The world’s most advanced operating system.
OS X is the world’s most advanced operating system, built upon a proven UNIX foundation, coupled with a GPU-accelerated desktop, intuitive networking services, and system-wide optimization for multicore CPUs. And with the Xcode integrated development environment, you have a powerful suite of tools to create engaging, innovative, and high-performance apps.
We’ve also brought the revolutionary App Store experience to OS X. The Mac App Store makes it easier than ever for users to discover, purchase, and download apps directly on their Mac. And with the Mac App Store available in over 150 countries, you can showcase your apps to millions of users around the world. Learn more about the Mac App Store
Cocoa Frameworks
Cocoa is an extremely productive high-level programming environment that gives you complete access to the full power of the operating system, including the signature Mac look and feel. Written in the dynamic Objective-C language, Cocoa provides exciting and animation-rich user experiences, but is easy to augment with your custom behaviors. With integrated support for the Model-View-Controller pattern, Cocoa provides a solid foundation for building state-of-the-art applications. With the Interface Builder tool, it is both easy and fun to drag-and-drop Cocoa Controls to design your application’s user interface. Learn more
Complete Access to the OS
OS X integrates a number of easy-to-use technologies that play a dual role as great applications and system services. By following some simple patterns, your application can work with those services to provide powerful features that can be used by other applications. Your application can be driven hands-free with Automator or AppleScript, be made accessible to a broad range of users through VoiceOver, and have documents searched quickly by Spotlight. Cocoa can also help integrate your app closely with the rest of the system, record snapshots of your documents via Time Machine, display content through iChat Theater, and share a common Address Book database.
Create Beautiful Apps
OS X is built around a powerful, integrated stack of graphics technologies, including Core Animation, Core Image and OpenGL. Working together, these graphics frameworks make possible cutting-edge user interface features including 2D and 3D drawing, animation, and multimedia.
Take a cue from the Mac desktop: it uses Core Image to provide the translucent menu bar. The Dock uses Core Animation for the Stacks popup view, and the smooth animation you see when Dock items are re-arranged. You can use these same APIs and built-in effects to get that “wow” factor in your application — or create your own unique effects. Learn more
Powerful Foundation
OS X provides outstanding stability and performance. Built for 64-bit applications and multi-core processors, OS X gives you some serious horsepower. The new Grand Central Dispatch ensures your application makes best possible use of all available computing power, gaining speed without the complexity of thread programming. Building for 64-bit takes advantage of an optimized CPU instruction set and more registers, Terabytes of address space, and the ability to use lots of physical RAM. Whether you write games, gene sequencing, advanced medical imaging, or geospatial applications, OS X has the stability and performance to make your app fly.