- FireWire 800 (9-pin) is included, in addition to FireWire 400 (6-pin) (so no, FireWire, and particularly FireWire 800, is not dead, as some like to continually predict)
- 3 USB 2.0 ports are included; 2 on the left, 1 on the right
- The left side ports are: power, 2 USB 2.0, analog and digital optical audio in and out, ExpressCard/34; the right side ports are: DVI (supports VGA, S-Video, composite), 10/100/1000 ethernet, FireWire 800, FireWire 400, 1 USB 2.0, security port
- An 8x dual layer SuperDrive is included (unlike the 15" MacBook Pro)[1]
- While this is known by many, it bears repeating that the wireless chipset in all Intel-based Macs supports 802.11a/b/g, though Apple doesn't advertise 'a'
- The 1680 x 1050 resolution of the 17" display is the same as many desktop 20" widescreen LCDs such as the Apple 20" Cinema Display and the 20" Dell 2007WFP
- Retail $2799, Education/government $2599 with 2.16 GHz Core Duo, 1 GB RAM, 120 GB 5400RPM Serial ATA drive, 256MB ATI Radeon x1600, and 8x dual layer SuperDrive
I'd also note that for some people who might think that the 15" MacBook Pro looks like a bad deal next to this, the 17" is simply too large for many people, and many of those same people have no need for the faster dual layer SuperDrive, nor for FireWire 800.
And the Apple we site does not have to explicitly say it for us to know that, yes, of course the 17" MacBook Pro will support "Boot Camp" (and triple booting[2]), which is simply an umbrella marketing name for a collection of technologies that support booting Windows on Intel-based Macs:
- A Compatibility Support Module (CSM, BIOS compatibility layer) for EFI: this is already a non-beta, supported component of the recent rounds of firmware updates for Intel-based Macs, which the 17" MacBook Pro will ship with
- The ability to live-resize partitions on a GPT formatted volumes: this is already a non-beta, supported component of "diskutil" as of 10.4.6
- A collection of Windows drivers for the hardware in Intel-based Macs: almost all of these are non-beta, preexisting third party drivers
- A setup assistant that brings everything together: this is the only part of the solution, from a technical standpoint, that is "beta"
[1] Some may note that the new 17" MacBook Pro, at the same thickness of the 15" MacBook Pro (1.0"), includes an 8x dual layer SuperDrive versus the 4x single layer drive in the 15" model. It might be recalled that the reasoning for not including a faster, dual layer SuperDrive in the 15" MacBook Pro was because of the necessary space not being available inside the case; the 15" MacBook Pro could only use a 9mm tall mechanism as opposed to the 12mm mechanism currently required for dual layer capability and the greater speed. How, then, can the 17" MacBook Pro (or even the previous 17" PowerBook), at the exact same thickness, include this drive? Does this mean Apple was holding back? Is the 8x DL drive due in a 15" MacBook Pro imminently? The answer is no: the reason why the drive didn't (and still doesn't) fit in the 15" MacBook Pro is because the wider trackpad mechanism Apple chose to use encroaches internally on the space needed for a 12mm drive by about 1/8" laterally. However, this is not the case on the 17" MacBook Pro.
[2] Who wants to dual boot, much less triple boot? I'd rather have all of my environments running side by side in virtualization. And yes, I know there are some specific reasons people may want to dual boot (such as games for native 3D graphics support), and that's fine...but other than for those specific tasks, who would really prefer dual/triple booting over virtualization, especially given the excellent benefits Intel VT now offers for virtual machines?
Re:WILL SOMEBODY MOD THAT COCKSUCKER DOWN?!
on
Going To Boot Camp
·
· Score: 1
*Sigh*.
I'm at one of the largest Mac sites outside of Apple (>15000 institutionally owned Macs). The people here who are clamoring to run Windows here, and at other institutions, aren't doing it to play games. They're doing it because they have to run administrative and/or speciality applications that are Windows-only. And until now they either muddled along with an emulator, or simply didn't get a Mac. Now those very people, just in the last couple of days between Boot Camp and Parallels, are putting in orders. Big orders. (Many had seen the writing on the wall, but were just waiting for a product to materialize.) Why do you think AAPL is up $10 in the last two days?
Sure, there's a good chunk of people who care about games, and that's the only reason they want to run Windows on their Mac. And there's quite a big group of enterprise, institutional, scientific, and research users who couldn't possibly care less about games, and don't want to dual boot. That's why a virtualization solution is so attractive.
(Also, no, pretty much everything you listed at the end of your post is NOT what people want to run under Windows. They want to run Access. Or Visio. Or some crazy Windows-only scientific app. Or a stats package. Or some university/business administrative application. Or Grants.gov. Believe it or not, there's a lot more to computing than office productivity, web, email, and games. You don't have to believe me, but the non-game market for Windows virtualization on Mac OS X is *huge*, and the inroads Apple will make into markets with commercial virtualization will be even greater than the ones they make with Boot Camp, but Boot Camp will help, because it shows Apple doesn't have its head in the sand with respect to the desire of some of its customers to run Windows, for whatever reason, on their Intel-based Macs.)
Re:WILL SOMEBODY MOD THAT COCKSUCKER DOWN?!
on
Going To Boot Camp
·
· Score: 1
Whenever an article comes up relating running Windows on a Mac, which is something many people want to do, and the first virtualization product ever for the Mac platform is released THAT VERY DAY that can do just that WITHOUT the annoyance of rebooting (which is preferable for the majority of people interested in running Windows, since many aren't interested in gaming), yes, I will post that kind of "useless crap", thanks.
Also, it's in violation of the Mac OS X license agreement to use it on anything but Apple-labeled hardware. Whether or not you "agree" with that, it still ends up meaning that no commercial company is going to make something that lets people run Mac OS X on other platforms or in virtualization (on anything but Apple hardware).
Re:How about Classic Mac virtualization
on
Going To Boot Camp
·
· Score: 1
No, Apple will not bring Classic to the Intel Macs. Classic is dead. But there is a solution:
It needs a Mac ROM (which can be gotten from an iMac firmware update that can be downloaded from Apple), and a Mac OS 9.1 image. It's a little tedious to set up the first time, but once done, it's very portable and can be used on any Intel-based Mac.
Re:WILL SOMEBODY MOD THAT COCKSUCKER DOWN?!
on
Going To Boot Camp
·
· Score: 1, Informative
Yes, I recycled that paragraph from one of my previous posts. So? It's my own text. Am I not allowed to post it twice when it's speaking to EXACTLY the same issue? Additionally, the entire rest of the message is different, and both of the complete posts were on different topics. I don't care if it "smells like marketing". It was designed to be informative, and it is.
As I said, I have nothing to do with Parallels, the product or the company (other than using it).
Re:Dual boot? How about virtualization, too!
on
Going To Boot Camp
·
· Score: 1
Oh yeah, I definitely acknowledge that it's possible.
And any vulnerabilities that are uncovered should absolutely be addressed. As you say, as the product becomes more popular, it will become more of a target.
I guess what I am asking is this:
Even given all that, what is the likelihood of someone using, say, Windows under Parallels on Mac OS X, actually somehow getting specific malware that targets Parallels, AND would have the ability to deliver a payload into, specifically, the Mac OS X environment?
I hope we can both agree that while it's not nonexistent, it's quite low, and would require specific user interaction; i.e., it's not something that, even if it did happen, would happen spontaneously. The confluence of circumstances to bring together a successful attack of that type, to me, is quite rare.
Re:WILL SOMEBODY MOD THAT COCKSUCKER DOWN?!
on
Going To Boot Camp
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I have nothing whatsoever to do with Parallels in any way, shape, or form.
What, I talk up a product that I (and many, many others) have been waiting for for YEARS, and now all of a sudden it's marketing?
Re:Dual boot? How about virtualization, too!
on
Going To Boot Camp
·
· Score: 1
Yes, I have used Virtual PC under Windows (and Mac), VMware Workstaion on Windows and Linux.
Indeed, I even said this won't be novel or interesting to people who have used VMware before.
But yes, the keys are that it's available on Mac - which is huge - cheap, and is the first desktop virtualization solution to support Intel VT. In general, it's comparable with things like VMware and VPC (Win), albeit in beta and, as such, less polished.
But that something like this is finally available for Mac OS X on an Apple platform, well, I guess I just see it as a really big deal.
Re:Dual boot? How about virtualization, too!
on
Going To Boot Camp
·
· Score: 1
Are you actually suggesting that this is even REMOTELY probable?
That someone will write *Windows malware* that specifically targets a vulnerability that itself would have to be discovered, AND be attackable from within the virtual environment?
I mean, you actually consider this a security risk that actually has merit? I only even mentioned it because someone else would bring up something ridiculous like that.
Re:Dual boot? How about virtualization, too!
on
Going To Boot Camp
·
· Score: 1
I don't work for, or have anything do do with, Parallels.
It's really just quite good.
Dual boot? How about virtualization, too!
on
Going To Boot Camp
·
· Score: 5, Informative
This is truly a week of firsts.
Virtualization company Parallels announced a public beta of its Parallels Workstation virtualization product to Intel-based Macs (direct download. Parallels is a quasi-hypervisor-based (with a kernel module) virtual machine solution already shipping for Windows and Linux, and is the first desktop virtualization product to support Intel VT/Vanderpool CPU "partitioning". Once out of beta, It will also be only $50. Parallels also has a long list of officially supported guest OSes, and that's just the ones that are *officially* supported. It will likely run any x86-based OS you throw at it.
It's *very* fast, and has full support for Intel VT. Using Windows (or any other OS) inside of the environment is almost like using it natively on the hardware. Literally. It is quite amazing. (Here's a video someone made of it with SnapzPro - that is not my site. )This is the solution many people are waiting for; not dual booting - with the exception of things that need native 3D graphics support, of course...but otherwise, Parallels absolutely screams. This won't be novel to people who have already used things like VMware Workstation on other platforms. But to someone like myself, who has been hoping for a virtualization solution since the very second Steve Jobs uttered that Apple was switching to Intel, this, when polished and in its final form, will be something of a holy grail.
Virtualization will still be a HUGE benefit to people versus the annoyance of dual-booting. There's some overlap, but both technologies have their places.
Also, for those concerned about running a Windows environment alongside Mac OS X, this is just like the old Virtual PC model (except not horribly slow;-). It's much less likely to be problematic for the following reasons:
- The entire environment is "sandboxed", network-wise, within the host OS's networking. Most Windows XP installations will now be behind the integrated software firewall anyway, but this is just another layer of protection: it's essentially like being behind a NAT router.
- A virtual machine environment, being secondary to the primary environment, is typically only used for targeted tasks, not routinely used for things like web browsing, email, and downloading - the major vectors of infection for much spyware/malware
- Since the virtual machine's disk is just a file on the host OS's drive, it can be immediately trashed and restored from a known-good pristine backup in seconds
- If no filesystem sharing is done via the VM between the Windows environment and the host (Mac OS X) environment, there is no[1] way that even severe malware within the Windows environment can cause any damage to the Mac OS X environment
- If filesystems are shared, e.g., a folder on the Mac side is shared as a drive letter on the Windows side, any malware that alters filesystems could theoretically alter the shared filesystem. If a virus, for example, attempted to delete all files on drives other than C:, that would be affected. But, 1.) Most malware doesn't just arbitrarily delete files, because its goal is to spread itself, and 2.) ONLY files that are shared could even theoretically be affected. Also, Windows malware will typically target Windows OS features and filesystem elements. But if you really are paranoid and want to be safe, you probably wouldn't want to, say, share your entire Mac OS X volume as a drive letter into the PC environment.
The bottom line is that from a technical and practical usage standpoint, running Windows in a VM is probably the safest possible way to run Windows, and there aren't really any ways, except for very specific ways via the explicit filesystem sharing, that anything that happens in t
No, actually it won't be going bye-bye. Mac OS X is central to many of Apple's markets, and those markets have no interest in Windows. And I'm not talking about "graphics" markets. I'm talking about academia (not "K-12"), research, scientific areas (particularly life and biosciences), and so on. Also, the Linux market isn't getting smaller, it's getting bigger. As is the market for a commercial UNIX.
Will OS X go away someday? Yep. As will Windows. But it won't be in 18-20 months, or even 5 years. Apple has a lot invested in Mac OS X/Mac OS X Server, and it will be around for a long, long, time. Apple's consumer media offerings are utterly separate from the OS realm, but Apple is looking to EXPAND Mac OS X adoption, not curtail it or eliminate it.
Nice troll, though...the whole "watch at the slowdown in the coming months" thing. There won't be any slowdown. Mac OS X marketshare will GROW in the coming months, as it has in the previous months and years to now. I love that people are still using a variant of the "Macs have no software" market over 22 years later.
Desktop virtualization solutions have the ability to use a file on the host as the virtual disk; I see no reason why any possible virtualization solution from Apple would be any different.
No, OS X is not going "bye bye". (And no, Dvorak wasn't "right".)
This is a move specifically calculated to appeal to Windows users, and to increase Mac OS X marketshare and usage (and thus Mac OS X software development), period.
This isn't about Apple "switching to Windows" or becoming yet another Windows PC manufacturer. In fact, it's the furthest thing from it.
Ah, right you are. As I skimmed it, I misunderstood it to say that it was burning a custom Windows disc with those drivers already in place, but it is indeed using an unmodified installation disc.
- Even the existing http://onmac.net/ solution wasn't "illegal" or against any Apple or Microsoft license agreement - not saying the summary said that, but it kind of implied it might be
- The HUGE difference with Boot Camp is that it includes Windows XP driver profiles for Apple-specific hardware - including video drivers! Hello games and video intensive Windows software!
- Another big difference is that it includes a live repartitioning tool so the drive doesn't have to be reformatted to install Windows as the current solution requires
- And, it wraps everything up in a nice "setup assistant"-like interface
- It does burn a custom Windows XP installation disc (no, this does not violate any Microsoft or Windows license agreement, as making custom Windows installation discs has been routine in IT shops for years)
- Currently, it looks like it supports only Windows XP SP2, not any multi-disc XP-based installations (or other non-Windows OSes), but since Media Center is already working with the other solution by making a custom installation disc, I have no doubts that it could work with this as well
It's pretty incredible that Apple has decided to do this, to say the least.
However, the true benefit for many people won't come from dual-booting, but from running Windows (or any other x86 OS) in a virtualization environment alongside OS X with no dual booting or rebooting needed.
Virtualization company Parallels announced that it will be bringing its Parallels Workstation virtualization product to Intel-based Macs. Parallels is a hypervisor-based (with a kernel module) virtual machine solution already shipping for Windows and Linux, and is the first desktop virtualization product to support Intel VT/Vanderpool CPU "partitioning". It's also only $50. Parallels also has a long list of officially supported guest OSes, and that's just the ones that are *officially* supported. So either way, we'll have a nice dual boot solution AND a nice virtualization solution!
So Boot Camp will be standard with Leopard...great. What about the thing that a lot of us actually want, virtualization from Apple, rumored to be in Leopard? And not just virtualization to run x86 OSes, but to also run multiple instances of Intel-variants of Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server (*as well* as any other x86 OS)? Now THAT would be the holy grail. Desktop virtualization for things like Windows and Linux/BSD environments, and server virtualization for multiple Mac OS X/Mac OS X Server instances on a single box.
Since Apple has shown it's been officially willing to acknowledge the alternate OS/Windows universe on Intel-based Macs, I actually have a lot more hope for native, integrated virtualization in Leopard as well!
No. It was a myth because no 5300 in consumer hands was ever known to have exhibited any fire problems. It was an occurrence in a laboratory setting with a Sony Lithium Ion battery. And I'm dismissing it as a myth because it was. People talked about the 5300 like it was the PowerBook that routinely caught on fire. Except that it was a problem with only Lithium Ion batteries, and only 100 units actually got into end-user hands, none of which were known to have exhibited the issue (no, really - no one has EVER recorded any fire issue in consumer hands with the 5300 (except one person here, today, coincidentally, claiming that he had one that caught on fire)).
And I do know that because my job for the past 11 years has been to be intimately familiar with all Apple products, problems, business issues, etc., from all perspectives, supporting one of the top three largest institutional Apple sites in the world. The 5300 issue was a myth, period. It was the thing everyone asked about when they were thinking of buying an Apple laptop. "Oh, is this the one that catches on fire?" And the store staff would explain to them, no, there was an overheating/fire incident with a Sony LiIon battery in a 5300 in Apple's testing lab, and all LiIon 5300's were recalled. Every battery after that was NiMH. So, yeah, it was true that a 5300 "caught on fire". A prototype, in a lab. Tens of thousands were shipped, all but 100 without LiIon batteries, and even those LiIon units were all recalled, with no issues reported to regulators (except for the one person here claiming that it happened to him and that he "never reported it").
So, that's why it's a "myth". Because it is. Someone else summed it up nicely here.
Also, I did ask him for proof, which he sidestepped by calling me a "stupid goon". I predict no such "proof" is forthcoming, but if it indeed exists, I told him I'd be more than interested in seeing it since it would be the first known actual 5300 fire incident in consumer hands, that conveniently was never reported to Apple or any regulatory or consumer agency, unearthed about a decade later.
Obviously you didn't get a degree in economics. Just because something maintains its exact same usefulness doesn't mean that its value doesn't decline. Try telling the guy with the horse-and-buggy in 1910 how he's gonna get another 20 years out of that investment. Or my friend who was conned into buying 3 brand new Apple III computers by a salesman just before the Mac came out. Value is understood in relation to the marketplace, not the "usefulness" of the product.
So all you care about is the value of the product in the marketplace, not its usefulness to you, including its relative usefulness to newer products?
I love how you turn around and talk about how if Apple preannounced the changeover it would hurt the company. Well, so what? So, they chose to hurt their customers instead. Good work. You sound just like Gil Amelio when I heard him talk at the Apple annual meeting around 1996. I mean, you literally have him almost word-for-word here. That was exactly his reasoning on several decisions that crushed the company. "What matters is keeping customers in the dark long enough for us to ship the product." That really worked out well.
Except that is PRECISELY what Apple has been doing since Jobs returned in 1997. In Amelio's days, we'd get briefed on products for months before their introductions. We actually got roadmaps we could plan with. When Jobs came back, all that stopped. That's bad from our perspective, because if Apple wants to play in the enterprise space like it's been claiming it wants to, it needs to balance its need for product secrecy in the consumer sector with enterprise IT's need for roadmap and planning information.
But its product secrecy has made it *wildly successful* as a consumer company. It keeps competitors in the dark, business intelligence to a minimum, and yields millions of dollars in free advertising and magazine covers at every product introduction that it wouldn't otherwise get. It's been so incredibly and ridiculously successful with this secrecy strategy that it refuses to change even as its institutional customers press it to release routine planning information.
Would we liked to have heard about the Intel transition before it happened? Sure. But as a planner, I can't think of one actual strategic decision that would have changed for us. At all.
These are all reasons I think Apple will wilt again over the next 3-5 years. Time will tell.
Except for the fact that the reasons you gave are actually widely recognized to be some of the central reasons for its continued business success.
And, you are a fanboy. No question about it.
You are a troll. No question about it.
And I keep feeding you by continually responding. Congratulations. You win.
Tell that to the folks who, if they turned around 5 days after the intel announcement, tried to resell their brand new PPC macs on ebay, would have lost over 50% of their money.
So their machines suddenly became useless? Ingenious!
You Mac fiends are such stupid goons. Your justifications are wonderful but just don't hold water.
Except that they do. I just explained to you specifically why PowerPC Macs will still be fine in an enterprise/institutional/professional environment, exactly as they were before the Intel transition, for years to come.
Your response? "Stupid goons."
Please explain how a PowerPC-based Mac is any less useful, or how it will be less useful for a traditional 3-4 year replacement lifecycle because of the Intel transition.
How should they have done it? Announced it a long period in advance to allow people to make buy decisions with complete information. Don't just sideswipe people. That's exactly what they did with the 680x0->PPC switch. They did the same thing with the iPod Mini->iPod Nano changeover too. A lot of pissed off customers there.
LOL! Yeah, that would just help sales famously (especially among emotional, irrational types who think that ebay is the measure of the usefulness of a product they just bought)! Remind yourself to never run a business.
And before you go on some tangent about how "the products still work and they support them," a product is worth exactly as much as people will pay for it on a widely distributed site like ebay.
Um, wha?
The product is worth how much use you get out of it, not how much someone will pay for it on *ebay*. Jesus, please tell me you're not serious. Ebay is the LAST test of the usefulness of a product you just purchased.
When my product loses 50% of its value when it should have only lost 20%, that pisses me off, and I think they should pay me for the loss of value.
Well, first, it didn't "lose 50%", especially considering people were still buying, e.g., PowerBook G4s as long as they were available, and are still buying Power Mac G5s and Xserve G5s in the pipeline right now.
Second, why does a person have to sell it right away (other than the fact that they might be a moron)? Now I know your first post was a troll, because you're doing it again. Nothing dropped "50%" when it was only "20%" days prior. And it will still have the EXACT SAME USEFULNESS for its lifetime. Might it be worth slightly less at the END of its usage lifetime? Sure. But not considerably. A 4 year old laptop or desktop is worth a lot less than 50% of its original value, so your numbers are suspect to begin with.
So you're saying it's impossible I was one of those 100? I actually just checked it and found that the battery is clearly marked as a "Lithium Ion". So obviously mine didn't get recalled.
No. All of them got recalled. But whoever you bought it from obviously didn't return it.
I'm going to post pix of it online to prove it to you. Course, you'll then just say that I lit it on fire with a lighter just now. So really I can't win. Tell me if you want the pix and I'll post them.
No, if you have a LiIon 5300 that really caught on fire, you'd be the first truth in a decade-old myth, where no known adverse events involving battery fire were known to have ever happened in consumer hands, as you can see from the links I posted. I and many others would no doubt be interested in seeing them.
How about some real criticisms, like abandoning a whole set of customers who bought PPC-based machines right before the changeover. Jerks.
How would you have suggested the transition be made?
PowerPC Macs aren't any more obsolete than any other Mac is or ever has been. Support is eventually dropped for all older hardware in the current OS (for example, for PowerPC G3-based systems). Apple usually supports older hardware for an average of 6.5 years in the current OS, and there is no reason to believe that level of support will change, regardless of the processor contained in the hardware that supplants it.
Further, Mac OS X currently has an approximately two year lifecycle. Apple has announced that Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard" will ship at the end of 2006 or early 2007 (thus, Macworld Expo San Francisco 2007 in January seems a likely target). Apple has also specifically stated that Leopard will support PowerPC. Therefore, just from the official information we know today, it can be inferred that Apple will support PowerPC hardware with the current OS until at least 2009. Also, Apple has provided security updates for the version of Mac OS X immediately previous to the current release since Mac OS X 10.0. Therefore, we can further infer that security updates will be available for Mac OS X running on PowerPC until at least 2011. However, it is likely that PowerPC support will continue beyond this, given Apple's history of legacy hardware support in its operating systems. The official statement from Apple is that PowerPC support will continue for "a long time".
Other vendors, such as Microsoft, will continue producing software natively for both platforms as well. For example, on January 10, 2006, Microsoft formally committed to continuting to produce Microsoft Office for Mac OS X on Intel and PowerPC platforms for a minimum of five years.
Your fanboyness is seriously clouding your judgement.
Huh? Where's the "fanboyness"?
Do some research and you will find that they have problems with almost every product they produce. This isn't unique to them. It's common.
Actually, I don't disagree with this at all. Considering I've been working with Apple products in varying capacities for over 22 years, I've seen *plenty* of problems, and publicly take Apple to task for various issues (e.g. 1, 2, 3, etc...and that's just from the last couple days.)
Apple products have problems, defects, and failures, like any other product.
The point I'm making is that they are no more perfect than anyone else so get over it. Overall they make good quality stuff but so do many other companies.
No, no one's "perfect". But Apple actually is better, statistically. By the measure of various consumer reporting organizations like Consumer reports, they are consistently (valid from a statistical standpoint) better than all other computer manufacturers in the categories of support, repairs, and quality in a quantifiable way. Someone's got to be the statistical best in these categories, and Apple is consistently it. Sorry to disappoint.
What of it? Is this guy not alowed to have a problem with his iBook without some fanboy flaming him?
Um, "a problem"? Catching on fire is "a problem"? No, it was a myth of epic proportions that never affected any shipped consumer units for which Apple suffered on its portable line for years afterward. See this post for numerous examples of proof of this.
Slashdot Mirror
- FireWire 800 (9-pin) is included, in addition to FireWire 400 (6-pin) (so no, FireWire, and particularly FireWire 800, is not dead, as some like to continually predict)
- 3 USB 2.0 ports are included; 2 on the left, 1 on the right
- The left side ports are: power, 2 USB 2.0, analog and digital optical audio in and out, ExpressCard/34; the right side ports are: DVI (supports VGA, S-Video, composite), 10/100/1000 ethernet, FireWire 800, FireWire 400, 1 USB 2.0, security port
- An 8x dual layer SuperDrive is included (unlike the 15" MacBook Pro)[1]
- While this is known by many, it bears repeating that the wireless chipset in all Intel-based Macs supports 802.11a/b/g, though Apple doesn't advertise 'a'
- The 1680 x 1050 resolution of the 17" display is the same as many desktop 20" widescreen LCDs such as the Apple 20" Cinema Display and the 20" Dell 2007WFP
- Retail $2799, Education/government $2599 with 2.16 GHz Core Duo, 1 GB RAM, 120 GB 5400RPM Serial ATA drive, 256MB ATI Radeon x1600, and 8x dual layer SuperDrive
- For detailed specs, see here
I'd also note that for some people who might think that the 15" MacBook Pro looks like a bad deal next to this, the 17" is simply too large for many people, and many of those same people have no need for the faster dual layer SuperDrive, nor for FireWire 800.
And the Apple we site does not have to explicitly say it for us to know that, yes, of course the 17" MacBook Pro will support "Boot Camp" (and triple booting[2]), which is simply an umbrella marketing name for a collection of technologies that support booting Windows on Intel-based Macs:
- A Compatibility Support Module (CSM, BIOS compatibility layer) for EFI: this is already a non-beta, supported component of the recent rounds of firmware updates for Intel-based Macs, which the 17" MacBook Pro will ship with
- The ability to live-resize partitions on a GPT formatted volumes: this is already a non-beta, supported component of "diskutil" as of 10.4.6
- A collection of Windows drivers for the hardware in Intel-based Macs: almost all of these are non-beta, preexisting third party drivers
- A setup assistant that brings everything together: this is the only part of the solution, from a technical standpoint, that is "beta"
[1] Some may note that the new 17" MacBook Pro, at the same thickness of the 15" MacBook Pro (1.0"), includes an 8x dual layer SuperDrive versus the 4x single layer drive in the 15" model. It might be recalled that the reasoning for not including a faster, dual layer SuperDrive in the 15" MacBook Pro was because of the necessary space not being available inside the case; the 15" MacBook Pro could only use a 9mm tall mechanism as opposed to the 12mm mechanism currently required for dual layer capability and the greater speed. How, then, can the 17" MacBook Pro (or even the previous 17" PowerBook), at the exact same thickness, include this drive? Does this mean Apple was holding back? Is the 8x DL drive due in a 15" MacBook Pro imminently? The answer is no: the reason why the drive didn't (and still doesn't) fit in the 15" MacBook Pro is because the wider trackpad mechanism Apple chose to use encroaches internally on the space needed for a 12mm drive by about 1/8" laterally. However, this is not the case on the 17" MacBook Pro.
[2] Who wants to dual boot, much less triple boot? I'd rather have all of my environments running side by side in virtualization. And yes, I know there are some specific reasons people may want to dual boot (such as games for native 3D graphics support), and that's fine...but other than for those specific tasks, who would really prefer dual/triple booting over virtualization, especially given the excellent benefits Intel VT now offers for virtual machines?
*Sigh*.
I'm at one of the largest Mac sites outside of Apple (>15000 institutionally owned Macs). The people here who are clamoring to run Windows here, and at other institutions, aren't doing it to play games. They're doing it because they have to run administrative and/or speciality applications that are Windows-only. And until now they either muddled along with an emulator, or simply didn't get a Mac. Now those very people, just in the last couple of days between Boot Camp and Parallels, are putting in orders. Big orders. (Many had seen the writing on the wall, but were just waiting for a product to materialize.) Why do you think AAPL is up $10 in the last two days?
Sure, there's a good chunk of people who care about games, and that's the only reason they want to run Windows on their Mac. And there's quite a big group of enterprise, institutional, scientific, and research users who couldn't possibly care less about games, and don't want to dual boot. That's why a virtualization solution is so attractive.
(Also, no, pretty much everything you listed at the end of your post is NOT what people want to run under Windows. They want to run Access. Or Visio. Or some crazy Windows-only scientific app. Or a stats package. Or some university/business administrative application. Or Grants.gov. Believe it or not, there's a lot more to computing than office productivity, web, email, and games. You don't have to believe me, but the non-game market for Windows virtualization on Mac OS X is *huge*, and the inroads Apple will make into markets with commercial virtualization will be even greater than the ones they make with Boot Camp, but Boot Camp will help, because it shows Apple doesn't have its head in the sand with respect to the desire of some of its customers to run Windows, for whatever reason, on their Intel-based Macs.)
Whenever an article comes up relating running Windows on a Mac, which is something many people want to do, and the first virtualization product ever for the Mac platform is released THAT VERY DAY that can do just that WITHOUT the annoyance of rebooting (which is preferable for the majority of people interested in running Windows, since many aren't interested in gaming), yes, I will post that kind of "useless crap", thanks.
No, and it won't.
Also, it's in violation of the Mac OS X license agreement to use it on anything but Apple-labeled hardware. Whether or not you "agree" with that, it still ends up meaning that no commercial company is going to make something that lets people run Mac OS X on other platforms or in virtualization (on anything but Apple hardware).
No, Apple will not bring Classic to the Intel Macs. Classic is dead. But there is a solution:
a ver
SheepShaver is a classic Mac emulator:
http://www.gibix.net/dokuwiki/en:projects:sheepsh
It needs a Mac ROM (which can be gotten from an iMac firmware update that can be downloaded from Apple), and a Mac OS 9.1 image. It's a little tedious to set up the first time, but once done, it's very portable and can be used on any Intel-based Mac.
Yes, I recycled that paragraph from one of my previous posts. So? It's my own text. Am I not allowed to post it twice when it's speaking to EXACTLY the same issue? Additionally, the entire rest of the message is different, and both of the complete posts were on different topics. I don't care if it "smells like marketing". It was designed to be informative, and it is.
As I said, I have nothing to do with Parallels, the product or the company (other than using it).
Oh yeah, I definitely acknowledge that it's possible.
And any vulnerabilities that are uncovered should absolutely be addressed. As you say, as the product becomes more popular, it will become more of a target.
I guess what I am asking is this:
Even given all that, what is the likelihood of someone using, say, Windows under Parallels on Mac OS X, actually somehow getting specific malware that targets Parallels, AND would have the ability to deliver a payload into, specifically, the Mac OS X environment?
I hope we can both agree that while it's not nonexistent, it's quite low, and would require specific user interaction; i.e., it's not something that, even if it did happen, would happen spontaneously. The confluence of circumstances to bring together a successful attack of that type, to me, is quite rare.
I have nothing whatsoever to do with Parallels in any way, shape, or form. What, I talk up a product that I (and many, many others) have been waiting for for YEARS, and now all of a sudden it's marketing?
Yes, I have used Virtual PC under Windows (and Mac), VMware Workstaion on Windows and Linux.
Indeed, I even said this won't be novel or interesting to people who have used VMware before.
But yes, the keys are that it's available on Mac - which is huge - cheap, and is the first desktop virtualization solution to support Intel VT. In general, it's comparable with things like VMware and VPC (Win), albeit in beta and, as such, less polished.
But that something like this is finally available for Mac OS X on an Apple platform, well, I guess I just see it as a really big deal.
Are you actually suggesting that this is even REMOTELY probable?
That someone will write *Windows malware* that specifically targets a vulnerability that itself would have to be discovered, AND be attackable from within the virtual environment?
I mean, you actually consider this a security risk that actually has merit? I only even mentioned it because someone else would bring up something ridiculous like that.
I don't work for, or have anything do do with, Parallels.
It's really just quite good.
This is truly a week of firsts.
;-). It's much less likely to be problematic for the following reasons:
Virtualization company Parallels announced a public beta of its Parallels Workstation virtualization product to Intel-based Macs (direct download. Parallels is a quasi-hypervisor-based (with a kernel module) virtual machine solution already shipping for Windows and Linux, and is the first desktop virtualization product to support Intel VT/Vanderpool CPU "partitioning". Once out of beta, It will also be only $50. Parallels also has a long list of officially supported guest OSes, and that's just the ones that are *officially* supported. It will likely run any x86-based OS you throw at it.
It's *very* fast, and has full support for Intel VT. Using Windows (or any other OS) inside of the environment is almost like using it natively on the hardware. Literally. It is quite amazing. (Here's a video someone made of it with SnapzPro - that is not my site. )This is the solution many people are waiting for; not dual booting - with the exception of things that need native 3D graphics support, of course...but otherwise, Parallels absolutely screams. This won't be novel to people who have already used things like VMware Workstation on other platforms. But to someone like myself, who has been hoping for a virtualization solution since the very second Steve Jobs uttered that Apple was switching to Intel, this, when polished and in its final form, will be something of a holy grail.
Virtualization will still be a HUGE benefit to people versus the annoyance of dual-booting. There's some overlap, but both technologies have their places.
Also, for those concerned about running a Windows environment alongside Mac OS X, this is just like the old Virtual PC model (except not horribly slow
- The entire environment is "sandboxed", network-wise, within the host OS's networking. Most Windows XP installations will now be behind the integrated software firewall anyway, but this is just another layer of protection: it's essentially like being behind a NAT router.
- A virtual machine environment, being secondary to the primary environment, is typically only used for targeted tasks, not routinely used for things like web browsing, email, and downloading - the major vectors of infection for much spyware/malware
- Since the virtual machine's disk is just a file on the host OS's drive, it can be immediately trashed and restored from a known-good pristine backup in seconds
- If no filesystem sharing is done via the VM between the Windows environment and the host (Mac OS X) environment, there is no[1] way that even severe malware within the Windows environment can cause any damage to the Mac OS X environment
- If filesystems are shared, e.g., a folder on the Mac side is shared as a drive letter on the Windows side, any malware that alters filesystems could theoretically alter the shared filesystem. If a virus, for example, attempted to delete all files on drives other than C:, that would be affected. But, 1.) Most malware doesn't just arbitrarily delete files, because its goal is to spread itself, and 2.) ONLY files that are shared could even theoretically be affected. Also, Windows malware will typically target Windows OS features and filesystem elements. But if you really are paranoid and want to be safe, you probably wouldn't want to, say, share your entire Mac OS X volume as a drive letter into the PC environment.
The bottom line is that from a technical and practical usage standpoint, running Windows in a VM is probably the safest possible way to run Windows, and there aren't really any ways, except for very specific ways via the explicit filesystem sharing, that anything that happens in t
Bravo. That's a troll worthy of a permanent place in the halls of slashdot.
I guess the only thing that will prove to people that Mac OS X isn't dead is when it's still around 5 years from now with increased marketshare.
No, actually it won't be going bye-bye. Mac OS X is central to many of Apple's markets, and those markets have no interest in Windows. And I'm not talking about "graphics" markets. I'm talking about academia (not "K-12"), research, scientific areas (particularly life and biosciences), and so on. Also, the Linux market isn't getting smaller, it's getting bigger. As is the market for a commercial UNIX.
Will OS X go away someday? Yep. As will Windows. But it won't be in 18-20 months, or even 5 years. Apple has a lot invested in Mac OS X/Mac OS X Server, and it will be around for a long, long, time. Apple's consumer media offerings are utterly separate from the OS realm, but Apple is looking to EXPAND Mac OS X adoption, not curtail it or eliminate it.
Nice troll, though...the whole "watch at the slowdown in the coming months" thing. There won't be any slowdown. Mac OS X marketshare will GROW in the coming months, as it has in the previous months and years to now. I love that people are still using a variant of the "Macs have no software" market over 22 years later.
Desktop virtualization solutions have the ability to use a file on the host as the virtual disk; I see no reason why any possible virtualization solution from Apple would be any different.
No, OS X is not going "bye bye". (And no, Dvorak wasn't "right".)
This is a move specifically calculated to appeal to Windows users, and to increase Mac OS X marketshare and usage (and thus Mac OS X software development), period.
This isn't about Apple "switching to Windows" or becoming yet another Windows PC manufacturer. In fact, it's the furthest thing from it.
Ah, right you are. As I skimmed it, I misunderstood it to say that it was burning a custom Windows disc with those drivers already in place, but it is indeed using an unmodified installation disc.
But, some notes:
- Even the existing http://onmac.net/ solution wasn't "illegal" or against any Apple or Microsoft license agreement - not saying the summary said that, but it kind of implied it might be
- The HUGE difference with Boot Camp is that it includes Windows XP driver profiles for Apple-specific hardware - including video drivers! Hello games and video intensive Windows software!
- Another big difference is that it includes a live repartitioning tool so the drive doesn't have to be reformatted to install Windows as the current solution requires
- And, it wraps everything up in a nice "setup assistant"-like interface
- It does burn a custom Windows XP installation disc (no, this does not violate any Microsoft or Windows license agreement, as making custom Windows installation discs has been routine in IT shops for years)
- Currently, it looks like it supports only Windows XP SP2, not any multi-disc XP-based installations (or other non-Windows OSes), but since Media Center is already working with the other solution by making a custom installation disc, I have no doubts that it could work with this as well
It's pretty incredible that Apple has decided to do this, to say the least.
However, the true benefit for many people won't come from dual-booting, but from running Windows (or any other x86 OS) in a virtualization environment alongside OS X with no dual booting or rebooting needed.
Virtualization company Parallels announced that it will be bringing its Parallels Workstation virtualization product to Intel-based Macs. Parallels is a hypervisor-based (with a kernel module) virtual machine solution already shipping for Windows and Linux, and is the first desktop virtualization product to support Intel VT/Vanderpool CPU "partitioning". It's also only $50. Parallels also has a long list of officially supported guest OSes, and that's just the ones that are *officially* supported. So either way, we'll have a nice dual boot solution AND a nice virtualization solution!
So Boot Camp will be standard with Leopard...great. What about the thing that a lot of us actually want, virtualization from Apple, rumored to be in Leopard? And not just virtualization to run x86 OSes, but to also run multiple instances of Intel-variants of Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server (*as well* as any other x86 OS)? Now THAT would be the holy grail. Desktop virtualization for things like Windows and Linux/BSD environments, and server virtualization for multiple Mac OS X/Mac OS X Server instances on a single box.
Since Apple has shown it's been officially willing to acknowledge the alternate OS/Windows universe on Intel-based Macs, I actually have a lot more hope for native, integrated virtualization in Leopard as well!
And, there you go.
No. It was a myth because no 5300 in consumer hands was ever known to have exhibited any fire problems. It was an occurrence in a laboratory setting with a Sony Lithium Ion battery. And I'm dismissing it as a myth because it was. People talked about the 5300 like it was the PowerBook that routinely caught on fire. Except that it was a problem with only Lithium Ion batteries, and only 100 units actually got into end-user hands, none of which were known to have exhibited the issue (no, really - no one has EVER recorded any fire issue in consumer hands with the 5300 (except one person here, today, coincidentally, claiming that he had one that caught on fire)).
And I do know that because my job for the past 11 years has been to be intimately familiar with all Apple products, problems, business issues, etc., from all perspectives, supporting one of the top three largest institutional Apple sites in the world. The 5300 issue was a myth, period. It was the thing everyone asked about when they were thinking of buying an Apple laptop. "Oh, is this the one that catches on fire?" And the store staff would explain to them, no, there was an overheating/fire incident with a Sony LiIon battery in a 5300 in Apple's testing lab, and all LiIon 5300's were recalled. Every battery after that was NiMH. So, yeah, it was true that a 5300 "caught on fire". A prototype, in a lab. Tens of thousands were shipped, all but 100 without LiIon batteries, and even those LiIon units were all recalled, with no issues reported to regulators (except for the one person here claiming that it happened to him and that he "never reported it").
So, that's why it's a "myth". Because it is. Someone else summed it up nicely here.
Also, I did ask him for proof, which he sidestepped by calling me a "stupid goon". I predict no such "proof" is forthcoming, but if it indeed exists, I told him I'd be more than interested in seeing it since it would be the first known actual 5300 fire incident in consumer hands, that conveniently was never reported to Apple or any regulatory or consumer agency, unearthed about a decade later.
Obviously you didn't get a degree in economics. Just because something maintains its exact same usefulness doesn't mean that its value doesn't decline. Try telling the guy with the horse-and-buggy in 1910 how he's gonna get another 20 years out of that investment. Or my friend who was conned into buying 3 brand new Apple III computers by a salesman just before the Mac came out. Value is understood in relation to the marketplace, not the "usefulness" of the product.
So all you care about is the value of the product in the marketplace, not its usefulness to you, including its relative usefulness to newer products?
I love how you turn around and talk about how if Apple preannounced the changeover it would hurt the company. Well, so what? So, they chose to hurt their customers instead. Good work. You sound just like Gil Amelio when I heard him talk at the Apple annual meeting around 1996. I mean, you literally have him almost word-for-word here. That was exactly his reasoning on several decisions that crushed the company. "What matters is keeping customers in the dark long enough for us to ship the product." That really worked out well.
Except that is PRECISELY what Apple has been doing since Jobs returned in 1997. In Amelio's days, we'd get briefed on products for months before their introductions. We actually got roadmaps we could plan with. When Jobs came back, all that stopped. That's bad from our perspective, because if Apple wants to play in the enterprise space like it's been claiming it wants to, it needs to balance its need for product secrecy in the consumer sector with enterprise IT's need for roadmap and planning information.
But its product secrecy has made it *wildly successful* as a consumer company. It keeps competitors in the dark, business intelligence to a minimum, and yields millions of dollars in free advertising and magazine covers at every product introduction that it wouldn't otherwise get. It's been so incredibly and ridiculously successful with this secrecy strategy that it refuses to change even as its institutional customers press it to release routine planning information.
Would we liked to have heard about the Intel transition before it happened? Sure. But as a planner, I can't think of one actual strategic decision that would have changed for us. At all.
These are all reasons I think Apple will wilt again over the next 3-5 years. Time will tell.
Except for the fact that the reasons you gave are actually widely recognized to be some of the central reasons for its continued business success.
And, you are a fanboy. No question about it.
You are a troll. No question about it.
And I keep feeding you by continually responding. Congratulations. You win.
Tell that to the folks who, if they turned around 5 days after the intel announcement, tried to resell their brand new PPC macs on ebay, would have lost over 50% of their money.
So their machines suddenly became useless? Ingenious!
You Mac fiends are such stupid goons. Your justifications are wonderful but just don't hold water.
Except that they do. I just explained to you specifically why PowerPC Macs will still be fine in an enterprise/institutional/professional environment, exactly as they were before the Intel transition, for years to come.
Your response? "Stupid goons."
Please explain how a PowerPC-based Mac is any less useful, or how it will be less useful for a traditional 3-4 year replacement lifecycle because of the Intel transition.
How should they have done it? Announced it a long period in advance to allow people to make buy decisions with complete information. Don't just sideswipe people. That's exactly what they did with the 680x0->PPC switch. They did the same thing with the iPod Mini->iPod Nano changeover too. A lot of pissed off customers there.
LOL! Yeah, that would just help sales famously (especially among emotional, irrational types who think that ebay is the measure of the usefulness of a product they just bought)! Remind yourself to never run a business.
And before you go on some tangent about how "the products still work and they support them," a product is worth exactly as much as people will pay for it on a widely distributed site like ebay.
Um, wha?
The product is worth how much use you get out of it, not how much someone will pay for it on *ebay*. Jesus, please tell me you're not serious. Ebay is the LAST test of the usefulness of a product you just purchased.
When my product loses 50% of its value when it should have only lost 20%, that pisses me off, and I think they should pay me for the loss of value.
Well, first, it didn't "lose 50%", especially considering people were still buying, e.g., PowerBook G4s as long as they were available, and are still buying Power Mac G5s and Xserve G5s in the pipeline right now.
Second, why does a person have to sell it right away (other than the fact that they might be a moron)? Now I know your first post was a troll, because you're doing it again. Nothing dropped "50%" when it was only "20%" days prior. And it will still have the EXACT SAME USEFULNESS for its lifetime. Might it be worth slightly less at the END of its usage lifetime? Sure. But not considerably. A 4 year old laptop or desktop is worth a lot less than 50% of its original value, so your numbers are suspect to begin with.
So you're saying it's impossible I was one of those 100? I actually just checked it and found that the battery is clearly marked as a "Lithium Ion". So obviously mine didn't get recalled.
No. All of them got recalled. But whoever you bought it from obviously didn't return it.
I'm going to post pix of it online to prove it to you. Course, you'll then just say that I lit it on fire with a lighter just now. So really I can't win. Tell me if you want the pix and I'll post them.
No, if you have a LiIon 5300 that really caught on fire, you'd be the first truth in a decade-old myth, where no known adverse events involving battery fire were known to have ever happened in consumer hands, as you can see from the links I posted. I and many others would no doubt be interested in seeing them.
How about some real criticisms, like abandoning a whole set of customers who bought PPC-based machines right before the changeover. Jerks.
How would you have suggested the transition be made?
PowerPC Macs aren't any more obsolete than any other Mac is or ever has been. Support is eventually dropped for all older hardware in the current OS (for example, for PowerPC G3-based systems). Apple usually supports older hardware for an average of 6.5 years in the current OS, and there is no reason to believe that level of support will change, regardless of the processor contained in the hardware that supplants it.
Further, Mac OS X currently has an approximately two year lifecycle. Apple has announced that Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard" will ship at the end of 2006 or early 2007 (thus, Macworld Expo San Francisco 2007 in January seems a likely target). Apple has also specifically stated that Leopard will support PowerPC. Therefore, just from the official information we know today, it can be inferred that Apple will support PowerPC hardware with the current OS until at least 2009. Also, Apple has provided security updates for the version of Mac OS X immediately previous to the current release since Mac OS X 10.0. Therefore, we can further infer that security updates will be available for Mac OS X running on PowerPC until at least 2011. However, it is likely that PowerPC support will continue beyond this, given Apple's history of legacy hardware support in its operating systems. The official statement from Apple is that PowerPC support will continue for "a long time".
Other vendors, such as Microsoft, will continue producing software natively for both platforms as well. For example, on January 10, 2006, Microsoft formally committed to continuting to produce Microsoft Office for Mac OS X on Intel and PowerPC platforms for a minimum of five years.
Your fanboyness is seriously clouding your judgement.
Huh? Where's the "fanboyness"?
Do some research and you will find that they have problems with almost every product they produce. This isn't unique to them. It's common.
Actually, I don't disagree with this at all. Considering I've been working with Apple products in varying capacities for over 22 years, I've seen *plenty* of problems, and publicly take Apple to task for various issues (e.g. 1, 2, 3, etc...and that's just from the last couple days.)
Apple products have problems, defects, and failures, like any other product.
The point I'm making is that they are no more perfect than anyone else so get over it. Overall they make good quality stuff but so do many other companies.
No, no one's "perfect". But Apple actually is better, statistically. By the measure of various consumer reporting organizations like Consumer reports, they are consistently (valid from a statistical standpoint) better than all other computer manufacturers in the categories of support, repairs, and quality in a quantifiable way. Someone's got to be the statistical best in these categories, and Apple is consistently it. Sorry to disappoint.
What of it? Is this guy not alowed to have a problem with his iBook without some fanboy flaming him?
Um, "a problem"? Catching on fire is "a problem"? No, it was a myth of epic proportions that never affected any shipped consumer units for which Apple suffered on its portable line for years afterward. See this post for numerous examples of proof of this.
Oh yeah, I forgot...clearly he must be a troll...
If the shoe fits...
It's the PowerBook 5300, not 5200.
There was no PowerBook 5200.