Mac OS X 10.3 Panther

Apple previewed Mac OS X 10.3 Panther on June 23, 2003, targeting release before year-end. On October 8 it announced availability for October 24 at 8 p.m. and opened preorders. Preview, preorder and announced availability are separate milestones; no universal time zone is assigned to the store-event time.

Original typographic card; not a historical screenshot.

Family: Mac OS X
Version: 10.3
Minimum RAM: 128 MB
Historical US price: US$129

Apple · Panther · 2003-06-23 · Apple · Panther · 2003-10-08

The redesigned Finder gathered favorite folders, disks, servers and iDisk in one place. Exposé showed open windows as thumbnails, let users select one or cleared the desktop. Fast User Switching kept other accounts' applications running. These features addressed different problems: finding files, handling windows and sharing a Mac. The Welcome to Panther manual, bearing a 2004 copyright, makes this usage concrete: F9 showed all windows, F10 those of the active application and F11 the desktop; shortcuts could be changed in System Preferences. Finder allowed custom label names, searching by label and viewing labels in Open and Save dialogs. These are details documented in that manual, not independent dating of their first introduction.

iChat AV added video conferencing, Font Book gathered font management and Safari became the default browser. This version's FileVault encrypted the home directory with 128-bit AES: the documented scope here is the home directory, not a claim of full-disk encryption. Mail grouped messages into threads and improved junk-mail filtering. The October announcement describes Font Book with double-click previews, one-click installation and font activation or deactivation. Preview supported PDF 1.4, text selection and copying, and URLs. iDisk synchronized work done offline with .Mac storage when Internet access returned. These functions depended on specific applications and services of the period; no promise is made that the service remains available, and speed advertising is not treated as an independent measurement.

Apple · Panther · 2003-06-23 · Apple · Panther · 2003-10-08

Apple required at least 128 MB RAM and built-in USB in the Mac families listed in its release, including Power Mac G5 and PowerBook G3/G4. US prices were $129 for one user and $199 for a five-user Family Pack at one residence. The table also retains 10.3.8 (February 9, 2005) and 10.3.9 (April 15, 2005), dates from Apple's historical security record, not that page's latest edit. This selection does not list every revision.

Apple · Panther · 2003-10-08 · Apple · 10.3.8 / 10.3.9 · Security archive