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It's strange to have gone from years of uncertainty and vaporware to a steady annual supply of major new operating system releases from Apple.
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As with 10.2, qualifying customers who have purchased new Mac hardware recently can upgrade to 10.3 for "free" (which means "US$19.95 for shipping and handling" in Apple's world.) Mac OS X 10.3 Panther, released on October 23, 2003, solidifies Apple's yearly operating system update strategy: another year, another +0.1, another US$129. Sporting significant architectural improvements such as rendezvous and Quartz Extreme, pride was a big part of Jaguar's message. Version 10.2 came dressed for success, wearing its code-name on its sleeve in a fur-themed box. The 10.1 release was a compiled-binary apology for 10.0, distributed for free to the brave Mac OS X pioneers. For three consecutive years, Apple has released major updates to what is now definitively The One True Apple Operating System: Mac OS X.
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