In Pictures: Mac OS X's 9 lives

Celebrating two decades of Mac OS X

Apple will release OS X Mountain Lion later this month, the ninth release of OS X in its 21-year history. In 2001, OS X was a bet-the-farm move by an Apple that was on death's door, having squandered the magic of the 1984's original Mac. Despite a rocky start, OS X proved that co-founder and returned CEO Steve Jobs could reinvent the Mac.

There's only one more digit in OS X's 10.x series -- 10.9 -- and many believe that will be the last OS X, with it then merging into iOS. We'll see whether this comes to pass. One thing's for certain: Even after OS X's nine lives, there's clearly more to come with Apple's computer innovations.