Aqua (GUI)
Cocoa controls, all a part of Aqua, in OS X Yosemite.
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| Developer(s) | Apple Inc. |
|---|---|
| Initial release | January 2000 |
| Development status | Active |
| Written in | C++ |
| Operating system | macOS |
| Type | Desktop environment |
| License | Proprietary EULA |
| Website | developer |
Aqua is the graphical user interface (GUI) and visual theme of Apple's macOS operating system. It was originally based around the theme of water, with droplet-like components and a liberal use of reflection effects and translucency. Its goal is to "incorporate color, depth, translucence, and complex textures into a visually appealing interface" in macOS applications. At its introduction, Steve Jobs noted that "one of the design goals was when you saw it you wanted to lick it".
Aqua was first introduced at the 2000 Macworld Conference & Expo in San Francisco. Its first appearance in a commercial product was in the July 2000 release of iMovie 2, followed by Mac OS X 10.0 the year after. Aqua is the successor to Platinum, which was used in Mac OS 8, Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X Server 1.2. The appearance of Aqua has changed frequently over the years, most recently with the release of OS X Yosemite in 2014 which introduced a flatter look and did away with the gel-like controls and metal-like components.
Mac OS X 10.2 "Jaguar" brought flatter interface elements, such as new buttons and drop-down menus, as well as reducing the transparency to tone down the pinstripes in windows and menus. These trends continued in subsequent Mac OS X releases.
In Mac OS X Panther, brushed metal was brought to the Finder. New buttons were made to appear sunken into their surroundings, following a general trend of more flattened interface elements in the operating system. The traditional pinstripes were replaced with a much subtler theme, most notably in the menu bar, and the use of transparency was again reduced (for example in the title bars of inactive windows). Tabs also changed; they were made flatter and the whole tab area was sunken rather than raised. Tab buttons were centered on the top border of the tab area. New icons appeared across the system, including a new flatter, glossier Finder icon and a new System Preferences icon.
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