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Mac fans can exhale: Apple has completed work on its Mac OS X and has released the much anticipated operating system upgrade for shipment on March 24.

The release date is consistent with what Steve Jobs, Apple's chief executive officer, told the Mac faithful at the MacWorld conference and expo in San Francisco in early January. It is, however, more than six months later than initially expected. Apple had planned to ship OS X by mid-2000, but then slid the date to January 2001.

Mac OS X will be preinstalled as the standard operating system on Macintosh computers by June, according to Apple representatives. The updated operating system will cost $129.

New Look, Plus Multimedia

Mac OS X is built on an open-source, Unix-based foundation called Darwin. It features memory protection, preemptive multitasking, and symmetric multiprocessing when running on the dual processor Power Mac G4, according to Apple.

The operating system features Apple's new Quartz 2D graphics engine, OpenGL for 3D graphics and gaming, and QuickTime for streaming audio and video.

Mac OS X also includes a new user interface called Aqua, which provides ease of use with greater functionality, Apple says. The user interface provides a feature called Dock, which organizes applications, documents, and document windows.

Applications Coming

Microsoft is in beta-test for a version of Mac Office tailored to the new operating system.

Apple will make Mac OS X available through the Apple Store on its Web site, and through Apple Authorized Resellers.

The operating system requires a minimum of 128MB of memory and is designed to run on iMac, iBook, Power Macintosh G3, Power Mac G4, Power Mac G4 Cube, and PowerBooks introduced after September 1998, the company says.

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