Mac OS X Puma

Mac OS X 10.1 "Puma" is a version of Mac OS X. It looks identical to the "Cheetah" release, but it contains several improvements to "Cheetah", and is a critical point of OS X history. Echoing what would occur later with 10.6 "Snow Leopard", 10.1 focused on fixing, maintaining, and improving OS X internally, rather than being another revolutionary release. Unknown to newer Mac users, before 10.9 "Mavericks" was released in 2013, this was the first OS X release offered for free to users of a previous OS X release--10.0 "Cheetah" (who needed the upgrade). Perhaps the most important of these changes was the vast amount of general system improvements to both performance and to 3D and OpenGL rendering, which finally made the next-generation operating system a viable solution for the last generation of Macintosh users, who had grown accustomed to stability within the Classic Mac OS. It also improved upon ColorSync, allowing media professionals to more easily manage color on the then-young Mac OS X.

"Puma" now also supported playing DVDs as in Mac OS 9, and finally, the burning of optical discs in OS X, from both the Carbon Finder, and in iTunes as well--bringing back an important feature to Mac users. As a bonus feature, Image Capture also shipped with this version of OS X for the first time.

Mac OS X 10.1 "Puma" shipped by default on new Mac systems at the time, such as the iMac G4. While it was a vast improvement that had fixed the initial problems of its predecessor, it would still be months before the Mac community would begin to run and depend solely on Mac OS X for booting their systems.