Apple Announces Mac OS X "Panther"

CUPERTINO, California-Apple announced that Mac OS X version 10.3"Panther," the next major release of the world's most advancedoperating system, will be available on Friday, October 24, beginning at8:00 p.m. Panther delivers more than 150 breakthrough new featuresincluding a completely new Finder that provides one-click access to auser's favorite files and folders; Exposé, a revolutionary new wayto instantly see all open windows at once; and iChat AV, a completedesktop video conferencing solution for business, education andconsumers.

Apple's retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers will hostspecial events Friday night, October 24, at 8:00 p.m. to celebrate theintroduction of the most ground-breaking version of Apple's UNIX-basedoperating system to date. "Panther sets the new gold standard foroperating systems," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "With more than 150new features, we're delivering innovations today that will not be seenin any other operating system for years to come."

Panther features a completely redesigned Finder with lightning-fastfile searching that is up to six times faster than Mac OS X version10.2 "Jaguar." The new Finder provides one-click access by putting auser's favorite folders, storage, servers and iDisk in one convenientlocation. The new Finder also offers dynamic browsing of the networkfor Mac, Windows and UNIX file servers.

Panther also introduces Exposé, a revolutionary new way toinstantly view all open windows and choose any of them to be on top.Exposé visually unshuffles overlapping windows on the desktop intoan organized thumbnail view so a user can instantly locate and switchto any open window or get to any file on the desktop. Powered by theMac OS X Quartz graphic engine, Exposé is a breakthrough inworking with multiple files, applications and projects.

Panther extends instant messaging to the next level with iChat AV,the world's easiest to use desktop video conferencing solution,offering full-screen, full-motion video over broadband, crystal-clearaudio and a familiar easy-to-use interface. iChat makes naturalconversations over the Internet immediate and effortless, and has beenenjoyed by over half a million beta users since its introduction inJune.

Other new features in Panther include:

• Fast User Switching to elegantly switch between active users withouthaving to quit applications or log out; FileVault, which uses thelatest security standards and 128-bit encryption technology to ensurethat data in the home directory is kept secure and private at alltimes;

• Font Book, a new application that provides system-level fontmanagement with double-click font preview, one-click installation andan intuitive interface for managing font collections, and activating ordeactivating fonts; the world's fastest PDF reader in a significantlyimproved Preview application, with super-fast text searching thatbuilds an instant index of search results in a PDF, text selection andcopying, URL support and support for the PDF 1.4 format;

• a fully integrated iDisk that increases productivity byautomatically syncing a user's offline work to their .Mac Internetserver storage once they're online again, so users can work locally onfiles with hard drive speeds and have them synced automatically back totheir iDisk later;

• enhanced Mail, with advanced spam filtering technology and theability to organize mail into convenient threads to make it easy toread, file or delete related emails;

• a new Address Book that includes powerful new features for printinglabels and easily notifying contacts when a user's personal informationchanges;

• integrated faxing synced with the Address Book so sending andreceiving faxes is as easy as printing, and includes support for addingcover pages;

• enhanced Windows compatibility that ensures files, printers andnetwork services can easily be shared with Windows users. Support forMicrosoft Exchange is built into Mail and Address Book to make it easyto access Exchange email and sync address book entries;

• advancements to the open-standard UNIX-based foundation, includingsupport for the latest open source libraries, commands andtechnologies, X11 applications, IPv6, Kerberos integration and agreatly improved NFS file system;

• Xcode, the fastest way to create Mac OS X applications. Xcodecombines an easy-to-use interface with proven developer tools such asGCC 3.3 to make it easy for developers to take advantage of the latesttechnologies from Apple;

• and the latest versions of iSync, iCal, iPhoto, iMovie, the iTunesMusic Store and Apple's new default web browser, Safari.

Mac OS X version 10.3 "Panther" will be available on October 24beginning at 8:00 p.m. at Apple's retail stores and through AppleAuthorized Resellers for a suggested retail price of $129 (US) for asingle user license. Visitors to The Apple Store (www.apple.com) can pre-order copies ofPanther beginning today. The Mac OS X Panther Family Pack is asingle-residence, five-user license that will be available for asuggested retail price of $199 (US). Volume and maintenance pricing isavailable from Apple. The standard Mac OS Up-To-Date upgrade package isavailable to all customers who purchase a new Mac system on or afterOctober 8; all customers who purchased a Power Mac G5 regardless ofpurchase date that do not have Panther included; and customers whopurchase the Mac OS X version 10.2 "Jaguar" retail product on or afterOctober 8 for a shipping and handling fee of $19.95 (US).

Panther requires a minimum of 128MB of memory and is designed to runon the following Apple products with built-in USB support: iMac, iBook,Power Macintosh G3, Power Mac G4, Power Mac G4 Cube, Power Mac G5,PowerBook G3, PowerBook G4.

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with theApple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with theMacintosh. Apple is committed to bringing the best personal computingexperience to students, educators, creative professionals and consumersaround the world through its innovative hardware, software and Internetofferings.