Old versions of the OS X Human Interface Guidelines

I'm looking to write a paper on how the OS X user interface has evolved from OS X Leopard all the way through to OS X Yosemite and am seeking guidance on where to find older versions of the OS X Human Interface Guidelines documentation.

The following data should aid in the search in the circumstance that navigating the WayBack Machine in the event that that is the only viable option.

• OS X 10.5 Leopard Release Date: October 26, 2007
• OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Release Date: August 28, 2009
• OS X 10.7 Lion Release Date: July 20, 2011
• OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion Release Date: July 25, 2012
• OS X 10.9 Mavericks Release Date: October 22, 2013
• OS X 10.10 Yosemite Release Date: October 16, 2014

Any help in finding these documents would be greatly appreciated.

If there's not a complete link to them, perhaps several answers could point to each or one answer be maintained to point to them all.

Solution 1:

It wasn't easy, but I think I got all of them.

2006-10-03:

https://web.archive.org/web/20070520203932/http://developer.apple.com/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/OSXHIGuidelines/OSXHIGuidelines.pdf

2008-01-15:

https://web.archive.org/web/20080225084449/http://developer.apple.com/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/OSXHIGuidelines/OSXHIGuidelines.pdf

2008-06-09:

https://web.archive.org/web/20081222045913/http://developer.apple.com/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/AppleHIGuidelines/OSXHIGuidelines.pdf

2009-08-20:

https://web.archive.org/web/20110604173215/http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/AppleHIGuidelines/OSXHIGuidelines.pdf

2012-07-23:

https://web.archive.org/web/20121004065110/https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/AppleHIGuidelines/OSXHIGuidelines.pdf

2013-10-22:

https://web.archive.org/web/20140603021344/https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/AppleHIGuidelines/OSXHIGuidelines.pdf

Solution 2:

Introduction (HTML):

Saved 49 times between August 5, 2011 and June 14, 2016.

– and at the time of writing, the earliest capture presents a page with a suggestion of 1,613 captures over a more extensive period, beginning 2010-09-09.

The PDF versions linked from the accepted answer provide a more useful way of comparing versions of the Guidelines at points in time.

Side note: from http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1979059/ it seems that for a while, captures such as http://web.archive.org/web/20140815012123/https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/userexperience/conceptual/applehiguidelines/Windows/Windows.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/20000961-SW13 (OS X Human Interface Guidelines: UI Element Guidelines: Windows) were not available from the Wayback Machine.

Solution 3:

An addendum to the accepted answer

It seems that Wayback Machine stealthy removed some snapshots.

2008-06-09

https://web.archive.org/web/20081222045913/http://developer.apple.com/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/AppleHIGuidelines/OSXHIGuidelines.pdf

redirects to

https://web.archive.org/web/20090117202219/http://developer.apple.com/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/AppleHIGuidelines/OSXHIGuidelines.pdf

2008-01-15

https://web.archive.org/web/20080225084449/http://developer.apple.com/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/OSXHIGuidelines/OSXHIGuidelines.pdf

redirects to

https://web.archive.org/web/20080512015743/http://developer.apple.com/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/OSXHIGuidelines/OSXHIGuidelines.pdf - The PDF can't be loaded/opened. Tested with Chrome and Firefox.

2006-10-03

https://web.archive.org/web/20070520203932/http://developer.apple.com/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/OSXHIGuidelines/OSXHIGuidelines.pdf

redirects to

https://web.archive.org/web/20060612095317/http://developer.apple.com/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/OSXHIGuidelines/OSXHIGuidelines.pdf - Which is actually 2006-05-23.

Solution 4:

The current OS X HIG is delivered through iBooks for free to the general public. Get it at https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/os-x-human-interface-guidelines/id930571558?mt=11#

If you're not a Mac developer, you might consider joining if that's your best avenue - if not, you might see if a local university or library has a technical research department and can assist you. Your idea to search archive.org might also reveal some gems, since Apple did release significant portions of their developer documentation to the general web and not behind the NDA portal that requires an account.

Solution 5:

Here are some other versions not in the other answers:

2000-09-08: http://interface.free.fr/Archives/AdoptingAquaInterface.pdf [archive link]

2001-10-01: https://archive.org/details/AquaHumanInterfaceGuidelines-Preliminary

2002-06-11: http://mirror.informatimago.com/next/developer.apple.com/documentation/LegacyTechnologies/Conceptual/AquaHIGuidelines/AquaHIGuidelines.pdf [archive link] [alternate link]

2005-09-08: http://www.multimedialab.be/doc/tech/doc_osx_hi_guidelines.pdf [archive link]

2006-10-03: http://mirror.informatimago.com/next/developer.apple.com/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/OSXHIGuidelines/OSXHIGuidelines.pdf [archive link]

I know this question is asking specifically about OS X guidelines, but I came across it in a search, and it's one of the top links for "old versions of apple human interface guidelines." Here are some pre-OSX versions I've found:

1987:

https://archive.org/details/applehumaninterf00appl

1992:

Text PDF: https://vintageapple.org/inside_r/pdf/Human_Interface_Guidelines_1992.pdf [archive link]

Scanned PDF: https://vintageapple.org/macprogramming/pdf/Macintosh_Human_Interface_Guidelines_1992.pdf [archive link]

1995: https://apps.hci.rwth-aachen.de/borchers-old/cs377a/handouts/HIGuidelines.pdf [archive link] (and a technical Q&A from that year [archive link])

1997: http://interface.free.fr/Archives/Apple_HIGOS8_Guidelines.pdf [archive link]