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Bunk Camp - Apple Gets It Wrong?
An anonymous reader writes "CNET.com.au has posted a commentary that attempts to cut away the hype surrounding Boot Camp. From the article: 'Boot Camp will do little to coax Windows XP users into switching to Mac OS X. For this to happen, Apple needs to either license out OS X to all users -- not just Mac owners -- or support a true Mac virtualisation application.'"
I just got the iMac because of bootcamp. Now I will be able to play games (battlefield 2) and run some weird applications that I use. I think the author is missing the point, it is all about weaning users off of windows, not giving them another platform to run windows. I don't boot into windows unless I have to. Hopefullly I have to boot into windows less and less as time goes on.
The big secret is that OS X's stability is based largely on the fact that Apple makes all the decisions on hardware configurations and certification for themselves. In the PC world, XP must be built for an infinite number of possible combinations of hardware components--and hence much of its problems with stability, reliability, etc. For Apple to duplicate this would be very difficult, expensive, and would likely produce results no better (and probably even worse) than XP.
If OS X users want to see the "blue screen of death," just *try* and use an OS that has to be built for an infinite combination of hardware setups, as opposed to a OS built by the same company that makes the hardware.
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
This is purely my own anecdotal experience on the matter, but I've already talked to nearly a dozen X86/Windows PC owners that told me that because of the ability to boot XP, they are now heavily leaning towards buying a Mac Mini or other Apple gear as their next computer.
Transistors and Beer!!
Someone on here had posted a link to a company that was working on such a product and it wouldn't suprise me if Apple does the same thing just in time for Vista's launch.
That article was written by someone who hasn't been using a Mac lately. Phrases like "I doubt it" and "my Windows machine" are a dead giveaway. Let's hear from someone who knows what he's talking about.
This sig, aah-ah, is comin' like a ghost-sig...
Sounds right to me. I wouldn't buy a new system that'd end up forcing me to reboot if I want to access the other half of my applications (and the way it is now I wouldn't boot into OSX in first place). Hell, if I wanted dualbooting there's enough Linux distros for every taste and those don't require completely new hardware to run on. Until I can run all of the applications I use on the same OS I'm not switching.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Apple don't need to get people to switch to Mac OS X; they need to get them to buy Apple's computers.
0 52.html for a discussion
Supporting Windows makes it easier for people to decide to try a Mac, because they don't have to worry about losing familiar applications like regedt32 and minesweeper. Apple hopes that they will then discover that they don't need Windows after all.
See http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000
convince some users that use (or want to use) both (because they're forced to because of software availability etc) to get rid of their PCs. Not having to buy two computers means they can spend more money on the Apple hardware.
Also, it will be a safe retreat for some one buying a Mac only to find out they didn't like it. Even though you're not totally convinced that you'll like OS X, you always have the possibility to install Windows XP on it instead.
I have a really elegant proof for Fermat's last theorem. If this sig was only a bit longer...
It's not necessarily the applications that will persuade people. He should look at the ipod -- is that the only mp3 player out there or anywhere close to the cheapest? People want Apple's because of the trend and the way the hardware looks.
The Windows users are the ones who'd have to be converted by this move. I don't think the vast majority of the Mac users gives a damn about this or they would have bought a PC in first place.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Last time I heard, Steve Jobs said something like "We are, and always will be, a hardware company." Now I'm not saying that Boot Camp will sell more hardware, but I don't think anybody expects Boot Camp to help sell more copies of OS X. Can you even buy an Intel Mac without OS X? I doubt it.
it is clearly a clever twist of three letters...
But does Slashdot have to post them all?
/.
Really, we haven't thought of this here on
We haven't had dozens of threads debating this very topic already.
Can we please beat this dead horse a little more?
I've been thinking about getting a mac and dual-booting it for my next computer. The speed that everyone's mentioning makes it sound very interesting, and OSX is damn stable (though Windows is catching up in this department).
Apple isn't in the OS X business, they are in the computer hardware business. If somebody buys an Apple instead of a Dell so they can run an occasional Mac application, Boot Camp is a success.
Of course, many people want to see Windows market share decrease, but that's their agenda, not Apple's.
I think he misses the fact that some people want to move to OS X but are held back by one must-have application. Boot camp is perfect for these people. My mom, for example, really wants to switch to apple after I let her use my ibook, but she has one program that she needs to occasionally use for work that holds her back. Now she can switch, no problems.
-Grey
Silver Clipboard: Time Management Tips
How else am I going to load MSPaint on my new MAC?
But seriously, its a start to a having a computer that can and will run anything - so it is a good thing.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
That said, I would agree that virtualization -- either from Apple or a third party, perhaps even VirtualPC from Microsoft -- will be a far more useful thing. But it's coming, so why the big deal?
I was just arguing with a friend who happens to be an Apple employee about this. I was toying with the idea of building an OS X x86 compatible PC using the HCL on sourceforge. He said that by doing this I was stealing from his livelihood.
I said "No, I'm perfectly willing to buy OS X. Put it in the stores and I'll pay for it. Keep it locked to hardware and you won't see a dime from me. APPLE is stealing from your livelihood by not selling me what I want."
I don't want to buy hardware. I have hardware. I want my hardware to be fungible and able to run any OS I care to put on it this week. I want to be able to choose what I want from the vast variety of what's available, and not have to choose from just what Apple thinks will satisfy me. I'm not going to buy hardware that's priced above market for no reason that I care about (I don't care how pretty it looks, and I don't care about some (mythical, as far as I can tell) higher level of reliability. I just want to run the software and OS that I decide to run.
It's sometimes said that PC users buy machines to run applications; Apple users buy machines to run the OS. I think that Apple is afraid to put the OS on the market standalone, because in lieu of hardware sales income, they would be charging more than MS charges for Windows, and they'd draw comparisons.
That seems fine to me. It is a better OS, so it's OK for it to cost more.
Apple has to some extent maintained the "ease of use" paradigm in the same way that GUIs are easy to use; they restrict choice. If you give people less choice, they are less confused. If they want to enter the larger market, they need to figure out how to continue to deliver their historic strengths while moving into a position of giving the users the wider variety of choices that they are used to in other OSs.
How long will it be before someone creates THE killer app for mac that runs windows in OS X ala the "classic" mode? And yes, by "killer" I do mean that it will kill the Mac.
Here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the king's English.
People were trying to get XP to run on their new Macs. There was even a monetary prize for doing so. Apple probably just saw that, and rather than try to hinder or cripple people's ability do to so, which would make them look bad, released their own bootloader and put a "Oh using windows will make them switch to OSX" spin on it for a few PR points.
Article advocates apple selling OS to standard PC:s
Inorder to sell operating system they would need to price it competively, and make it work with wider variety of PC:s instead of limited number of different systems.
Here's probably how it would look in reality, people who would normally buy apple because of OSX would more often buy OSX and get their PC from some cheaper location. The profit margins for apple computers are good. Then apple would need to multiply its market share in operating systems, in order to get equivalent profits. And I doubt that apple could actually would gain 4x the market share for their OS than what they have with their computers.
Remember supportin more hardware costs them in support and developement.
Emacs is good operating system, but it has one flaw: Its text editor could be better.
The major premise of the article is rather flawed; Boot Camp wasn't about "luring" in Windows users. Most of those users don't have a choice (e.g. work restrictions) or don't realize that an OS doesn't have to be unstable and/or vulnerable; they think that it's "just the way it is".
What Boot Camp does is remove the barrier to adoption. There are a number of Windows users who would like to switch, but need access to Software X or don't want to give up Game Y, and don't want to maintain two separate computers for those tasks. Now, they don't have to. Sure, rebooting is a pain, but for someone who wants to, say, use their MacBook Pro as a windows machine at work, and as a mac at home, well, they can do that easily enough.
Sure, Virtualization would be better, and I've heard (rumors, rumors, mind you) that it's coming. But Boot Camp, by removing the barrier to switching, is a very good transition state, and an acceptable end state, if Apple chose to leave it at that.
The blue Shimatta1 needs food, badly.
Anything else is pointless nattering. Welcome to the interwebs.
Assume, for a moment, that you are interested in a Mac. Since most Macs sold at the moment are laptops, it's fair to assume that you are interested in a MacBook. Now, they are still fairly expensive and so it would be a shame to get one and then discover that OS X isn't all you thought it would be. The ability to run XP is a nice fall-back for these people.
Even if they do like OS X, there may be the odd windows app that they need sometimes. This didn't happen to me, since I switched to (cross platform) F/OSS apps for pretty much everything before jumping on the Mac bandwagon, but it may for others. Sure, they could carry a second laptop around with them to use 5-10% of the time, but I'm sure rebooting would be much easier. True virtualization would be nicer, but this would have some significant disadvantages. If you could run any Windows app on OS X with only a very minor inconvenience then I imagine that a lot of developers would not bother with OS X ports.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Let's remember some of the other things that CNET (the .com.com.com people) thought were "sure things" back in the day -- portals, push (think Pointcast), the Thin Client, etc. For people who only cover tech they're remarkably clueless of the world outside of wintel (and, more often than not, inside of it as well).
My sig is too lon
Dells are just too cheap to pass up, no matter what the Macheads on this site say. Personally, I find dual booting completely useless and see Apple's bootcamp as a way to throw the "Microsoft hating Apple fanboys who are dying to use Windows" crowd a bone.
Apple usually gets disproportionate coverage, but this is insane.
And I'm not getting a new Mac for at least two years, so I don't want to hear about the Intel Macs already.
A "MAC" is a PC. So they DO sell OS X to PC users, they just also happen to make the only PCs they run on. I would have expected Slashdot to get the naming right, but I guess that was too much to hope for.
That aside, what you've described is also why Windows has such a huge user base. You can plug in just about any piece of hardware you've got, dig up a driver for it and it works relatively well. Cost/performance ratios are important to a lot of people, they want a lot of bang for their buck. That's why they buy $500 windows machines from dell instead of apple's considerably pricier solutions.
Expert?! You're barely multi-celled!
Man, I miss Duckman.
FTFA: If Apple wants a significant number of users to sample OS X, Boot Camp just won't cut it. Instead, it's going to have to get off the fence and start selling OS X to PC users, rather than restricting it to the Mac. I don't see any valid reason why Apple isn't doing this
I mean, when I read a statement like that from an permanent whiner here on slashdot, I can understand it, but when I read it from people who are paid to make insightful commentary, then it just blows my mind. I would love to listen to this clown explain why Apple should undercut its own hardware sales.
from the see-it's-a-clever-twist-of-one-letter dept.
Boot ==> Bunk is, I believe, three letters. That's OK Zonk, we'll review counting again tomorrow.
-Grey
Silver Clipboard: Time Management Tips
And they said that thats what its for right ? its bunk because they said were going to release this software so that more people switch !!! Or perhaps , just maybe they released it for mac owners who still need to use windows app's or services, that virtual PC's emulation is too slow for. This is just another way for other companies to ride on the market popularity of apple, by saying what ever apple is doing is crap.
"When they invent bitch slaps that can go through a monitor you better f'ing duck" --deft (253558)
Why would you have to use a Mac to speculate on what Windows users are likely to do?
I think the article is a load of nonsense too, but that's because it's based around the premise that Apple want people to switch to OS X. They don't. They want people to buy their hardware. Catering to Windows users without pressuring them to switch helps them achieve that goal.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
Well... then maybe you want to go to a site called, like, "Sco08y's Newz" or something. Or maybe not read articles about the Intel Macs. You know... something proactive.
Boot Camp will do little to coax Windows XP users into switching to Mac OS X
Not true. I need a Windows machine for some software development, but I want OS X the rest of the time. And I don't want two computers on my desk.
The day they announced Bootcamp, I bought a new 20" iMac.
boxlight
Boot camp is a sales pitch, not a product
Customer: Tell me about this laptop, its pretty
Salesman: Its a mac, look how shiney it is.
Customer: Oh, I don't want one of those, it doesn't run Windows.
Salesman: It has this clever boot camp thing that lets you put windows on it.
Customer: Oh, okay, I'll take one then.
Once the customer gets home and starts using MacOS X, they won't bother with installing Windows.
"XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, use more." - Anonymous Coward
Apple needs to... support a true Mac virtualisation application.
Like the rumoured Chameleon virtualisation application?
not to mention that i can buy 5 PC's for the price of a Mac.....that to me is the most important feature....the PRICE
I mean, stuff like this is annoying enough when you see it moderated +3 Insightful on Slashdot, but now it's getting presented as an informed opinion? Come on.
Obviously, some people don't care enough about OSX's eye candy, security, stability, etc. to make it worth paying a bit extra for. Even MORE obviously, these people aren't Apple's target market.
PRE-Boot Camp, Apple has maybe 5% of the overall home PC market, right? So that's 1 in 20 people willing to give up all the games and productivity applications that are PC-exclusive just for the shiny graphics and Mac applications this guy is poo-pooing. How many MORE people will be willing to buy a Mac now that they can still run those Windows games and applications on it?
I think part of the issue is that these pundits won't consider Apple a success until they have more market share than Dell. But honestly, even if Apple only goes up to 10% of the total market share, that's DOUBLE their sales - and they've presumably got a much better margin on their boxes than Dell and pals, because of the infamous "Apple premium."
With Boot Camp, Apple customers win because they can suddenly run a huge library of new applications. Apple itself wins because it can sell computers to all those borderline "switchers" who see the ability to run AutoCAD or Half-Life 2 or whatever as a mandatory system feature. Hell, even Microsoft wins because it gets to sell a few non-OEM copies of Windows at crazy markup prices. The only people HURT by Boot Camp are (1) the Apple harcore who have too much invested in their corporate loyalties, and (2) those of us still on PPC Macs, who can expect to see our application support slowly wither and die.
I think CNet's coming to the wrong conclusions. Firstly, Apple's never going to license OSX on anything but Mac hardware. Control of the hardware's what gives Apple the ability to keep OSX stable and easy to install, they aren't going to give that up. What they've done with Mac-on-Intel and Boot Camp, though, is made buying Apple hardware safe for Windows users: whether you like OSX or not, you will be able to run Windows on your Intel-based Mac. Boot Camp isn't directly intended to let people dual-boot, it's intended as a warm fuzzy "Look, if OSX isn't for you you haven't wasted the price of that nice shiny hardware you bought.".
I think Apple fully intends to have good PC virtualization software as well. Intel hardware will make that easier. At that point they've got an attractive path to migrating people off Windows. They'll be able to say "If you buy a Mac with OSX, you can still run all your Windows software as well as you could on your Windows machine. If it turns out you've got one or two programs (like games) that won't run under the virtualization software, you can dual-boot into Windows if you have to. And if OSX just plain won't work for you, you can just wipe it and run Windows all the time and still have the shiny Mac hardware for people to drool over. If you're buying new hardware anyway, how can you go wrong?".
Linux isn't alone in this problem, my only stability problems are because of third party drivers.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Everyone should read this:
r isky_ideas
http://daringfireball.net/2006/04/asinine_and_or_
which gives all the reasons why these types of stories are crap.
Apple doesn't want you to buy OS X. They want you to buy hardware. If Apple was trying to sell software, they would have switched over to PCs 15 years ago.
And even if some (or many) of those users ultimately decide not to use os x in the long run (hey, it can -- theoretically -- happen!) apple has still made a hardware sale... I mean, even Linus runs Linux on Apple hardware, coz it's a nice looking piece of kit. ;-)
People still think of Apple as competitors of Microsoft in the OS buisiness. But apple is first and foremost a hardware vendor: the iPod is their hottest product in the last decade. Apple is selling OSX for $139 but the hardware costs $600 to $2000. Do the math. Apple will not give up its hardware business by letting people run OSX on any old PC.
My hunch is that apple is trying to compete not with Microsoft but with HP, Dell and falcon by selling their well-designed and ultra stylish PC's and laptops to the windows crowd. And, looky here, you also get a free OS which you can install along with windows, so why not try that as well?
Once Apple has secured a place as a legitimate PC vendor and is feeling comfortable with sales figure, they may let their OS run on other hardware. But that is still in the future.
Apple wasn't trying to woo over millions of Windows users to the Mac platform with Boot Camp. Apple's release of Boot Camp serves three purposes for them:
All in all, this move is a VERY intelligent one from Apple. They waited until people had the new Macs in their hands and got a feel for the performance of the hardware/OS combo, and then provided an extra feature. Now with the media buzz and the savvy user community, 10.5 may be a very significant draw for those who don't want to deal with Vista.
Just my 2 cents.Wrong. Boot Camp went through an alpha stage, long before there was a monetary prize for somebody outside of apple to make XP run on a mac.
Apple did not create Boot Camp as a reaction to the third-party solutions.
However, in addition to bootcap, Parallels is already in the works with an operational beta which takes advantage of the virutalization properties of the new Intel chips.
I have got to think that vmware is working on a product as well. Ironically, VirtualPC (Microsoft) are the ones who are dragging their feet at this point.
The only situation where virtualization (such as the Intel Mac compatible Parallels Workstation) is preferable to reboot is when testing. For all other products and purposes, it is preferable to use Mac versions of the Windows product or a Mac product that accomplishes the same purpose. Yes, it's costly, and that should be considered when deciding whether the time is right to 'switch'. It's also why they call it 'switching' in the first place - changing operating system actually means changing operating system, not looking back over your shoulder through virtualization.
Gamers will not want to run their Windows games in any kind of virtualization software. Let me rephrase that, gamers cannot run their Windows games in any kind of virtualization software (unless the game is Solitaire or Minesweeper). For Windows gamers, such as our first poster, Boot Camp is great. Now they can finally switch over to OSX without throwing away their games collection.
I love my MacBook Pro. I'm a Unix lover who get a Mac to play with OS X, loved it, and now have 15 of them for my company. They make great gear, and while I have frustations with aspects of the OS, it is pretty easy to administer and its a good machine.
That said, I have a Windows machine next to my Mac at the office, on it I run Quickbooks... While Quickbooks for Macintosh does exist now (it didn't when we started the business), I don't have a guarantee of migrating all my years of data, my payroll information (I use Intuit's integrated Payroll), but more than that, all my custom QB SDK Excel/VBA code might not come over, and third party addons like QODBC won't exist. In other words, I have a Windows machine around for 1 application.
When I go out of town, I used to use VPC to run Quickbooks if needed, I have also played with GoToMyPC, but that scares me on a computer with sensitive information.
Why does this matter?
Well, we're upgrading the home office, and there is a decision to make. Do we get a Windows machine, making it easier for my wife to work from home and we can both play games on there if we want (she's a Roller Coaster Tycoon nut), and I bring home my laptop to work from home, or do we get an OS X machine making it easier on me to have all my work applications. Do we have both and the cabling/setup nightmare? We were considering the latter... which meant a decent Windows machine for gaming, and a Mac Mini if I need to work from home to conserve space... I would have spent a decent amount on hardware, but not with Apple.
However, that decision is gone now. Assuming I hold out for the Mac Pro Towers, I can buy a beefy Apple computer and we can boot into Windows as needed. Otherwise, I can buy an iMac now and get something decent, but one monitor just seems too limiting.
So, instead of $1500 on Windows Computer + $750 on Apple Computer stuff, we'll probably spend $2000 on Apple Computer stuff
We know Apple's margins are higher as you move up the food chain, so getting 4 times the revenue from me may be 8 times the gross margins.
Forget selling Apple computers to Windows users, while it will happen, it won't be huge... OTOH, if they grab 2% of the computer market from upper-income Windows users that like Apple hardware, that would increase their computer business 50%. My Mom wants a Mac and has for years, but her billing software is Windows only, so she gets Windows computers that she hates. I wouldn't be shocked to see an iMac in her home office within the next 6 months.
So, if Mac Faithful = 2.5% of the market, recent switchers are 1% of the market, Windows users wanting Apple hardware are 2% of the market, Apple has doubled their marketshare over 8 years. On top of that, they make more money selling beefier machines to people that no longer need two, and there you go.
Dumping OS X for Windows is stupid, OS X is a competitive advantage, it lets them charge premium prices for a premium machine. However, if the customers want to buy something... sell it to them.
Great, a plethora of viruses are now waiting for your iMac!
I'm curious how long it will be before they take advantage of weaknesses in one OS to infect the other (by writing across partitions)...
MadCow.
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
FTA: "Does OS X really offer any applications that would entice me to purchase a new Mac and put up with the tedium of Boot Camp?" Let me see... if I have OS X, then I don't need MS Office, Adobe Acrobat, a photo manipulation program, a music media player, a dvd player (with codec), a movie making program, or a music program. I don't need to dl a less sucky browser. Just because SIMILAR apps are available for Windows doesn't mean that you HAVE to use them. This gives you the choice of using what you like. It's not about "it's got the same stuff". Go play with the OS for a little bit. He did get the games thing right, but a monkey could've figured that out. There are a couple of apps that I have for both XP and OS X, and quite frankly, I like the way OS X operates and the way those ported programs run under OS X. Let's not confuse need with want.
With so little put into it and so much buzz earned back out of it, I don't see how anyone could view this as anything but a win for Apple.
ESCAPE POD - The Science Fiction Podcast Magazine
A Fellow named Steve Walker Wrote to with this:
"Wow!! So now we can combine the rock solid reliability of Windows with the fantastic value for money of Apple hardware. Who will be able to resist?"
I almost got a Mac the other day just because of the ability to run Windows. As funny as that is for me to say as I was never an avid fan of Windows or OSX, it's still nice to have the ability to utilize the Mac hardware in a Windows environment.
[%] Cingular Ringtones
Virtualization won't help any more than dual booting- especially if gaming is the killer app of gaming on a Mac. The performance hit of running not only two OSes, but a virtual environment would be too much, especially considering how demanding modern games are.
"The reason Apple doesn't want to sell OS X to PC users (aside from the obvious ties with their more lucrative hardware business) is that OS X simply wouldn't be as stable or bulletproof in the PC world as it has been in the Mac world."
Just ask anyone that works or had worked for Apple and they will tell you that Apple is REALLY a hardware company. Apple makes it's best margins and most of it's income off of hardware sales. It may appear that on the surface that Apple is a software company that just happens to sell/design hardware too, but as mentioned above insiders will strongly deny those while acknowledging that Apple does do alot of software design and development as well, but they had to.
As to virtualization, there was an article linked to from osnews.com the other day(which is 404ing at the moment) that alluded to some Apple source mentioning that eventually Windows apps would be able to be run directly under OSX w/o having to reboot. Geez, I'd imagine that a WINE port should actually be somehwat easier now, but I'm not really that familiar with it. (Last I checked it ran best with win98 libs, and sort of worked with NT libs, dunno how this has changed over the years, as I just dual boot myself on x86 machines anyways... and WINE only ran notepad and solitaire at the time... then I ran VMWARE for a while, until 3D acceleration was getting stuffed into everything... and I didn't find it useful enough to buy newer versions that support more low level "direct" hardware access...)
Has CNET ever posted an atricle that was not negative on Apple?
yawn.
Okay, if you want to look at a ton of articles on boot camp, visit macsurfer.com. It's a very nice and simple metasite for mac news. Since released, Boot Camp is all the buzz so there are tons of articles there. It's also pretty neutral. They just post the links to articles. No discussion, but no bias either.
This article was listed, and it was the only damn article with a negative spin. Then I see this article here. All the articles to chose, and the slashdot editors of course pick the article which will stir up the most hornets.
Now I'll admit that there could be a lot of overly positive articles about boot camp, and that this article could potentially have a unique perspective. But c'mon, it's CNet. And I did read the article and it's nothing insightful. Same Apple bashing rehashed to include boot camp.
Post something balanced for a change that actually gives us real information for a change. Mod -1000 for annoying crap that is beneath the average slashdot reader.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
This isn't the first time a small player in the OS market tried to use dual-boot technology as a springboard to greater market share. It never works. It didn't work for OS/2, and it hasn't worked yet for desktop Linux. Nothing has changed in the market or the technology, so there's no reason to believe it will work for whatever Apple is calling its OS this week.
I'm a Mac user, but I was thinking about going for a PC when my Mac dies because I'm fed up with the lack of games.
That said, I would miss using Mac OSX a great deal, I prefer it for coding, internet and general everyday use.
Boot Camp may just be the excuse I need to stay with Mac, so long as decent video card support can be included.
These comments are my personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the other voices in my head.
...and being able to run Windows and Mac OS on the same machine in some fashion is the ONLY good thing I can see that came out of the great x86 arch switch. When 2nd generation powermacs come out, I can ditch one of the two machines that usually sit on or near my desktop, one running MacOS for general productivity/development/etc. and a 2nd running Windows which spend 99.99999% of it's time when runningm, running games.
(Game software, or lack thereof of good title that come out reasonably close to the Windows versions(excepting a few notables like Id who do good ports, and they come out almost at exactly the same time as the Windows version) is the real problem. I see goodbye(and good riddance for the most part) to MacOS game porting houses. General productivity/development apps are, generally, just as good(and many times better or only on MacOS) as compared to Windows. Add to this mix the relative ease of "porting" Linux/*BSD/UNIX apps to OSX, and well, you get the idea...)
I want, I want, I want...
What about what Apple needs to survive against Microsloth?
Mac OS X sells Apple hardware right now, that could change.
If Apple starts selling Vista on Mac's in all their "Stores" then Apple becomes another
PC vendor and can sell Mac OS X seperatly for generic PC's.
Until then you'll just have to wait. But you'll like Vista anyway.
As long as you're buying their hardware, Apple doesn't care what OS you're running.
I wish Apple would act more like this then they are. It used to be Mac OS was free, when their hardware was seriously expensive. Now they say you have to pay for it because the hardware is cheaper. But look at the actual costs - you can get OSX for under a hundred bucks at Amazon and if a Mac is good for 5 years that's maybe two OS upgrades.
Apple should offer a 'Mac for Life' package for $300 on top of the purchase price that gets that machine lifetime upgrades for Mac OS X and iLife. They would net out even on average, have the cash up front, and make a huge selling point that neither Dell or Microsoft can offer. It's really selling peace-of-mind and the 'taking care of the customer' image.
Apple should be taking more advantage of its position as an integrated solution provider.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
There really is no other way to say this.
How fucking retarded is the author of TFA?!
I bet he is the type of person who thinks linux is 'superfluous, as you're forced to reboot each time you switch between operating systems'.
Or perhaps that linux doesnt 'really offer any applications that would entice me to [install linux] and put up with the tedium [lolz] of [a boot loader]'
No concept of what he is talking about what-so-ever.
Here is my favorite part of the article:
"Ultimately, with Boot Camp, Apple is only helping Microsoft sell more copies of Windows XP. How sweet of them."
Sure, thats probably true, minus the _only_ part. Last I checked OSX is only available for Mac hardware. Last I checked the hardware was sold at bloated prices because it was exclusive to OSX. Creating Boot Camp wont send current apple users running to buy a non-mac, so I'm sure the author merely meant that current users will now buy XP. Sure, some will. At least of the ones who bought an intel mac only very recently, which is a small portion of its user base. A large portion of those bought into Mac because they knew this day would come (I can speak of two I know from experience. Both of which would have bought something along the lines of dell if Mac's where still on PowerPC).
So I argue that now many long time fans of mac will dish out for new hardware on that new intel laptop or mac mini because now they can have windows on it. Or that many people will choose Apple over Dell when shopping for a new machine.
And lets just speak hypothetically here for a sec.. What happens when Apple offeres a mac laptop with Boot Camp, OS X, and WinXP all preloaded for a mere fee of 50$.. Will people not choose the slick laptop that they heard people rave over for the last few years?
I'm sure more will now then they did before anyway - And I wouldn't consider that "Apple gets it wrong" any day.
You retard.
And here I thought it was just so that they could sell more computers, and the switch by some to OSX would just be a bonus.
I've used OSX enough to know that it's not my cup of tea. But XP on that new iMac...then my wife wouldn't feel the need to hide the computers.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
Nothing to see here... move along...
The Admin and the Engineer
Something else that should be mentioned is that while plenty of people lust over MacOS X, there are just as many lusting over the designs of the hardware. They push the hardware, adding new innovations that most companies keep on putting off. Take EFI, USB, and Firewire as examples. Sure they don't always get it right, but they do try pushing the boundary, which is much more than the average computer company.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Hell, if I wanted dualbooting there's enough Linux distros for every taste and those don't require completely new hardware to run on.
Unless one or two critical devices have no Linux driver. I've e-mailed Microtek about Linux support for the Scanmaker 4850 scanner, but I haven't got a reply yet. At least makers of peripherals intended for residential use still take Mac OS X seriously.
I suspect it was always going to be in Leopard and Apple simply brought it forward as a beta.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
I've lost count of the number of people I've seen talking about this who clearly haven't read either of the two recent Daring Fireball posts on the subject of Boot Camp, and really need to if they want to have a clue regarding it.
Both are fantastic, but in this context, it's the second link with which people really need to be hit over the head. If you haven't read them, I think you're going to get a lot of things wrong about what Boot Camp's really all about for Apple. I got some of it, but still found things in those write ups that I'd missed.
Boot Camp isn't about converting the mass market of Windows users. Repeat that to yourself until you understand it, and why it's true.
Tech writers also need to get it through their heads that licensing OS X for non-Apple hardware is a bad move that will never happen. There's no money in it, when you compare it to Apple's currently-booming hardware business.
-- McToad
it is all about weaning users off of windows
I'm afraid you're right. I was hoping a future version of BootCamp would take advantage of modern Macs' ability to suspend-to-disk (hibernate) for rebooting into Windows - when you're done reboot into Mac OS and it'll restore itself to where you were.
But that makes it easier to reboot into Windows, so probably not a direction Apple would want to go.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Let's hear from someone who knows what he's talking about.
You must be new here.
Shorter version of same text: Apple sucks, because it doesn't have games I want to play.
It's about 'Power Users'. What all of these pundits are missing is that Apple doesn't want all the Windows Users, it can't afford to support that level of computer user. What Apple wants are the power users that are A. capable of installing Windows on Boot Camp and getting it properly configured, B. Capable enough that they aren't going to be calling Apple for Windows support, and C. affluent enough to afford an Apple AND all the little enhancements that they may want with it.
:-(
I know it's a terrible comparison, but the old car analogy works here. Apple doesn't want the Honda CR/V, Ford Escape crowd, they want the Land Rover Discovery, Hummer crowd. People that want more, and are willing to pay for it.
That whole willing to pay for it thing is a huge part of the deal, and it's a two pronged attack.
First, they are the demographics that has the cash to spend, but costs the least in incidentals to support. Second, they are also the trendsetters, the people that the bulk of the marketplace follows, and as such become a private army of grass roots marketers. How is that ? When someone that's not the uber tech needs a computer, whom to the ask? the Power User friend of theirs, and they follow that lead...
It really is that simple, but the industry pundits are so busy reading more into it they cannot see the simple thing right in front of them. Boot Camp isn't about Joe User, it IS about the Slashdot, OSNews, Register reading consumers.
Proudly posted from a MacBook Pro, yeah, I'm one of them, grassroots marketing, and I pay them for the privelege. pathetic isn't it
The parent isn't insightful its invective. Summary of text. "I bought a computer for the wrong reasons and now I'm spiteful"
You may think me a tired, old, cynic. I'd have to disagree about the tired bit.
Personally, I'm not desperate for virtualization at all.
After all, what do you want to run Windows for? In my case it's either Games, where I don't want the resource overheads of running two operating systems, or assorted obscure software for nerdy things like learning remotes and overly-complex amplifiers. In the latter case direct hardware access is important, and I don't do it very often so the inconvenience is minor anyway.
Everyone has their own needs, so it's perfectly possible you want it for something else - maybe you just don't want to fork over hundreds of pounds for OSX versions of Office and whatever. But Boot Camp gives me most of what I'd want already.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
So what's the point of it, when I could just stick with my current Windows XP-based PC and not worry about Mac OS X altogether? Does OS X really offer any applications that would entice me to purchase a new Mac and put up with the tedium of Boot Camp? I doubt it.
1.) I think there are many OSX only programs which "entice" users to a mac. Garageband, Final Cut Pro, Logic to start.
2.) I have both a PC and a mac. I would put up with the tedium of re-booting until v2(or 3 or whatever) arrives just to clear some space on my desk. I use the PC probably once a week. I'd love to consolidate them.
3.) Two people around me have bought macs since the weekend because of this. I don't think they are the only ones. I've never heard people talk about anything mac-related as much as this.
Hell, I despise Apple.
Hate it. Hate it. HATE IT. Jobs and his RDF can suck my hairy white...nevermind...
But even I understand the reason for BootCamp.
If Apple didn't, someone else would.
Apple is legendary for their death-grip on platform experience.
People were coming up with ugly hacks just to get Windows on their Mac systems. Some resulting in brickified systems (which the user is going to at least TRY to return.
In short, people had hardware that WOULD run Windows. So they're gonna try. Even if it's just to say "I can run both! NYAH!"
So what makes more sense to Apple? To keep processing returns for people who kill their systems fucking around in EFI? Or to release a safe(er) product that'll allow people to get their XP on without murdering their system?
As to why Apple didn't do it in the first place? They wanted to see what the demand was in the early adopters. If nobody tried to put Windows on their systems, Apple doesn't waste time with BootCamp. If they do, Apple releases BootCamp and (because of the frothing fanboyism in the RDF) they're hailed as offering the users a choice (even though they didn't do so from the get-go).
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
He doubt's it? So basically he is saying that he did no research before writing his biased little article? I mean damn, a person would flunk English 102 for that!
This is the most baseless FUD\opinion article I have read in a long while.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
For my part, I have not used a Mac since my work purchased one of the old original ones way back when. I played with it a bit for a week and that was it.
I am not "pro-Windows" or "anti-Mac" but all I have really been exposed to is the Windows environment (and I am an IT manager of an iSeries shop)! If I had the money I would definitely purchase a Mac Laptop and put XP on it just to see what it can do for me. I just purchased a new $499 Compaq laptop and I plan on dual booting it to Linux just for the experience. The Boot Camp program makes me want to do the same with a Mac, I just cannot afford it and it isn't a pressing need.
Could Cnet.com.au possibly be any more clueless? Boot camp is what it is. Virtualized guest OS solutions are already starting to appear (Parallels Workstation for Intel Macs is currently in beta and close to release; VMware is also semi-officially working on it). Both solutions have their uses. A virtual machine is no good for running games. Dual boot is no good for cutting and pasting between simultaneously running sessions. Doesn't mean they both don't have their uses.
As for Apple getting into the business of supporting the jungle of commodity PC hardware out there - they are not that stupid, and Cnet is an ass for even suggesting it. The reasons why this would be a fool's errand are well appreciated by anyone with a clue.
they're remarkably clueless of the world outside of wintel
Seeing as Apple has a 2.1-2.2% market share, and linux a little more than that, that means they have a clue about 90-95% of the market... that's pretty damn good.
Boot Camp will only help the Mac since it might get fair amount of Gamerz to switch as well as some tech savvy corporate OS.X users who don't use it today because they are afraid to be stuck without a fallback OS in case of the 'missing app' dilemma and other Microsoft compatibility issues. These are people who are usually not afraid of something like changing to a new OS. Another point is that even if rumors of Virtualizaton software being integrated into OS.X 10.5 are wrong there are still products like Parallels that offer high performance Virtualization which will do even more to convince these people to buy OS.X. Even so we are still only talking about 'power-users'. So in a sense this dude is right, neither Boot Camp nor Virtualization will trigger a mass migration from Windows XP/Vista to OS.X but that was bloody obvious from the very beginning so his comments are if anything rather superfluous . I would consider Compatibility Software like Wine to be much more likely to cause a User migration from Windows to OS.X that would be large enough show up as a small blip on Microsoft's look-down-shoot-dow radar. Professional, commercial adaptations of Wine such as CrossOver office if it is ever ported to the Mac will make switching a doable proposition, even for relatively clues-less windows users. But even if we see a dramatic growth for the Mac and OS.X due to these technologies. Apples Hardware/Software package will never grow to enjoy the kind of domination that it threatens Microsoft Windows and the BeigeBox Shufflers like Dell with Extinction.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
I do digital media--I do it on a Mac because it's easy, low maintenance, and very mature. I am also a professional tech for my day job--so I deal with Windows, Linux, Solaris, and MacOS X issues all day long. What some people are panning as "bunk" is gold to me--now I don't have to borrow a PC to flash the ROM in some of my devices because the vendor doesn't support Macs. Now, with one computer, I can have a REAL native WinXP installation to test things on instead of a sucky VPC session or a terminal server connection AND have my trusty MacOS X. Everyone here wants Apple to release MacOS X for the standard PC--dream on. If Apple did this, they would be getting into the same problem MS has--spreading themselves too thin. Apple does a few things very well while Microsoft tries to compete in every freakin' market known to man (mediocre at best). Apple wants to sell computers AND software--the whole package. Releasing MacOS X into the wild to be run on all the permutations of hardware out there would reduce the quality and control they enjoy now. It's simply not a good business decision in the long run. Apple doesn't want to support Windows, either. They'll help you boot it, but they're hoping you'll see just how crappy it is compared to their OS. Booting it on the same hardware makes you see both OSes side by side on pretty decent hardware. Reality check: nobody is going to buy a Macbook Pro just to wipe the drive and run Windows--unless their just plain silly with math. Apple knows that--they're not trying to convert anyone to use Macs to run Windows. Apple is also banking on the fact that it's a pain in the ass to dual boot. While it is a convenient option for people who want Macs but are stuck in a Windows world, it's not practical day to day. If anything, Apple's REAL strategy is that the Win-on-Macintel phenom will help sell new versions of MacOS X 10.5 where virtualization is fully supported. I mean, why would anyone buy Vista if they can run the Apps on top of their Mac?
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
Apple's introduction of boot camp is just one step closer to phasing out OS X. The business model they are becoming is a hardware/media company. An operating system that has a limited set of applications that are grossly overpriced is not in that model. 18-20 months from now OS-X will be EOL.
Athiesm is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
Okay, so I guess I don't really expect Boot Camp to generate a huge number of switchers. And, as a Mac user, I really am more interested in virtualization (no thanks Parallels though). But you can tell the author is completely clueless right at the end:
I don't see any valid reason why Apple isn't doing this, as it would dramatically increase its revenue and market penetration.
If he can't see that they would simultaneously reduce the stability and permanently cannibalize their own hardware sales then he doesn't know the first thing about Apple. This is typical of the Windows-centric or Wall Street-centric reporter who just doesn't get Macs. Macs are a niche market. Macs have a loyal following. Business types want to look at Apple and compare 3% marketshare to Dell's 25% (or whatever it is) and say Apple is losing. But look at Apple's profit margins. Not to mention that Apple has a monopoly on its own market, and the ability to move into new markets at will. Dell has got what? Some third-rate case designers and a few factories? They can only grow their business by shaving profits a little more and grabbing another obscenely large chunk of commodity PC sales.
Then there's this juicy tidbit:
Does OS X really offer any applications that would entice me to purchase a new Mac and put up with the tedium of Boot Camp? I doubt it.
So, hmm, he never used a Mac, and just assumes it's a more expensive PC (that can now boot Windows). Back in 1999 this was more or less true. Windows had pretty much caught up and surpassed OS 9. Nowadays the comparison is laughable. Why does he think that the Mac is still so popular among designers, photographers, musicians and programmers? Certainly not just religious fervor...
...and failed. The Commodore 128 had twice the memory, twice the video resolution, and ran at twice the speed of the Commodore 64. Unfortunately, the software market never really took off for the C128 because Commodore had the grand idea of putting the C64 ROMs in it and a Z80 processor to run CP/M. What ended up happening was that people used the C128 either as a Kaypro or Osbourne replacement, or in C64 mode and hardly ever touched the C128 mode. Developers continued to write software mostly for the C64 since it was hard to justify the effort and expense of developing for the C128 since every C128 was also a fully-functional C64. I can see this having a huge, and quite disastrous effect on the Apple software market. Why bother developing for both Mac and Windows, if every Mac can now run Windows? The only Mac-native apps that will be left several years from now will be stuff that Apple develops like iLife and Final Cut. And you can forget about games. No one is going to port Windows games to Mac OS anymore. It's just not worth it if Mac users can now just boot into Windows to play games.
Okay.. "I doubt it" doesn't seem like a solid indication that this person doesn't use a Mac. But even so, I'm willing to assume that he isn't an avid Mac user. But speaking as someone who isn't a Mac fan about how Boot Camp isn't very attractive to non-Mac users seems completely within his realm of understanding.
I use a mac almost every day at work. Boot camp isn't enticing me to buy one for myself. But I'd be willing to run OSX in VMWare or VirtualPC under Windows. I think my case proves that he's right for at least some people.
-=-=-=-=-=
I'd rather be flamed than ignored.
Que? Why, good sir, would people not do what they already do and simply reuse Windows CDs they already have and/or download? Why would people be good little consumers and go out to repurchase software they already have?
Especially in video cards. If apple can write a virtual video layer that runs with Virtual PC and VMWare, that supports thier current video hardware this could be a great wedge.
And I do not mean supporting a modern NVidia 7800/7900 and treating it as an ancient S3 generic 1024*768 bitmap display.
Support it with native features, so that DirectX can run at decent speed.
The law is a weapon of the government, not a protection for the likes of you. Surely you understand that.
Lately I use a Mac, but I was on Windows PCs for about fifteen years. I majored in Pure Math.
Last night I installed Linux on my old PC. You know, just for kicks. I installed Ubuntu, supposedly one of the most user-friendly distros around.
I got it working fine. It was easy. Only took me a couple of hours. The issue is this... if I hadn't had ten years of programming experience, I wouldn't have had a fucking hope.
I think back before I used a Mac I would have gone through the steps to get my ATI driver working and just thought of them as "normal." I certainly didn't find them difficult.
So I have to apt-get the build packages? Ok, no problem. Gosh, it isn't working... oh, the install didn't set the package servers on by default? I'll just edit the sources list. Easy. I need superuser privileges to install this? Su.
I succeeded, and it didn't stress me out... but there's no way my mother could have done that.
I think maybe a lot of geeks don't really understand how hard what they're doing is. There's a lot of machismo, a lot of pretending that anybody who doesn't know how to do this stuff is stupid. They're not stupid. It took longer to learn what we know than we normally suspect. Ordinary people don't know the difference between their RAM and their hard drive, and they shouldn't have to any more than a car owner should have to know the difference between a distributor cap and a catalytic converter.
I notice this very clearly because all these skills I've developed are almost completely useless on my Mac. I could flex my techie muscles if I like. The terminal is right there, all the Unix guts are exposed. It's just that almost none of the tasks I do seem to require it.
I can scan, edit, colour and print my pieces without the system getting in my way. When I work on Linux or Windows systems, there always seems to be some minor maintenance task I could do, should do, but don't get around to. A loose end that trips me up later. Maybe there's some aspect of the printer drivers I've been meaning to get around to fixing. Maybe I really need to reorganize my Start menu so I can actually find my programs without a thirty second search. Maybe I've been putting off writing a script to cover up some UI flaw in Linux or a bugfix for an open-source program I've been using. Isn't that what we're supposed to do in Linux? If you don't like the way it works, fix it yourself?
On my Mac, there's simply nothing I can think of that is unaddressed right now. If you sat me down and told me you'd give me fifty bucks to work on maintaining my computer for an hour, I guess I'd sort my photos.
That's the position most people want to be in. They don't have the choice that you or I do, because they realistically do not have the time to learn how computers work. For these people, the cheapest solution by far is to pay the Mac tax and stop worrying.
My initial reaction was to try and regurgitate what Gruber wrote last week, but then I realized that he's a much better writer than I am, so what's the point.
May I recommend Several Asinine and/or Risky Ideas Regarding Apple's Strategy That Boot Camp Does Not Portend or Windows, The New Classic.
Kiteboarding Gear Mention slashdot and get 10% off!
So for those who don't realize it:
Apple is a hardware company that uses four things to differentiate their product
Having differentiators like this enable Apple to stay away from the typical 'compete on price' behavior that cannibalizes the bottom line of companies like Dell. Dell is fighting to start a new line differentiated on Quality and Style to increase their bottom line; currently they cut so many corners in the name of competing on price that the customer suffers in terms of system instability and insufficient technical support.
So Apple, while being a minority in terms of market share, has the very enviable position of being different than all the other companies that make Intel boxes. So while being able to run OS X on homegrown/dell machines would be 'cool', it would be giving up the majority of their differentiator that allows them to charge more for hardware. A price war with Dell would be very hard for Apple (a smaller manufacturer with less clout for getting deals on parts).
So while there are technical (hardware support) reasons OS X might not run on all the different hardware out there, there are even stronger business reasons to keep it running on machines with fruit logos
"This article was listed, and it was the only damn article with a negative spin. Then I see this article here. All the articles to chose, and the slashdot editors of course pick the article which will stir up the most hornets."
.. and traffic is generated. Wee!
You do realize that the best way to get eyeballs to read your site/newspaper/magazine/what-have-you is to publish controversial (and or trollish flamebait) points of view. People take the bait to point out the general bias in the article, emotions run high, impassioned dialogue happens
So, yeah, the guy seems to have missed the point re: Boot Camp, but look at the response! His boss will certainly keep him around!
arf.
hooked up funny
The only reason Apple released Boot Camp is that it was already being done. Rather than giving the hackers the glory (and the control) they reelased it themselves. At the end of the day this was nothing more than a power play. Quite frankly I think that now that Apple switched to intel there is a real case of the emperor not having any clothes. The ONLY reason to switch to Apple now is MacOS and while it is pretty and has a great UI there isn't much else that makes it any better or worse than windows (other than that it isn't windows). Sure there are a couple niche markets that have software only for OSX but 99 percent of users out there just want email, office, internet, movies and music. For all the flamers who want to call me a troll I say iJam. (it's Just a machine)
Could chocolate be quiet and let me finish?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
A lot of comments around here read
"Apple is a hardware company" and
"Apple is not a software company".
But in reality, Apple is an all-in-one solution company.
If a consumer runs into troubles with a Windows box, it is likely that the problem involves either the internal hardware or the operating system. Now, Apple's customers might just contact Apple. Windows box users will likely need to determine whether it's hardware or software-related, and who made the hardware or software. Combined with the observation that OSX tends to be more stable I would argue that Apple would not be so successful if it was just selling stylish hardware.
where's all that Karma?
I begged my boss to let me get a MacBook Pro. The problem was that there were Windows only apps I needed to run. There were Mac solutions for these apps, but when the head of a department uses Windows and wants everything to be the same, it's not an option. Just as I was about to get a Windows based PC, the OnMac hack was released and so I went with the MacBook Pro. This was great...Windows user by day, Mac user by night...and for certain jobs during the day I could use the Mac for audio/video/graphics. However when the office saw my Mac, and the benefits, it became clear that this was the machine that would become the standard issue for new-hires (we're a fast growing company).
There is a program for Linux called Cedega (formerly known as WineX), which is a proprietary fork of Wine, which is an application to run Windows programs under Linux/BSD by translating parts of the Windows and DirectX API to the Linux API. Transgaming, the company supporting Cedega, added Direct3D support, and some other enhancements specifically for gaming, and tries to support the latest releases of Windows games. With this application, Linux gamers, a good chunk of the Linux population (at least I think it is) can play the latest games without dual-booting into Micro$**t Winblow$; unfortunately, there are some catches.
First, Cedega is NOT open-source (parts of it are released under the Alladin Public License, which is more shared source) and a subscription costs $5 per month (with an initial minimum subscription of 3 months).
The second problem is that Cedega is trying to support resource intensive applications, so they are constantly changing their supported API to 'optimize' their program. As a result, games that worked with older versions of WineX/Cedega might not work with newer versions, so you may have to install multiple copies to run the games you want.
The third, and VERY IRRITATING, flaw is that Cedega uses a voting system to determine which games to support. This means that only the popular games (Half Life, WOW, GTA, Elder Scrolls, etc.) will definitely work, and less popular games (Gothic, Gothic II,*insert many games here*) may NEVER work!!
Anyway, Cedega has some annoying flaws, but its MAIN flaw is that it gives developers a good excuse not to do a native Linux port. They may have heard of Cedega, and they assume that their game will be supported under it, so there is no reason to do a native port.
Some people, initially, liked the idea of Wine/WineX/Cedega because it would provide gamers with a way to switch to a 'superior' operating system and still be able to play their Windows games, and game developers would, eventually, see that a vast chunk of their market runs Linux, and they would start releasing native ports. Cedega has *NOT* encouraged games; one could argue that it has hampered game development under Linux (see above). Since most Linux computers can run Windows, game developers will still release games under Windows and just suggest that Linux gamers dualboot. Since most Linux users are not as fanatically anti-MS as they claim to be, most of them will boot into Windows to play their games (which I, myself, do). I hear many people on Linux forums say that they only use Windows for gaming or video-editing (or synth music creation).
Game developers do not want to do more work than is necessary, so they will not do a port if another choice is given. If a Macintosh can run Windows, then game developers will tailor their games to Windows and will not support OSX, "because you can just run Windows for that stuff." As mentioned previously, the MacIntel's ability to run Windows will not attract enough gamers for most game developers to consider OSX as a viable platform, if they have not considered it already.
In conlusion, Windows is far too entrenched in the desktop market to be displaced by anything; to fight it, one should focus on embedded computers (cell phones/PDAs/etc.) where Windows CE is just one OS among many. If you want to support open gaming, buy a GP2X. http://www.gp2x.com/
Sorry for this verbose (and mostly off-topic) rant.
---- "XML is like violence. If it doesn't fix the problem, you aren't using enough."
Can I get a refund if I buy a Macbook and decide not to run OSX on it?
#19845
This is the typical Windows-centric problem of understanding. If you want a cheap PC then cheap out and buy one/build one. If you want a consistent user experience with an OS that is about five years ahead of Windows, buy a Mac.
If Microsoft did something like this then everyone would be crying about monopolies and piecing together rants about how evil capitalism is. Whether an action is good or bad shouldn't depend on who did it, but there's no reasoning with zealots. The fact is from a consumer standpoint Apple's business model is sub-par because we can't run OS X on our hardware. That's fine with me -- I'll continue using another OS.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Design is something that Apple is known for and they do know how to make good looking machines for their time. No big PC manufacturer does that as well.
ALIENWARE.
Let's see Apple design something that bad-ass in appearance.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
If Apple releases OS X for all systems, not just Macs, they will be challenging MS for its core business. They will be taking on substantial increased support costs and losing hardware sales (since the Mac OS is a big part of the incentive for purchasing Apple's hardware) while simultaneously getting into an operating system price war with MS, a company with enormously greater financial resources. And if MS chooses to withdraw Office for the OS X, they can cause still further damage to Apple's OS sales. On the other hand, by offering Windows compatibility at the hardware level, Apple generates revenue for MS--Apple could see quite substantial growth in hardware sales without constituting a significant threat to MS's core business, particularly if a significant number of Mac users end up purchasing Windows as a secondary OS.
In contrast, the current path puts Apple in competition with Dell rather than MS. And here Apple has a key advantage, in that they can offer something that Dell cannot, the Mac OS.
Apple should just support Xen financially and with contributions; with very little money, they could get excellent virtualization software that will run both Windows and Linux (Xen 3 supports virtualizing arbitrary operating systems on the current and future generations of Intel and AMD chips).
Enticing 'only' 5% of the Windows market would double Apple's market share. Knowing that you don't have to completely abandon your 'legacy' Windows apps is a comfort for those who slobber after the ease of use of the 'Mac but aren't entirely sure that they can live without some trivial Windows app (including games).
When you're buying a $2000 machine, spending an extra $150 to be able to reach back into your 15 years of accumulated Windows stuff is useful.
For those of you with storage lockers, think about how often you actually go into them to get something -- but you're willing to pay $60-$200 per month for that capability. Boot camp is like a storage locker for all your old Windows apps.
... But you only pay for it once.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
might be the way to go. Parallels.com
photosMy Photostream
what if you could then hibernate windows, to switch back into osx. that would be much quicker too. then both windows -> mac and mac -> windows transitions would be fast.
on the other hand again, what if while windows was hibernating, after you hibernated osx to start it up, you couldn't unhibernate that instance of osx, because it would kill of the 'child os' instance of windows. or at least lead to an infinite loop regression of each os hosting the other as a virtual machine. you would have to hibernate windows and start a new osx. then when you wanted to go back into windows, you would have to hibernate this osx, and start up a new windows. this would enable lots of speedy transitions, with the downside being that when you wanted to shut down, you would have to wait while all your nested os's shut down repeatedly inside each other, alternating mac/windows until you got back to the original one you booted into. also you might have some information in a running program of an os instance further down the stack, that you would have to stop what you were doing, and shut down all the os's, til you got back to the one you left it at.
on the other hand, everybody could JUST STOP ALL THIS OPERATING SYSTEMS AS A COMMODITY CRAP AND PUT GENUINE FUCKING MULTITASKING COMPATIBLE OPERATING SYSTEMS BUILT FOR THE CORRECT MACHINES ON THE COMPUTERS THEY SELL THAT ALLOW USERS REAL CONTROL OVER THEIR OWN POSSESSIONS AND TO RUN WHAT THEY LIKE ON THEM! but hey that would never work..
my password really is 'stinkypants'
Boot Camp will do little to coax Windows XP users into switching to Mac OS X.
There are even examples of people here on slashdot who have stated that they have bought an apple simply because of bootcamp. I'm in the same boat, although I'm going to wait for the powermac and am hoping that we'll be able to choose/buy later on a hefty graphics card (eg 7800 or even 7900) with full driver support in Windows. My current PC is physically failing, but I'm holding off for the powermac.
If anything, bootcamp will drastically improve apple sales. I'd put money on this being the case.
My only concern is the lack of being able to transfer files between the OS's. It'd be useful to be able to create a third FAT32 partition of maybe a few gigs for this purpose.
http://www.frenchgeek.com/
Wow! What an ignorant fucking title. Stupid turd. Get your facts straight next time before you make yourself look like a complete fucknut. What a fucking retard!
I think that Apple may be in for a surprise. Yes, there is a lot of propaganda flying around in regards to just about any OS on the market. However, in my experience, many Apple users (at least in the academic communities) who adamantly claim that their OS is supperior have never even bothered running Microsoft platform--they base such claims solely upon the n-hand accounts. Conversely, from this exposure (even if such was for curiosity sakes) we may end-up seeing quite a few switches, but in the opposite direction. I have personally seen only a few of those, but what made them so powerful for me was the sheer ignorance and amazement that Microsoft's OS is not nearly as bad as the propaganda makes it into (which ultimately makes such an experience positive no matter what, as the expectations are as low as they get). Now, if you are talking about the company's practices, that's a whole another story (which sadly in this case has little or no bearing on the outcome)...
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People who want Macbooks, Mac Minis, iMacs but don't want OSX. A lot of people fall into this category. Get a Mac then pick your poison. I bought a MacMini for my father after announcement. He runs one program that is Windows only but doesnt have the space for a Dell. All these guys need to think out of their box.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
Interestingly enough, I don't think I'd be able to go to an Intel Mac for quite some time. Please see the last line of this comment for the "point" of my post.
Adobe image software isn't going to be available for a while, runs slow in emulation... (inconvenience)
Line6 will not have its Intel/Mac version of its drivers and Gear software until at least September 2006... (show-stopper)
The basic ProTools stuff and many other critical audio editing tools I need will not be ready for Intel/Mac for quite a while... (show-stopper)
However, all of the above are available for XP right now, rumour has it that they will run on Intel/Mac/XP with BootCamp... Whether or not this is the best option, it is a better option - the Line6 stuff will not even run in emulation on the Intel/Mac.
A Passionate Independent Musician
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an article "-1 troll" ?
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
That's pretty similar to my situation. I have had an iMac for about a year and I have an older PC that I was thinking of upgrading. Now that I've heard about this, I'll probably just wait for an Intel-based tower from Apple and dual-boot.
Thinkin' Lincoln - a web comic of presidential proportions
How do you explian Linux's stability? It's not even limited to one CPU architecture! I'll go ahead and tell you. Linux makes the hard choices for what can and can't go into the kernel. Distrobutions *always choose what works best instead of what's right for marketing. Don't believe me? Firefox / Mozilla... EGCS / GCC... libc5 / glibc... the list goes on and on. If you can make the hard choices in software then you can stay stable, and keep backwards compatibility too. I can still run libc5 applications for example. Imagine if Vista regulated all the old WIN32 to a 'compatibility layer' instead of half-assing around every time they rehash Windows NT.
What Boot Camp does is remove the barrier to adoption. There are a number of Windows users who would like to switch, but need access to Software X or don't want to give up Game Y
I agree. But I also think there's an additional barrier. Business that would otherwise be willing to buy a Mac to allow an individual to work according to their preference often won't do so because they are worried that if the individual leaves, they will be stuck with a Mac that nobody wants to use. This way, the business can simply be reassured that they machine can be converted to run Windows. Sure there are many other significant barriers to business adoption, but that's one fewer.
You can already run non-Apple OSes in a window on the Intel-based Macs by way of the Q Project (based on the open source QEMU). Commercial virtualization solutions are being worked on by VMWare, Microsoft, and Parallels, among others. Parallels' Workstation 2.1 for Mac OS X appears to be first to market (althought it, like Boot Camp, is beta software).
I am a windowZ user. Oh well, that is just the way it is. It is just a stupid needs thing on my part, I am not trying to start a thread on the perceived MAC-Windows War. I use engineering applications schematic capture and PCB layout (with router) and some mechanical. A few crappy 8 bit 'PIC' compilers.
In my opinion Mac-s have always been a premium product. Price and quality. Now I have the option to use one in the Windows environment. (viruses, blue screen of death. Contributing to M$ and all.) at least now I have that option. I will admit that I am cheep but will most likely buy one on the MAC Minis to use in my living room (for entertainment, music and video). I am not a gamer and PC-s are so F***ing ugly.
I know of a number of sales types that are seriously considering a MacBook Pro. They look nice. Dell note books are so 'average' and Big Blues's think pads are now made by the Red's.
From a marketing stand point I can see why Apple did this. Why would the core Mac user even care. Just don't use the crap if you don want - need it. ( the way censorship on TV should work, if it offends you TURN IT OFF)
Seriously, do you guys not see the hugeness of the application of boot camp to school purchasing? What campus on the planet is going to have seperate Mac and PC labs now? Just buy macs, and BAM! both labs in one room with 1/2 the hardware and support staff.
:)
No informed campus IT department will even halfway consider any other option, it would just be asinine at this point. I think they will probably even jump their upgrade cycles, just to save in support hours.
Going to hafta put up big signs to show folks how to reboot tho..
Somebody explain to me why, once the Majority of Mac's are Intel based a windows developer would port their app over to OS X if you could run the windows version of the app at native speeds on the same screen as OS X?
OSX does come with a compiler and everything else you need to be compiling and installing source based software. It doesn't installit by default, because the average user doesn't need that stuff but if you pop in your OSX disc and go into the Xcode Development Tools folder and run the installer it will install everything you need, including gcc 3.3 and 4.0.1 and all the various libraries and such needed for building sources.
Install COX in your backend today!
To "Remove the barrier" is the perfect description for what apple have done; I was staring into a summer of buying yet more windows equipment so that I could set up for a new job- a DVD-ROM project that involves some HD video editing, 3d modelling with 3DS MAX, lots of work with Flash, Photoshop and a little Director to mount my Flash movie on.
I've invested an incredible amount of time in learning 3DS MAX, which isn't cross-platform so I had to go for a PC if I wanted a workstation to use it on. Now, I can do my HD Video editing (with final cut Pro!), Flash and Director authoring in OSX where it's nice and comfortable and stable, and reboot to 3ds MAX to do my 3D work.
Some people have a lot of time and training invested in Windows- only products (even an app as simple as Sage is, I think, windows only (I might be wrong), raising a barrier to using OSX. If you can run windows for your 20% time on a particular app, and enjoy the comfort of OSX when you're using common applications, then there are very few reasons not to make the switch.
As for me, I'm buying a MacBook Pro and maybe an iMac for personal use, and my new employer is going to buy an Intel workstation (when at last they come out) as my main workstation. That'll be 6000 worth of hardware that Apple couldn't have sold us 2 weeks ago.
Apples' hardware sales are going to jump massively.
When the posters fear their moderators, there is tyranny; when the moderators fears the posters, there is liberty.
Im sure we will have a Cedega like app for running XPgames on OS X soon.. And Wine or virtualization.. Or whatever.. When the hardware is X86 it cant possibly be much of a problem to do this.. ?
I've been using an iBook for over a year and it has become my primary machine. That being said, I still refer to my computer running XP as my "Windows Machine" just as I refer to my linux server as, well, my "Linux Server".
"Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs. We have a protractor."
It is tragic that the moderators are so thick-skulled that they failed to notice the humor in swapping “Windows” with “Mac OS X” (and other similar references) in this troll. Rest assured that at least someone “got it.”
Join Tor today!
not really, the first poster just started yet another flamewar, shouldv'e alked about the article. /. is getting pretty bad these days
"I am from germany"
n ographic just crashed again.
You don't need to tell us. Your charming use of compund nouns (railwayridingsimulations) reveals your nationality most clearly. As a descendant of Germans, I think English would be more fun if we also adopted this form. e.g. My Computingmachinewhichservesfilesforthemostpartpor
Peace, Love, Eisbein and Sauerkraut.
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
I'd already switched to a Mac awhile ago (from linux, not Windows), but this has me seriously contemplating upgrading to an Intel chip to take advantage of this. Before I had my eye on getting a cheap high end G5 Powermac when they finally switched those over to Intel. So instead of me being on the secondary market for a lightly used uber PPC Mac in a few months, I'm looking at buying an iMac directly from Apple.
But I think this guy (and all the people on CNBC who talk about this being "for businesses") is missing the point. People aren't saying "boy, I'd sure like to combine the price of Apple hardware with the stability of Windows", they're saying "OSX is just flat out a better all-around experience for most things, but some app categories are really missing, I wish I could dual boot so I can use a Windows app when necessary".
Games are the killer app that is keeping a lot of younger users, annoyed by all of Windows' failings, from switching. The young gamer of today could be the head of an IT department in the future, and if he sees OSX as a more productive system for doing actual work, and Windows as basically "something to play games on", that's going to factor in to future hardware purchases.
John Gruber of Daring Fireball wrote up the most logical and clear-headed analysis of Apple's Boot Camp play that I've seen thus far. In typical Gruber fashion he doesn't pull any punches when he thinks others have got it wrong, but I have to agree with him.
This article ought to have been the one linked in the main story.
Kevin Fox
1. Release a real virtualization tool. This should be able to achieve near-native speeds (if not 100% native) for a Windows OS running alongside OS X. Dual boot systems don't offer a lot. 1 becomes your main operating system, and the other is useful only as a hobby tool. This isn't a big enough draw to convert a large number of people. If you can run side-by-side? I can share clipboard between applications? I can edit files between OSes? That becomes much more interesting.
2. Embrace the 2-button mouse. Why do their laptops still only have a 1-button mouse. I don't know a single Mac user, not ONE, that doesn't use a 2 button mouse. This is pigheaded thinking.
Asher, I think you might benefit from reading John's analysis of Boot Camp and Apple's overall strategy. Maybe you'll find it illuminating.
You might also want to consider writing a follow-up article in a year, so you can tell everyone about what you predicted back in 2006. Then again, maybe you shouldn't do that.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
What Boot Camp does is remove the barrier to adoption.
This to me is the major point, that I agree many are missing - and many do not understand how big this is. Every single dedicated PC gamer on the planet is now a potential Mac buyer. Everyone who wanted a mac but had a lingering fear that they would miss Windows. And so on and so forth. When the desktops and a wider range of laptops come out, we should really start to see some systems fly.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
In the early days of windows, up until directX, we had to reboot back to dos for games.
Windows will like DOS in the old days. We will have to reboot back to it for games but will favor games that can run in the new modern os.
Sounds right to me. I wouldn't buy a new system that'd end up forcing me to reboot if I want to access the other half of my applications (and the way it is now I wouldn't boot into OSX in first place).
What about gamers? Since games take over the whole computer anyway, rebooting to play games is just about the same - it's pretty easy to see a future where for most people, Windows is a virtual XBox of sorts and everything else is done on the Mac.
That's a huge market right there.
And while you do not like OS X there are many, many people that have been chomping at the bit to try it out - now they can without fear they can't run Windows anymore if they need to.
This should really hasten the adoption of HD camcorders as well, which stink to edit on PC's today.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Anybody else think Microsoft will now drop development of Office for Mac?
This way they can keep people booting into Windows to run Word. When full virtualization is released I can see this pushing Mac Office out the door even faster.
Bye Bye Mac Office. It was nice knowing you.
I see that apple has had to play into the hands of Microsoft in the hopes of selling more Macs, And gain more market share. I guess they are not so "above it all" after all. This marketing strategy should knock the Mac elitists down a peg or two.
I think that Apple may be in for a surprise. Yes, there is a lot of propaganda flying around in regards to just about any OS on the market. However, in my experience, many Apple users (at least in the academic communities) who adamantly claim that their OS is supperior have never even bothered running Microsoft platform--they base such claims solely upon the n-hand accounts.
I run both, and I really don't see that being the case. I've brought mac laptops into work before and people are impressed with OS X... but there's always been some Windows app they could not be without.
A lot more people than you think know what OS X is about and would really like to use it. The gates have been lowered, they are free to come in - especially gamers. Now they can use Windows as a virtual XBox and do everything else in OS X.
Furthermore, even pure Mac users may get Windows but mostly for games - this still helps OS X sales as it removes an invisible pressure that was there before to buy a PC for games support. Consoles greatly alleviated that pressure but there are still a few PC games that are compelling.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Also, Apple is a hardware company. If hardware sales went down 50%, but software sales of OS X went up 10x, what would happen to total revenues?
As the wording next to the Vanilla Latte in the Stanford Coho says... "Do the math."
As he so obviously points out:
"Apple is a hardware company."
Modders, get the parent up to 5.
http://www.parallels.com/en/
Parallels is a brand new VM from some russian company. It even makes use of intel virtualization features of the CoreDuo/CoreSolo. All of the reviews have been positive and I'm looking forward to getting a MacBook so I can try it for myself.
In my experience, the rebooting isn't so bad. It's definitely slower booting into WinXP than into Mac OSX, but on a fresh install, with very few software installs (save the typical anti-virus package) it's not in the realm of 3 minutes. I've learned that on a fresh install, if go into the control panel > internet options, and set the default homepage to http://www.getfirefox.com/ you can open up IE only once ever, just for the firefox download, and then you never have to mess with it ever again, thus eliminating the need to get a anti-spyware client. Additionally, I use CCleaner to completely dump all my temp files and cookies every week or so. It seems to keep my WinXP systems cleaner, and more junk free than say Ad-Aware and the Disk Cleanup system tool.
Hades, PoD: Official Advocate
I'm one of the people who is now leaning. Doesn't mean I 'want' OSX, it just means that I can pay a premium on my hardware for my next windows PC and I'll have a free OSX toy to play with.
If I decide I hate OSX then I can trash the partition and make it windows only. In my humble opinion Bootcamp is a wonderful idea for Apple - there's a lot of people who like the look of Apple hardware, but aren't sure about the OS - who'll now buy an Apptel machine. Apple couldn't give a flying-F, they make as much money off this guy as a complete Apple zealot.
Actually, thinking about it a bit more - if Apple machines can now play PC games, then surely people thinking about playing games might cough up for the top-end Apple system. Currently unless you're into serious video/photo editing, I was never quite sure why you'd buy a top of the line Mac ever.
MS are pissy at Apple as previously every machine they sold was a lost windows license.
Apple were pissy at MS as every XP license they sold meant they'd not made a profit on the hardware it ran on.
That's now sorted out - both sides are happy - only person who's pissed off is Michael Dell.
Apparently you haven't heard about the Mighty Mouse. But, then again, why not beat that horse just a few more times...
This guy is arguing his case from the point of view that there is no difference in quality between OS X and Win XP. It suggests that he's really never used OS X for a long enough period of time to know what he's talking about.
1. " I think he's missed the boat on this one, and here's why. Cooper assumes that the existence of Boot Camp alone will be enough to entice significant numbers of Windows XP-based PC users to shell out a few grand for a new Mac -- now that's wishful thinking! In my opinion, not many will even bother."
Wrong.
Most Mac's don't cost a few grand so this guy is starting out his discussion/rant with a deliberate gross misrepresentation.
2. "Dual booting Windows XP and Mac OS X through Boot Camp is superfluous, as you're forced to reboot each time you switch between operating systems, and the Windows XP partition can't read any of the files you've saved under your Mac OS X partition. "
OS X offers you a more secure environment and that security is potentially compromised when both operating systems run concurrently.
3. "So what's the point of it, when I could just stick with my current Windows XP-based PC and not worry about Mac OS X altogether? Does OS X really offer any applications that would entice me to purchase a new Mac and put up with the tedium of Boot Camp? I doubt it."
The short answer is that OS X is better. OS X offers a nicer more stable and better considered work environment within which to run your applications. In my experience you would have to use OS X for a while to really appreciate how that improves your experience with every application that you do use. One problem is that takes a while for your work habits to change in order to really take advantage of and appreciate the improved environment that OS X offers.
4. "Rather than enticing existing Windows XP users to switch, Boot Camp will be primarily attractive to current OS X users that are lusting after certain Windows XP applications, such as games. This makes sense -- they're already accustomed to performing most tasks on OS X, and only need to switch over to Windows when they feel the urge to game."
Wrong.
Mac users aren't lusting after XP applications. They already own a cheap PC to play games and to run a those few applications in an insecure Windows environment that are not available on a Mac. Now Mac owners will be replacing their PC's with a second inexpensive Mac. With that replacement they will have a second computer that works no matter what Win XP did to their Windows partition when they installed service pack 2.
5. "Ultimately, with Boot Camp, Apple is only helping Microsoft sell more copies of Windows XP. How sweet of them."
See item 4.
6. "If Apple wants a significant number of users to sample OS X, Boot Camp just won't cut it. Instead, it's going to have to get off the fence and start selling OS X to PC users, rather than restricting it to the Mac. I don't see any valid reason why Apple isn't doing this, as it would dramatically increase its revenue and market penetration. Is Apple not confident that it can compete with PC vendors based on hardware design alone, should users have the ability to run OS X on a standard Dell or HP machine?"
Wrong.
This assertion ignores the fact that Mac's and their operating systems have better integration, better reliability, and better support. When you call Apple support with a software problem they usually don't tell you that they can't help you with your problem because its a hardware problem and visa versa. Its Apple hardware and software and Apple usually can help you for a reasonable price. Running OS X on cheap generic hardware will disallow real support of the hardware software combination and will result in a much wider variation in the quality of experience of using OS X. Effectively Apple would lose much of their quality control.
7. "However, if Cooper's right about anything, it's that "folks are not clamouring for Windows; they're clamouring to run Windows applicat
What some people are panning as "bunk" is gold to me--now I don't have to borrow a PC to flash the ROM in some of my devices because the vendor doesn't support Macs.
I was thinking the same thing - that to me seems like a huge win for Mac owners everywhere, at last we can do firmware upgrades without bugging PC users.
It doesn't come up often but when it does it's really annoying (like the recent 500GB Seagate SATA drive issues).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Now, however, I'll definitely consider a Mac as my next computer, as I can justify that premium. Being able to use OSX *and* dual-boot Windows to play my favorite games sounds like a Good Deal (tm).
So, here's one person who might be making the switch in a couple of years if Boot Camp works out.
Many Bothans died to bring you this sig.
Because every Mac sold comes with OS X by default, which will always be a larger market. Just how Microsoft made IE the browser everyone supported.
Windows support is merely a compatibility layer that lets people make the transition more smoothly - and play games. It's pretty easy to see Microsoft Windows turning into mostly a gaming OS. If you think about it, the most advanced portions of Vista remaining are all related to games and graphics.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
According to figures I've seen (provided by Microsoft), Windows crashes are 85% due to bad drivers, 7% due to bad hardware, and 8% due to either known bugs in Windows or unexplained. This is for Windows XP; for Windows 2000 the number of Windows bugs are higher, and I didn't see figures for other versions of Windows. Classifying bugs is pretty difficult. Often you can say that the kernel crashed in a driver, therefore it is the driver's fault, but drivers can also cause crashes by handing bad data to the rest of the kernel. Hardware bugs can be even harder to classify, but if you see an impossible crash (on an instruction like xor eax,eax, for example) then you can attribute it to hardware failure.
I think you have this backwards, this move enables Mac sales to reach a tipping point where everyone wants to buy a Mac, and the Windows support is there for backwards compatibilty - which most users will just phase out over time, just as Classic apps were.
It's a sort of computer judo that gives Apple tremendous leverage, since they are really, really good at making consumer devices that integrate with computers and laptops - both of which are where the computer market is headed full steam. It's like Apple just put up a big "DETOUR" sign in the middle of the road and redirected people to AppleLand instead of DellWorld.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Yes, but you have to drop $600 dollars for a Mac Mini, and possibly an extra $120 for a legal copy of Windows XP: Home, to evaluate OSX. That is a LOT of money to evaluate an operating system. Say what you want about Linux, but Knoppix makes it very easy and cheap to decide if Linux is right for you. If a Mac user wanted to switch to Windows, s/he could spend $120 on a copy of XP Home and install it on her Mac (with BootCamp).
:D)
Let's compare the three, shall we?
Windows XP Home: $120 (at least on Amazon.com) + tax
Windows XP Pro: $300 + tax
Linux (Knoppix): $0.50 (price of blank CD-R) + tax (in Canada that would be $72
OSX: $600 + tax
That is a shitload of money to evaluate an OS. I still think that Apple would increase sales by selling a VMWare image of OSX (especially since two VMWare products are free for non-commercial use): it would solve the problems of hardware compatibility, it would be cheaper than the current evaluation solutions for every OS except Linux/BSD/etc., and if the user decided to stick to Windows/Linux/whatever, Apple would still have the $90 or whatever they would charge for the VMWare image.
---- "XML is like violence. If it doesn't fix the problem, you aren't using enough."
Sensational Journalism at it's best...
Here's how I see it, I can get a mac and run OS X AND Windows or I can get a generic machine and I can only run Windows. (Well legally, we'll say that hacking the DRM is beyond the scope of most users) I'm sure a lot of people are interested in trying OS X but they don't want to be locked into it should they decide they don't like it.
Personally I, and I'm sure many others, won't bother. I don't care about games, I came for the UNIX and stayed because it looks nice. Imagine that, a UNIX that looks nice.
As for all the comments saying that now there will be no games for OS X, I say bull... If gamers are willing to shell out the extra cash for another license of windows just to be able to run games AND still use OS X, game companies will re-think their strategy because really, who wants to reboot everytime they want to play a game? So native OS X games will be more popular than those requiring reboot. (At least with Mac gamers)
But then again, no one ever listens to me.
Just Curious... If you do a torrent search xp vs osx .. compare the results...
Osx has no type of serial/activation/validation scheme in place...
So....?
-- I Dont Deserve A Sig I Have Bad Karma
What stops Apple from porting the *BSD drivers, which have "free developers"? Or from their Darwin project, for that matter.
Are there large enough differences between the *BSD and Mach kernels to make this less than useful?
I have been wanting a Mac for a long time. I actually am hoping I can get one before it is all Intel because I am actually in love with the Power architecture more than anything. I mean I can tweak Linux a lot to get a pretty looking Desktop. But I digress.
My question concerns the notion of dual booting that keeps coming up. I admit it is annoying and is the only reason my Windows PC doesn't run two OSes. Of course the Linux laptop helps fix that problem. So my question is, what about wine? I find it hard to believe that it hasn't been made to work in the world of Mac OS X. It runs many programs and even a few games will run in it with some work. So why either bother with dual booting?
I will admit, though, that wine and really any software emulation inevitably runs slower than a dual boot will. This point is something the newer article seems to miss. There is also the concern of 3D graphics in emulation. Wine works alright, but it never quite matches performance of running a game in Windows and many games are just never playable. I used VMWare software ages ago, but I am not sure it would be able to handle 3D games at all, and VirtualPC is horrible period. It runs slower then VMWare in my experience.
So wouldn't DB make more sense the emu?
"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb."
Now some of you might say that he would lose money because he can't sell his machines anymore. That's bull. Think of it this way- people are ignorant, just as you see these people coming into a Dell store or kiosk and buy these crap machines the same would conclude to Mac. Current Mac users, Graphic Designers, and many Corporations or even anyone who has the idea that Mac hardware is better (which its not) will still dish out the money. This is the good majority of the population.
Now, what about our Windows Applications? If Jobs opens the OS to the general PC market a lot more developers are willing to program for an ever growing platform. More willingness to program for a popular platform will help boost MacOS X application support. And Windows Backwards compatibility can be programmed into Mac OS X as well though Library Emulation. (Such as Wine and Cedega in Linux)
And about the OS being unstable on a normal PC is bull as well. Okay, PC hardware is vast, I'll give you all that. But everything is a standard. Hardware developers would (and I'm 95% sure) be willing to work with apple and make drivers that would perform just as well as on Mac hardware. Until recently, most chipset drivers are pretty generic unless you're dealing with server hardware. The companies that have special features on their chipsets such as Intel, ATi, NVIDIA, and so on, would be major contenders in this project because they could earn more money with new hardware.
The point is... is that, Jobbie... if you let us have the f**king Operating System, than you would be doing a whole lot of good for us and for yourself. So, just do it already!
~ Zane
I believe that booting Linux is already supported without BootCamp. I know Linux supports EFI, and it should support the hardware (Core Duo/ATI/etc).
---- "XML is like violence. If it doesn't fix the problem, you aren't using enough."
From TFA: "Does OS X really offer any applications that would entice me to purchase a new Mac and put up with the tedium of Boot Camp? I doubt it."
This guy is just straight up trolling. Either that, or he's really short-sighted, or willfully ignorant or something.
People don't use Mac OS X because it has some kind of crazy-ass applications that somehow make it 5000x better than everything else. They use it because it works, it's intuitive, it's reliable, it's easy to use, and it looks damn good in the process!
I had high hopes for Apple a few years ago, but recently their commitment to OSX as anything more than a vehicle for iLife/iTunes has been questionable. The user interface consistency continues to degrade with every release. The UNIX underpinnings also stagnate. Apple has added some great features, but after they become a bullet on a feature list, they seemingly languish eternally. They refuse to further expand upon and refine them, which is arguably worse than not adding them at all. To say that OSX has rough edges is a laughable understatement.
Anyways, this wasn't meant to be a rant, but I did want to make a few concrete points about the famed "stability."
All that said, OSX is still far preferable to any version of Windows. Unfortunately it lacks the application base of Windows; and if you need to reboot into Windows even sometimes, OSX may not even be worth the effort. After all, just keeping a Windows machine healthy is such a monumental effort, that you may as well use it.
Please Apple, spend some time on polishing the interface, and QA. Promote Cocoa and the Obj-C language beyond the mac platform. If you can't spare the resources to keep Darwin competitive, move the GUI onto Linux, BSD or even Solaris. (Actually, ZFS would be very nice to have...) At the rate things are going, your market will be reduced to those who can afford to use a Mac as an iPod accessory.
Apple will not license OSX to run on other vendor's hardware because they are a *hardware company*. Yes, I know, they also make some great software. But the majority of Apple's computer division revenue comes from selling hardware and not from selling OSX licenses. (I think the iPod is still the largest single source of revenue for the company overall, though.)
Do you remember way back in 1994-5, when Apple granted licenses for "clone" Macs? The clones worked great, were significantly cheaper that Macs from Apple, and ran OS8 and 9 perfectly. Great idea for Apple, right? Wrong. The loss in hardware revenue was not offset by license revenue. The licensing blunder (and other mistakes) led to Job's return and the current state of Apple as a company. So, Apple is going to shy away fron licensing if it has any corporate memory at all.
Actually, the entire OS X GUI is built on fully accelerated OpenGL last I checked.
Caution - OS X only comes with a special limited feature browser that doesn't support tabs, or anything.
Safari on 10.4 supports tabs very nicely.
OS X doesn't come with a compiler. You can download a free version, but the full featured "Visual Studio," costs a lot of money.
It's not installed by default on new machines; however, the 10.2 and 10.3 retail boxes included a seperate CD with the XCode developer tools, which include most of the standard compilers anyone used to Linux expects, and I suspect 10.4 is the same. XCode is also freely downloadable from the Apple Developer Connection, albeit the legalese is a lot less friendly than ANYTHING in the Linux world.
More to the point, "Visual Studio" is a Windows developer environment; the analog in Mac Land is "Project Builder" from the developer tools -- less powerful by far, but still perfectly serviceable.
Dude, if you're going to troll, at least put some effort into it. It isn't hard at ALL to complain about OS X gaming.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
It's called 'Boot Camp,' not 'Death Camp' you asshat.
Whoever wrote that article is completely ignorant.. They probably wen't into the article thinking it was a method of selling OSX. And despite what they read, didn't change their view. The point is to sell more mac computers, becuase people will be able to run windows on them. It specifically states on their site, that there goal is to increase the use of mac hardware by allowing use of the most common OS, I don't know how the CNet Reporter possibly missed the majority of the text on the page he was writting about.
But will Boot Camp run Vista?
Wouldn't that be a kicker.
If they did, that would be like a first strike against Microsoft's heart. And Microsoft, which currently tolerates Apple as a means of making money from OS X versions of Office, would undoubtedly take the nuclear option and do everything it could to destroy Apple as a direct competitor. It's not as if the current US administration gives a crap about MS being an abusive monopoly.
But I'm sure Steve Jobs is biding his time and waiting for the perfect moment to strike...
You must think in Russian.
Recall that Next had the Nextstation, until it was no longer profitable or had any good marketshare and then they released NextOS for X86 PC systems. If Apple cannot get more marketshare and the Mac series is not profitable, they might just release to the X86 PC systems anyway.
This assumes that their hardware sales aren't profitable. I think that's incorrect. Their hardware sales are quite profitable -- if anything, they've become more of a hardware company lately than they ever used to be.
And we tried the whole clone business, it didn't increase marketshare. All it did was cannibalize existing Mac business by moving Apple buyers over to Power Computing/Daystar/Motorola boxes instead. Maybe if you did it today you'd pull in a few PC users because the hardware would be cheaper than it was during the first clone experiment (since it would be commodity x86 and not CHRP), but really, Apple's own hardware is a good deal price-wise right now.
I don't think that making an off-brand Mac that undercuts Apple's price by $50 is really going to woo that many PC users. There have been lots of analyses that show Apple's hardware to be very competitively priced with big-name PC manufacturers for what you're getting; I don't think price is what's keeping most people from switching, and that's all you'd get out of a cloning agreement.
All cloning would do is take current business -- which is enough to keep Apple in business and give them enough cashflow to innovate -- and spread it among a bunch of companies so thinly that they'd be hard pressed to stay in business. All they'd be able to do is cut prices lower and lower, until they fell behind in terms of innovation and the market abandoned them.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
His misconseptions rely on this single quote from TFA: "Does OS X really offer any applications that would entice me to purchase a new Mac and put up with the tedium of Boot Camp? I doubt it.".
Yeah, and that's the totality of his argument: "I doubt it." He also seems to have the misconception that Macs are more expensive than PCs -- although since he's in Oz, maybe that's the case Down Under. It's not more expensive here on Coruscant.
Meanwhile, what this wedge* is saying "won't" happen has already happened. There's a huge section of users out there -- most of them gamers -- for whom the lack of Windows was the only thing preventing them from buying a Mac. As Tycho Brahe glibly put it, "now there is simply a computing option that runs every major OS."
*the wedge being, of course, the simplest tool known to man
Not only because the guy is a generous philanthropist and no doubt a lot of the perks he has come to benefit, directly or indirectly, the education of future generations but...
The guy invented the personal computer.
Think about that... The personal computer has been regarded in numerous surveys as the single most important invention of the entire 20th century, surpassing even airplanes, artificial hearts, lasers, radiotelescopes, semiconductors, antibiotics, television, radio.
This guy and his work are living history.
So, as far as I'm concerned, he ought to be able to walk into ANY computer store and get free products for life... they all owe him.
Imagine, if you will, Leonardo Da Vinci walking into a Sikorsky dealership, pulling out Codex B and showing the dealer his concept sketch of the helicopter...
From the Boot Camp Requirements:
A bona fide installation disc for Microsoft Windows XP, Service Pack 2, Home or Professional (No multi-disc, upgrade or Media Center versions.)
I run Vista you insensitive clod!!!
Basically the author wants Apple to make MacOSX available to all PC owners. The justification is just covering this point.
I'm a Windows user; I currently have a HP 64-bit Intel workstation with 3GBs of Ram running XP Pro 64. It is always on as it hosts my productivity software and VPN/RDC link to my office where I manage a Windows network. I'm a bit peeved about the lack of 64-bit support from both MS and people like RIM, but overall I'm happy with the machine. What games I play I do on this box mostly various Silent Hills, Postal2 and Alice as I'm sick twist.
I'm a Linux user; I currently have an IBM A60 and a ThinkPad. The A60 runs Red Hat Enterprise and the ThinkPad runs SuSE. I use the A60 more than the G5 but only use the ThinkPad once a year at SANs classes.
Each computer has its quirks, as does each O\S. None are any more secure than I make them.
However, having twice had Apple turns my investment in their hardware into junk as they hopped toward what they claimed to be inferior processors... I will never again by a MAC
"Humans are considered to be primitive, the third smartest species on Earth"
Boot Camp works great except Apple forgot some basic things...
1.) In XP the CTRL-Click function does not work. You have to install a third party util to run at startup that will enable right clicking using ctrl-click.
2.) Del key remapping... everything worked great until I joined my XP install to my company domain. The del key on macs is not the same as PCs. After joining a domain, you get the ctrl-alt-del prompt. This gets you nowhere. You need to use the windows server 2003 resource kit tool "remapkey" to map a real delete to the right apple key. I forgot to do this prior to joining the domain. The work around at that point is to scramble around and find a usb keyboard.
These items in my opinion should have been thought of by Apple as part of the Boot Camp driver install.
OK you've given us the "reality check" I am wondering if you personally think that stealing Windows is a morally correct thing to do?
Also, it has been my experience that people who try and demonstate that "everybody" is doing something usually are part of that "everybody."
If you are going to be playing a game for a few hours, rebooting is not that bad - and booting back into OS X is really, really quick so there's little pain on return.
It's certainly something I'm willing to do to play games. Even if it's a little more painful having it as an option is enough to convince most people to switch. Heck, both Gabe and Tyco are using Macs now... If that's not the canary in the mineshaft I don't know what is.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Sounds more like Windows. http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=164943&c id=13765457
Virtualization, not dual booting, is actually what I'm looking forward to. Games may be all the rage around here, but for use lowly web devs, being able to run: Firefox (OS X, Linux, Windows), Safari, Konqueror, Opera (OS X, Linux, Windows) and IE 6 & 7 (well, whenever it rears its ugly head) on the same machine with no rebooting... that will be excellent. I use my Mac most of the time. (12" PowerBook) However, to take a look at the world in IE 6 I have to go to another machine. By the time the Intel model I want is available, Parrallels should be ready to go and I'll have everything I want right at my finger tips.
Let's hear from someone who knows what he's talking about.
You mean a "unbiased" Apple "enthusiast"?
There are two smart things Apple has done with Boot Camp, which should help Mac OS X in the long run:
A few results of this decision:
As such, I don't see this as being a big problem for the future of Mac OS X -- if anything, Apple has just hooked in more future OS X customers.
Now if they would only extend Boot Camp to work with Linux...
Yaz.
...if they added a second mouse button
"Make it idiot proof, and someone will make a better idiot."
As far as the article goes, I would tend to agree. I think there are going to be those that will buy an Apple so they can dual-boot. I may even do it because it would be very handy for work. However, the average person is not going to want to learn and maintain two separate operating systems (and they're unlikely to buy an Apple just to run Windows..). The average business is not going to do this because it's more expensive both in initial investment and in time booting back and forth between two operating systems.
The article title is kind of misleading. To me, it implies there is something technically wrong with Boot Camp or that it doesn't do what is advertised. I guess the editors believe these sensationalized titles will increase readership.....it worked on me.
"[...] it's going to have to [...] start selling OS X to PC users, rather than restricting it to the Mac. I don't see any valid reason why Apple isn't doing this [...]"
And he's a pundit? I can think of several valid reasons for not doing that: drivers, profitability, brand dilution, piracy, Microsoft's wrath... I'm sure there are more, but that's a pretty good start for a mere thirty seconds of thought.
Apparently he's spent even less time thinking about it than I have. I wonder if he thought more about the rest of the article?
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
Do you have a source for the OS/2 marketshare figures? And are they desktop, or server numbers?
And FWIW, Apple's Mac market share exceeded 10% at its peak, too.
I just bought a Mac book pro yesterday... there was a guy there who built his past 3 computers switching to a mac b/c he just got a bug that by-passed all of his security systems and wiped his system. He was done. I love Macs
Windows XP Home (not OEM or upgrade, if you want to do it legally... retail license) $199
;-)
Why not OEM? You're buying hardware.
You certainly remember Microsoft's policy regarding OEM Windows versions?
It's something along the lines "For this Windows, you will get support solely from the hardware vendor."
In this given case, you would have to turn to whom for Windows support?
This should be a good enough reason for Apple never to bundle any OEM version of Windows with a Mac.
If it were a full retail version of Windows ($199 for XP Home, hehe) that came with the Mac (along with OS X) support obligations for the Windows package would rest with Microsoft, not Apple.
Walter.
I didn't feel like investing the effort to understand the differences.
And that's the topic sentence of this essay. Class dismissed.
watching the amatures make ignorant statements about Apple.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
That's all you have to contribute is some semantic origami? That's it? Give me a freakin' break... This is why blogs and message forums have only the appearance of intellectual discourse and have yet contributed to an overall degeneration of genuinely engaging discussion. Every damned thread turns into a pedestrian pissing contest of one sort or another where pipsqueaks come along attempting to puff themselves up with inane trivia which completely overlook the larger scope of the discussion.
For all intents and purposes, the Altair 8800 was hardly a "personal computer" in any semblance of what we consider that term to mean today. And it would be exaggerating to call the Apple I "commercially successful" in any substantial sense... unless you were under the mistaken impression I was referring to the Apple II.
But, for the record... I predicted that someone would come along and nitpick over semantics, which is why 99 percent of the discussions on Slashdot go around in circles...
Getting in one's two cents by nitpicking or playing semantic volleyball (i.e. "shifting the goalposts") is the unoriginal thinker's way of attempting to scoring points in an otherwise intellectual discussion.
"These items in my opinion should have been thought of by Apple as part of the Boot Camp driver install."
Boot Camp is still in beta testing and a new version of OS X is coming soon.
The pursuit of absolute tolerance leads to the most rigorous and ludicrous intolerance. - REX MURPHY
When I worked at a software house, a while back, it decided to discontinue its Mac line, because 'the Mac is dying'. Projected cost for the Mac port, based on the costs of prior Mac ports: 5% of the dev costs of the Windows product. Projected profit? Around 20% of the profits from the Windows product. Reasons for ditching it? One: corporate infighting (the Windows team was headed by the VP of Dev, the Mac team by a manager under him. The Mac team developed on time and under budget, the Windows team never did. The VP was embarrassed.) Two: new upper management, which had recently taken over the company from the founders, were mostly stereotypical businessmen who thought of the Mac, when they thought of it at all, as something which no serious person would use, something for odd people who weren't their type of people, and consequently weren't anyone they wanted to sell their product to anyway.
I have seen this happen at another company as well, one much larger and better known (*cough*Adobe*cough*), but only vicariously. (The manager I talked to there, while interviewing for a job in 1997 or 1998, said, 'No, we're not hiring any more Mac programmers. I don't think we're going to be starting any new projects for the Mac, and I'm not even sure we'll be releasing any more new versions of Photoshop and so on after the next one. The higher-ups seem to feel that we should hasten Apple's demise as much as we can without actually burning down One Infinite Loop, because it's so much easier to develop for one platform than it is for two.' My favorite quote, though, was from the recruiter I talked to at a job fair, which led to that interview (for a sysadmin position). 'What? Why would we hire any more Mac programmers? Haven't you heard? Adobe now gets half its software sales from Windows versions!' Uh, yeah. And half from Mac. 'Well, we know they'll all just dump their Macs as soon as we stop producing Mac versions, so we don't have to worry about that.')
So no. The developers don't decide whether to make Linux versions based on doing the math. They do it based on personal prejudices, 'common wisdom' (Linux users don't pay for stuff!), and corporate infighting. In fact, I suspect that the companies that even do the math are in the distinct minority.
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
Really? I downloaded OpenRPG onto my Mac and spent about half an hour trying to get it to run before giving it up as a bad job. I mean, that may be cross-platform awfulness, I admit; perhaps it's just as insane to run on Windows as it is on the Mac.
Any installation instruction list that requires me to find the one 17x17 icon gif that is crashing the modified version of python that I was forced to install in step 7 and edit it down to a 16x16 gif in step fourteen is going beyond stupid to 'wow'.
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
I can't decide which one is sadder, a +5 Insightful or all the angry responses.
Jim, you fool, you forgot the tipoff that it was supposed to be funny, without which only 4% of Slashdot recognizes humor. Remember the acceptable signs: a smilie (deprecated), the phrase 'in Soviet Russia' tacked onto the beginning (deprecated), or '6 - PROFIT!' tacked onto the end (deprecated.)
Uh oh. Quick! Someone come up with a new one!
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
People running Windows will probably always constitute a small fraction of Mac users. So to sell well on the Mac, games will need to be programmed for OS X.
But just as today, most games will not be released for OS X. The difference is that it will now be possible to be a games enthusiast and own a Mac. Since most games pretty much take over the computer, it hardly matters what OS they are running under, anyway.
"Camp" is not decent enough a word to be used.
So is the goatse link in your sig there to demonstrate the evils of "camp"?
Blank until
Yes but not every game is the kind you can play for hours.
Yes, that's why I have a console.
The only games I really want a PC for are ones where you settle down for a while, like Half-Life 2 or Farcry.
What games are you thinking of that run only on the PC, are compelling and you'd only play for a half hour (or fifteen minutes?) those games are all on the Mac too so there's no reason to reboot.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Any pundit can expouse on what they think people do or not want, but successful companies don't make decisions that way. Apple created Boot Camp based on market research done on potential switchers.
Given that and the level of enthusiasm it's got from existing Mac users, it's hard to agree with this guy that Boot Camp is a waste of time.
You have it wrong; the x86 platform is exactly the way its users constructed it to be. Of course, you (and most of slashdot) lost that vote.
.001 percentile of high-stress situations), what would you want? Would you want to have to buy a new NIC because MS refuses to support a piece of hardware that works 99.999% of the time, or would you want MS to work with Intel to get that driver to work in as many situations as possible?
Remember, MS cares about what its customers care about. If the customers don't buy it, MS doesn't keep selling it.
Microsoft used to sell Unix and OS/2. MS didn't stop selling them because they were "too stable". They stopped selling them because not enough people bought them. Why didn't people buy them? Presumably because there wasn't enough support for applications and hardware they wanted to use.
I can absolutely guarantee that the only reason Windows XP became universally popular is that it works with 99% of the hardware and software that people want to use. AND IT TOOK 10 YEARS TO GET TO THAT POINT!
Also, I don't think you understand how drivers work. There is nothing that any general purpose OS can do to prevent drivers from bringing down the system. No matter what mode (user/kernel) you run them in, they still have the ability to talk directly to hardware. In fact, there is some hardware that even a good driver can protect you from.
Face it, any device can create an IRQ storm, use DMA to scribble all over memory, or monopolize the bus. Even a USB device (which doesn't have interrupts, DMA, or bus mastering) can hose your machine by drawing too much power and causing voltage drops or overheating. At best a driver can avoid telling the hardware to do that, but some hardware (a certain Intel network chipset, just to name one) is just unavoidably flawed.
If you got one of the millions of motherboards with that bad Intel chipset (that only fails in the
When Microsoft tests a driver, all they can do is test to make sure that it calls the right functions in the kernel interface in the right order, with the right parameters. MS has no way of knowing if the driver is talking to the hardware properly or if the hardware itself isn't buggy. In fact, MS has no way of knowing if the driver isn't detecting the test suite and intentionally deceiving it (this is called the Halting Problem).
Anything that MS could do (like demanding to see the source code) would cause more anti-trust complaints and bitching from slashdotters.
Hardware companies only sell buggy hardware because consumers buy it. There is absolutely no way that this is Microsoft's fault.
dom
Indeed, take your own advice and "smarten up" and learn how to use it. Or of course you could follow the rest of the microsoft sheep -sounds like you should.
By the looks of it, this project "Q" is a (free) virtualization layer for OSX which runs windows or any other OS. Anybody have experience with it?
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
Maybe he means the freedom to plug all sorts of different hardware into the PC, without having Apple somewhere along the line making sure everything is DRM-compliant -- er, I mean, ":-) - riffic"?
As opposed to the freedom to plug all sorts of different hardware into a PC running Windows Vista, without having Microsoft somewhere along the line making sure everything is DRM-compliant -- er, I mean, ":-) - riffic"?
Well, I've seen Parallels beta 2 on a Macintel Mini, and let me tell you, I was impressed. I don't know how they do it, but it puts VMWare to shame... It was 98% full speed, that is the GUI was like WinXP on bare hardware. We played some movie trailers, and smooth as silk. Heck, we played 2 different trailers, one on OSX, the other in IE on the VM, both no stutter.
And all this without the Parallel's tools installed in the VM. Try doing ANYTHING in VMWare w/out the tools installed, and see how laggy just the UI is.
I'm jealous. If parallels was available for the PC, I'd pay the $40 they want for the final. But as I want to run Linux in a VM on XP, Parallels won't help.
Opera, Proxomitron-Grypen,GPG 0x0A1C6EE3
I'll admit that I've never seen World of Warcraft on a mini, but my wife has been playing it on her G4 iBook for over a year and has no complaints. I finally caved in and started playing on my 12" G4 PowerBook a few months ago, and it's both smooth and beautiful, as are UT 2004, TRON 2.0, MAME, and every other game I've played on it.
Sure, I'm not playing cutting edge games, but I am playing the games I like. Also, bear in mind that I'm not running an Intel Mac- I'm not even running a G5. Just a "lowly" G4 with 64 MB of VRAM, and yet my only complaint is the lack of available games- not their performance. Even that seems to be gradually becoming less of an issue.
Boundless Expansion, Self-Transformation, Dynamic Optimism, Intelligent Technology, Spontaneous Order- BEST DO IT SO!
One more time. Repeat after me...
Apple is a hardware company.
Apple is a hardware company.
Apple is a hardware company.
Besides, OSX could never continue to be as stable and useful as it is if it had to run on hardware made by every fly-by-night PC maker that happens to pop up. The Apple business model is a sound one. If you want a cheap computer, then buy a cheap computer. As with all else, you'll get what you pay for.
I still run Win98 on my Sony laptop. There are a lot of reasons:
(1) I'm still convinced that the last "update" was intended to make machines suck for the people who didn't want to pay for XP... "Here, free update! Now pay for XP, dammit, or your machine stays unusable".
(2) Under 98, Sony has recovery disks that are truly excellent; with Windows XP, "recovery" means repartitioning the machine and losing my other partitions, because the recovery disks are incapable of directly writing to an NTFS partition. This has been the same for every XP distribution I've ever gotten my hands on. This is damn unfriendly for third party OS's (which I guess is the point), but it's also damn unfriendly for a backup/data partition so that if your machine gets p0wned, you can recover and be running again in under 5 minutes.
(3) Third party Sony software doesn't meet "upgrade/install" requirements. Microsoft Software is the worst: it won't let you install the OEM software, including Word, onto the machine, and it won't recognize the CDROM with Word on it as a valid installation of Word, if you want to get off with the "cheap" version of "Office" instead of the "bend over" version of office (the upgrade recognizes an installed "Word" as a qualifying product).
(4) My third party *firewall* software runs without intereference from Microsoft's "firewall" software
(5) My software still runs, without me having to "upgrade" everything because of ABI differences in XP
(6) No yearly MS tax on my machine for an "ongoing customer relationship" that I'd rather not relate to
(7) No automatic updates behind my back
(8) No Windows Media deinstalling/breaking other software because they're allowed to by the new EULA
(9) No "you must connect to the Internet so I can tell Microsoft about your machine, or it's going to quit working in 30 days", unlike XP
(10) Works with standard boot managers, like "BootMagic" or anything else you'd care to install
Frankly, I can't think of *one* reason to put XP on a machine that has 98 on it already; no matter how you look at it, XP is a *downgrade*.
-- Terry
They've further stated that software will be included in the next version of their OS, due to be released in July.
Which July? =)
Actually, Apple will most likely release a preview or non-public beta to developers at the WWDC this summer, and will probably release the finished OS in January at MWSF.
Apple has hosed developers unexpectedly, from time to time. In the move from OS 9 to OS X, Apple completely dropped RAVE support without warning, which majorly screwed some Mac game developers. There are a couple of games (such as the Combat Mission series) that won't play in Classic. I have to reboot into OS 9. Apple is no longer selling computers that can boot into OS 9. I'm just saying that it happens.
It's not a huge complaint of mine. I'd rather that Apple move forward instead of getting caught in the legacy quagmire, like MS has. And, yes, I do keep some old macs around to run legacy software, but it's getting to be a pain.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.