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Apple Announced 17" MacBook Pro
artlu writes "According to Reuters news, Apple has announced the launch of the 17" MacBook Pro. The new MacBook will retail for $2,799, come with iLife '06, and begins shipping next week. Details are not yet on Apple's website, but hopefully these notebooks will be triple booting as well!"
I wish the 12" MacBook would get here. I am in the market right now for an ultraportable for my wife, and would probably get an Apple if they offered it.
The world moves for love. It kneels before it in awe.
Since my own blurb for this was rejected (no blame on the editors, they were probably flooded with stories on this), I'll state an observation here: The 17" PowerBook G4 is now gone, but the 12" model stll hasn't been updated yet. Is that an indication that the rumors about a 13.3" MacBook to replace the 12" PowerBook and the 14" iBook are true?
I don't know the ins and outs of virtualization, but it seems to me that if I'm running Windows apps side-by-side with native Mac apps, I expose myself to the same spyware, viruses, and other annoyances inherent to Windows. I'd MUCH rather have Windows restricted to its own little disk partition, which I could nuke any time I need to. And since (1) the only Windows apps I'd want to run are games, and (2) it supposedly takes only about 15 seconds to boot these things, I'd just as soon boot into Windows when I absolutely need to and keep my MacOS main partition "pristine."
Well, yes, if all you're using is games, you'd need to dual boot anyway, since you'd need native 3D graphics support. But ignoring that for a second:
There is nothing about virtualization that would make the Mac environment any more susceptible to anything in the Windows environment: the Windows environment is still completely sandboxed, and doesn't have ANY access to the Mac partition(s) unless you were to explicitly grant it. Theoretically, in order to even touch anything in the Mac environment, a piece of Windows malware would have to exploit a vulnerability in the virtualization software itself, that could be exploited via Windows, AND could also be used to affect the host's filesystem. Ironically, it would actually be EASIER in a dual-boot configuration: a hypothetical piece of Windows malware could include a rudimentary driver to recognize HFS+ volumes, at which point it could then install whatever it wished in the Mac environment, or otherwise alter the contents of the Mac OS X partition.
Of course, the likelihood of either of those things happening is extremely remote.
The funny thing is, that the "nuke any time I need to" is actually much, much, much easier in virtualization than anything else: the entire Windows "volume" resides in a file on the Mac OS X disk. You can keep a backup of it, and if anything were to ever happen, you could simply delete it, and duplicate your backup pristine Windows "volume" - since it's just a file - in seconds.
But that also ignores that, while Windows (or another x86-based OS) run on an Intel-based Mac could be subject to the vulnerabilities of that operating system, it is still typically:
- completely isolated from the network, operating "behind" the host operating system
- not used for traditional tasks typically used as attack vectors, like email, web browsing, and downloading files
- usually not used as the primary operating system
- able to be completely restored relatively easily and quickly from a default image, if compromised
this is nice, but who would have thought the next Power...MacBook Pro would come out, instead of a 'consumer line' (read, NOT a ~2800$ laptop) MacBook to really get ppl switching.
For me I'm really starting to fall for (or lean hard towards) a Mac Mini Duo -- not only can you triple boot on it, there's now video of it doing 'fast OS switching', much as it does its 'fast user switching'.
Damn, this is getting fun.
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