David Hanak At Macworld in 2000, there was a major revelation that practically changed the world of Macs. This is because Steve Jobs introduced here, until then very well kept secret, a new graphic style for the Mac OS X operating system. It was called Aqua, and its umpteenth iteration can be found in contemporary computers from Apple.
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Pavel Jelic Steve Jobs with the new user interface of Macs, or he devoted quite a lot of time during the presentation to the completely redesigned graphic concept. However, it was understandable, because it is precisely the user interface on which the acceptance and expansion of the operating system among users more or less stands and falls. Aqua's design language and style replaced the original Platinum style, which featured the typical flat, austere and "gray" look of older operating systems.
Aqua was completely different, and as it was said at the conference (the not-so-good recording of which you can watch above), the goal was to create a graphically coherent, very user-friendly and at the same time functional design style that would carry Apple computers into the new century. As the name suggests, Apple was inspired by the water theme and many elements worked with transparency, color and design purity.
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Amaya Toman In addition to appearance as such, the new graphical interface brought elements that are still associated with Apple's operating systems to this day - for example, the Dock or a completely redesigned Finder. According to Jobs, the goal when developing this graphical interface was to make it both very user-friendly for new or novice users, as well as fully usable for professionals and other "power-users". It was the first graphical interface that used both 2D and 3D elements.
It was a huge leap forward in its time. As already mentioned above, in the case of Macs, the new graphical interface replaced the old and outdated Platinum style. Version 98 was running on the competing Windows platform at the time, but it was visually not too different from Windows 95, which also showed its age. However, the new graphic interface with the new design also brought significantly increased demands, which was not evident on most Macs of the time. It took several months before the performance of Macs reached such a level that the operating system was running, or of some demanding 3D elements, completely smooth on all stands. The current version of macOS is based on the original graphical interface, and many elements from it have remained in the system.
Mac OS X Public Beta with Aqua interface.
Source: 512 Pixels
the last few MacOs have nothing to do with aqua anymore. They've been calling it flac or something for a long time.
flat
… bygone Platinum style? This is nonsense, the look of MacOS 9 was great, its problem was in the core, not in the look. On the contrary, MacOS X 10.0 was just difficult to use. The streaky look and transparency – it quickly disappeared.