Software:Mac OS X Panther

Short description: Fourth major release of macOS

Mac OS X 10.3 Panther

A version of the macOS operating system
Screenshot of Mac OS X Panther. Notice how the Finder icon in the Dock has been changed and Internet Explorer has been replaced by Safari
Developer	Apple Computer, Inc.
OS family	Macintosh Unix-like
Source model	Closed, with open source components
Released to manufacturing	October 24, 2003 (2003-10-24)
|Final release|Latest release}}	10.3.9 / April 15, 2005 (2005-04-15)
Platforms	PowerPC
Kernel type	Hybrid (XNU)
License	Apple Public Source License (APSL) and Apple end-user license agreement (EULA)
Preceded by	Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar
Succeeded by	Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger
Support status
Obsolete, unsupported as of 2007

Mac OS X Panther (version 10.3) is the fourth major release of Mac OS X (now named macOS), Apple's desktop and server operating system. It followed Mac OS X 10.2 and preceded Mac OS X Tiger. Apple released Panther on October 24, 2003.

System requirements

The system requirements are:

• PowerPC G3, G4, or G5 processor (at least 233 MHz)
• Built-in USB
• At least 128 MB of RAM (256 MB recommended, minimum of 96 MB supported unofficially)
• At least 1.5 GB of available hard disk space
• CD drive
• Internet access requires a compatible service provider; iDisk requires a .Mac account

Video conferencing requires:

• 333 MHz or faster PowerPC G3, G4, or G5 processor
• Broadband internet access (100 kbit/s or faster)
• Compatible FireWire DV camera or web camera

Since a New World ROM was required for Mac OS X Panther, certain older computers (such as beige Power Mac G3s and 'Wall Street' PowerBook G3s) were unable to run Panther by default. Third-party software (such as XPostFacto) can, however, override checks made during the install process; otherwise, installation or upgrades from Jaguar will fail on these older machines.

Panther still supported the Classic environment fully for running older Mac OS 9 applications but made Classic application windows double-buffered, which interfered with some applications expecting to directly draw to the screen.

New and changed features

End-user features

Apple advertised that Mac OS X Panther had over 150 new features, including:

• Finder: Updated with a brushed-metal interface, a new live search engine, customizable Sidebar, secure deletion, File labels and Zip support built in. The Finder icon was also changed.
• Fast User Switching: Allows a user to remain logged in while another user logs in
• Exposé: Helps the user manage windows by showing them all as thumbnails.
• TextEdit: TextEdit now is also compatible with Microsoft Word (.doc) documents.
• Xcode developer tools: Faster compile times with gcc 3.3.
• Preview: Increased speed with PDF rendering
• QuickTime: Now supports the Pixlet high definition video codec

New applications in Panther

• Font Book: Font Book, Apple's font manager, simplifies viewing character maps and installing fonts. It also allows the user to sort fonts into categories.
• FileVault: On the fly encryption and decryption of a user's home folder
• iChat AV: The new version of iChat. Now with built-in Audio- and video-conferencing.
• X11: X11 is built into Panther
• Safari: A new web browser that was developed to replace Internet Explorer for Mac when the contract between Apple and Microsoft ended, although Internet Explorer for Mac was still available. Safari 1.0 was included in an update in Jaguar but was used as the default browser in Panther.

Other

• Microsoft Windows interoperability improvements, including out-of-the-box support for Active Directory and SecurID-based VPNs.
• Built-in fax support.

Release history

Unsupported

Version	Build	Date	OS name	Notes
10.3	7B85	October 24, 2003	Darwin 7.0	Original retail release set
	7B86			Server Edition
10.3.1	7C107	November 10, 2003	Darwin 7.1	Mac OS X Update 10.3.1: Information and Download
10.3.2	7D24	December 17, 2003	Darwin 7.2	Mac OS X: About the Mac OS X 10.3.2 Update
	7D28			Updated retail release
10.3.3	7F44	March 15, 2004	Darwin 7.3	Mac OS X: About the Mac OS X 10.3.3 Update (Combo)
10.3.4	7H63	May 26, 2004	Darwin 7.4	About the Mac OS X 10.3.4 Update
10.3.5	7M34	August 9, 2004	Darwin 7.5	About the Mac OS X 10.3.5 Update (Delta); Updated retail release set
10.3.6	7R28	November 5, 2004	Darwin 7.6	About the Mac OS X 10.3.6 Update (Delta)
10.3.7	7S215	December 15, 2004	Darwin 7.7	About the Mac OS X 10.3.7 Update (Delta)
10.3.8	7U16	February 9, 2005	Darwin 7.8	About the Mac OS X 10.3.8 Update (Delta)
10.3.9	7W98	April 15, 2005	Darwin 7.9	About the Mac OS X 10.3.9 Update (Delta)

References

Preceded by Mac OS X 10.2

Mac OS X 10.3 2003

Succeeded by Mac OS X 10.4