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Apple Officially Releases Beta Dual Boot Loader
Slippy Douglas writes "Apparently, Apple has made good on one of the 30th anniversary product rumours. Apple today announced the Boot Camp Public Beta, which allows Intel Macs to easily and legally multi-boot. Boot Camp will be a standard feature in Mac OS X 10.5."
In my opinion, the existance of this tool only strengthens the rumour. If you're going to run a virtual Windows, you still need to have an actual installation of it lying around somewhere. Windows won't run from an HFS+ drive, it will need its own NTFS set-up somewhere - this tool will let you create such a set-up, ready to be dual-booted today and virtualised tomorrow.
Cheers,
Ian
When Intel's Merom/Conroe Core Duos start hitting Macs with Intel VT support, expect Leopard's BootCamp to grow a hypervisor.
Being able to run MacOS X and Windows, at native speeds, will rock my Jesus.
No more apologising for a Mac's inability to play games. W00t.
If you buy an Intel-based Mac, what is illegal about dual-booting another OS on it in the first place, hmmmm?
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
No, OS X is not going "bye bye". (And no, Dvorak wasn't "right".)
This is a move specifically calculated to appeal to Windows users, and to increase Mac OS X marketshare and usage (and thus Mac OS X software development), period.
This isn't about Apple "switching to Windows" or becoming yet another Windows PC manufacturer. In fact, it's the furthest thing from it.
Also eyebrow-raising, Apple's take on the XP logo:
http://images.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/images/pa
Free, legal music for iTunes users.
Because any smart business knows that the key to success is giving the customer what they want. In this case, Apple knows that a proportion of their customer base and potential customer base would like to be able to boot into Windows. Letting them do so easily has the potential to sell more boxes, full stop.
The only reason for Apple not allowing XP booting would be if Apple were truly scared. If it thought that OS X wasn't up to snuff and the OS X applications (iLife, iWork et al) were lame, then it should shy away from Windows booting. Instead it is trusting its technology and giving its users more options.
People who like OS X will continue to buy Macs. People who like Windows *may* now buy a Mac, and learn about OS X
The only real potential downside I see is that app writers get one more excuse not to write Mac apps, but to be honest, I don't see a substantial shift in that from today; views are already well entrenched.
Isn't this a disincentive to make Mac-native software? Why develop for a tiny fraction of the market when you can develop for the other 95% and wait for the remaining holdouts to install Windows on their Macs?
This isn't about Apple "switching to Windows" or becoming yet another Windows PC manufacturer. In fact, it's the furthest thing from it.
Exactly. It's all about dropping a barrier to entry, just like when Apple shipped X11 a couple of years ago.
This move will get Apple many more hardware sales by removing a bludgeon that IT departments routinely use to veto Mac purchases.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Quite the opposite. The ability to boot Windows makes Mac hardware more relevant, not less. They will go from selling 4 million boxes a year to selling 8 or 10 million. Apple is betting that most of those people will use OS X more and more, and Windows less and less. After all, the Intel Macs come chock full of very nice software (iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, iWeb, etc) which still has no equal in the Windows world.
The Machavellian aspect is this: a significant fraction of those dual-boot Macs will get their Windows partitions infected by some nasty malware or virus, thus FORCING USERS TO BOOT INTO LOVING AND SENSUOUS ARMS OF MAC OS X. And as we all know, once you go Mac, you DON'T GO BACK.
i agree that Apple is probably doing it to make potential switchers feel safer after taking the plunge, or those people that "need" windows for work or school, but want to use a Mac when they can.
remember the iPod timeline. iTunes for the Mac existed for a while before the iPod was released. i forget how long it was, but for a while Apple did not make software for it to work with MS Windows, they suggested a 3rd party app. they eventually released iTunes for MS Windows, and the public theory was that they thought it would help sell a lot more iPods, and possibly show MS users how nice Apple software can be. anyone running Windows can download and use iTunes for free if they own an iPod or not.
maybe they learned from the iPod experience that some people are really tied to windows for one reason or another (at least some of the time). there are people out there that would buy a Mac for the hardware, and run MS Windows 99% of the time. not too many i am sure, but there are some. the rumor sites had some mentions of Apple hooking up with some hardware benchmarking people that previously did stuff for windows. maybe Apple wants to try to run MS Windows faster than some Dell or whatever AND be able to boot the Mac OS. it really is the end of the "Apples to oranges" argument of PPC vs x86.
i also don't see why this boot loader can't support some form of Linux, though i don't see Apple going out on a limb for it. holding down the option (alt) key during startup boot loader has been in the Mac OS for years. it would show you all the partitions with a valid OS install. i used to use it a lot when i had to bounce between OS 9 and OS X. it's easier than opening system prefs, selecting a startup disk just to do something for an hour in OS 9 then reverse the situation to go back to OS X.
I don't want to have to dual-boot... I want VMWare on OS X. I could run several sifferent machines with windows, linux, etc all at the same time. I do it now on windows - the only one missing is OS X. Having that as a host would be enough for me.
Actually, I think what's being said around Apple is "If you can't join them, beat them." Many people here are focused on the "war" between Mac OS and Microsoft, forgetting that Apple is mostly a hardware company and Microsoft is mostly a software company. Recall that Microsoft developed software for Macintosh first (MS Word) before porting it to MS DOS/Windows.
Apple's Boot Camp is a knife in the hearts of other hardware makers: Dell, Gateway, HP, Sony. The belief (warranted or not) that Apple has the best computer hardware bar none is widespread and even formerly independent Alienware is going to have a hard time competing with a top-of-the-line quad core Intel machine from Apple.
With Apple Boot Camp, Microsoft will keep making the money from Windows bundling and sales it always has (Apple Boot Camp also solidifies Microsoft's Office stronghold), and Apple will continue making money from hardware sales. The possible change under Apple Boot Camp is that Microsoft may increase its sales, especially among Mac OS diehards who won't touch PCs. I worked in a PC shop from 1997-2001 and I cannot stand Microsoft Windows. However, I would purchase a university-provided license to dual boot Windows Vista. I'm betting there are at least a few hundred thousand Mac users just like me.
Dell now has real reason to be worried as they can't survive on that razor-thin margin without huge volume, and I'm betting sales of Apple hardware are going to spike very soon.
blog
First if you run OSX & XP side by side, OSX highlights windows short comings, like people b i t c h about finder, but they've never really had to use explorer in a pressured environment.
Also when booting to XP, a magnitude of features aren't supported, IR remote, backlit keyboards, usb modems, bluetooth mice+keyboard, etc heck the brightness keys will stop responding if you just change keyboards.
Finally in OSX you can as a minimum read your windows files(can't write to NTFS, but can write to FAT), in Windows you can't see any of your mac files. This becomes tiresome quickly.
The idea is that people who really need to run that occassional windows app are able to, which fills a nice void as Virtual PC doesn't run under Intel macs at the moment.
I suppose the best target market are laptop users who hate the s h i t PC laptops out there but still have to use windows at work. They can buy their mac, enjoy their photos, music and web stuff by night aka front row and the iLife suite. Then their bozo IT manager at work in the day can work with the machine like it's just another windows box.
It's sorta like batman, all boring in the day at work. Then at night he's off in the cool car, with the toys/gadgets saving lives.
"I can understand how someone might want to escape Windows for Linux, but I don't understand craving that Linux experience when you have a Mac."
Performance: Linux has significant performance advantages covered in more detail in another post. This isn't necessarily a raw speed issue, you might be trying to profile your code and want results from a system that's similar to where the code will run in production.
Software availability: This doesn't mean Macs have less software (as they have stuff Linux doesn't as well), only that they have different software. There are plenty of things that are only available or better available on Linux. The big example is Java, the Apple version on OS X isn't 100% compatible with the official version (has some extra bugs and stuff), and the Apple implementation typically releases new versions late and only for updated OS versions.
Compatibility: MacOS isn't binary compatible or source compatible with Linux. If you're doing development for Linux, you usually need Linux. Even though it's possible to port software between the two, there's different platform-specific APIs (eg kqueue vs epoll) that make it impossible to move development entirely to the other platform.
Features: Linux and Linux specific software has powerful features that MacOS doesn't. One is LVMs, which allow dynamic resizing and snapshots for filesystems. Apparently commercial virtualization software will be available in the future for MacOS, but at the moment there's nothing to match Xen or VMWare.
None of this means Linux is "better", only that it's useful for different things. If you do the things where Linux is better suited, but want to retain the ability to do things for which MacOS is better suited, then that's a very compelling reason to dual-boot.
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
1) A change of CPU does not change what market you are in, any more than a change in graphics card, memory type, or keyboard layout.
2) Apple is the only computer manufacturer with enough control over the OS to distinguish themselves in the market. Apple is currently experiencing tremendous growth in Mac shipments because of this.
4) Stock prices are a fun game, but not a strong indicator of corporate strategy. Apple still makes more revenue from Macs than iPods.
5) All Mac software development firms of any importance are migrating their products to Intel.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
Read the Apple Bootcamp page. Phrases like:
clearly indicate how Apple will be "bringing it" against Vista with Leopard. Apple is positioning Windows as the broken down, patched up, late again has-been with too many promises and too few benefits - but we'll do what Microsoft can't - get Windows running on new, nicer hardware in very little time. Apple makes Microsoft look like fools, especially by touting EFI and the fact that Windows STILL won't support it in Vista.
It's gonna be an awfully exciting year for Apple watchers.
> Also, just heard a rumor that XCode is going to be able to create winders binaries.
Yeah, I heard that rumor of the yellow-box's revival as well. I haven't yet digested the implications fully.
> Why buy a Mac for $3k to run winders when they can buy a dull for a lot less.
Now, let's be fair. You know perfectly well you can buy a decent new Intel Mac with the latest OS, lots of free software, a warranty and support for only $600. No, it's not ideal for everyone, but it's a very reasonable low-end solution.
> To run Mac apps? Why should a developer write for Mac OS X when Macs can run winders now?
Well, if you can write one program in Xcode and it runs automagically under both windoze and OS X (given YB compatability), you've added support for a popular and growing platform at little additional cost. That assumes you've moved your windows development environment over to Xcode, which is a pretty huge (and presently inaccurate) assumption. However, Apple has mindshare and really pretty apps, and from what I hear, Xcode is pretty slick. It might very well be worth the while of small-to-midsized developers to jump over if it becomes available.
Here's another consideration. There are A LOT of potential switchers who currently must also keep windows around for one or two pieces of legacy SW, or for driver flashing, or for occasional compatability with clients/collegues/etc., or for GAMING, or for whatever. Now they can consolidate to one computer and simplify their lives. Significantly, only Apple sells such a computer.
> I see this as a dangerous gamble. The rewards could be great, but it could further marginalize Apple.
A gamble, yes, but I'm pretty sure this has been Apple's mid-term strategy for quite a while. People with much better business sense than you and I have surely been considering all the implications for longer than we have.
This is a much different situation than IBM had with OS/2. People frequently don't like windows as much as they like OS X (once they've used both). There are many very good apps (some included free) for OS X, and it can also run almost any of the now-ubiquitous FOSS that's available for Unix/BSD/Linux. OS X has an arguably better user experience than windows, and it's "teh pretty". As mentioned above, Apple provides a very good free cross-platform (soon to include YB?) development environment. The HW that Apple sells is comparatively high quality and reasonably priced for what is included. Also, OS X tends to feel as fast or faster than windows on the same (currently shipping) HW. None of this was true for IBM at the time.
> Besides, I wonder what m$ thinks of this. They may like it as it opens up a new client base. Or not.
If they're smart, I suspect they are wetting themselves right about now. Although this is potentially good for them in the short term, it is another clear signal that Apple is engaging in a stealth campaign to take market share from windows. Once people get used to the idea that something should Just Work(TM), they tend to quickly tire of substandard products. With a big enough market penetration for OS X PLUS Unix/BSD/Linux (could be anywhere from 10-25%), microsoft effectively loses its desktop monopoly, and has to compete ON QUALITY. This is something they are both organizationally and technologically ill-equipped to do. If they manage to do so anyway, everybody wins.
The future looks very promising indeed if you look at the situation through that lense.
Well, considering that EFI is now 6 years old, why shouldn't it be both ultra modern and industry standard?
Just because you haven't heard of it until now doesn't mean it isn't established. It's been running in Itanium and a handful of x86 systems for over 5 years now.
The only real issue is calling it an "industry standard". More like a "good idea made real", but Apple is known for hyperbole.
Besides regarding Windows, isn't it true that, "running on a Mac is like Windows running on a PC. That means it'll be subject to the same attacks that plague the Windows world?" I would call it due diligence, warning prospective Mac users installing Windows XP that they will be opening their Windows PC to a whole world of vulnerabilities virtually unheard of on a Mac.
"Warning, consumption of alcohol by pregnant women can contribute to Fetal Alcohol Syndrome."
Would you say this statement is off because it is critical of alcohol manufacturers? Apple is stating a known truth and issuing a fair warning. It may not be nice or friendly, but it is true and it is useful for those Mac users who have never had to deal with spyware, viruses, or malware before.
GPL Deconstructed