion are UNIX 03 certified. The first desktop version, Mac OS X 10.0, was released on March 24, 2001. During this time, Apple computers co-founder Steve Jobs had left Apple and started his own company, NeXT, developing the NeXTSTEP platform that would later be acquired by Apple to form the basis of Mac OS X. Mac OS X succeeded classic Mac OS, a Macintosh operating system from 1984 to 2001.

Within the market of desktop and laptop computers, it is the second most widely used desktop OS, after Microsoft Windows and ahead of all Linux machines, including ChromeOS.

It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. MacOS ( / ˌ m æ k oʊ ˈ ɛ s/ originally Mac OS X, previously shortened as OS X) is an operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc.

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