Every default wallpaper of OS X

The wallpaper behind the windows is always a very important part of a product branding. Apple is particularly good at choosing the right image. Here is a gallery of default wallpapers of every Mac OS X version.

Mac OS X 10.0 Cheetah, 10.1 Puma

Gentle arches in the well-known blue.

Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar

A new one in the same style: instead of abstract arches we got glowing lines.

Mac OS X 10.3 Panther

The same blue again.

Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger

It is very interesting, that Apple took the time to refine the details of the wallpaper. It is almost the same as Panther’s, but not exactly.

Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard

Leopard brought a brand new direction: space. Until Mavericks Apple shipped every OS X with space themed wallpapers.

Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard

Just as Snow Leopard was a refined version of Leopard, it’s wallpaper was a refined version too.

Mac OS X 10.7 Lion

This is the only wallpaper, which is missing from the current OS X Yosemite installation. The reason might be the poor image quality despite the large size.

OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion

Another refined iteration. This galaxy is less colorful and much higher in quality.

OS X 10.9 Mavericks

When Apple ran out of cat names, switched to places. Mavericks is a famous surf place not too far from Apple’s HQ. The beautiful colors of this wave tell you the story.

OS X 10.10 Yosemite

After the beach we went to the Yosemite National Park. This release includes a bunch of high quality images from the famous rocks of the park. The selected default wallpaper was a perfect demonstration for the new transparent interface of the operating system.

OS X 10.11 El Capitan

El Capitan is the name of one of the the most beautiful rocks in the Yosemite National Park. The resolution increased to 5120×3200, the resolution of the 5K iMac.

macOS 10.12 Sierra

The new wallpaper is about a mountain too.