Thurrott: Apple’s elegant Boot Camp opens up a world of possibilities
Tuesday, April 11, 2006 - 11:33 AM EST"Apple's decision to move its Macintosh computing platform to Intel processors has opened up a world of possibilities, none more obvious than the release this week of a beta software wizard called Boot Camp. This elegant little application allows Intel-based Mac users to repartition their hard drive, install Windows XP, and dual boot between XP and Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" (see my review). A future version of Boot Camp will be included with Mac OS X 10.5 'Leopard,' due sometime in 2007. That version, presumably, will support Windows Vista as well," Paul Thurrott writes for Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows.
MacDailyNews Note: Leopard is actually due late 2006/early 2007. Think Macworld Expo in January 2007 at the latest (although we have a gut feeling it'll be sooner). This isn't Microsoft we're talking about here: Leopard won't slip because Apple knows how to ship.
Thurrott continues, "One might wonder why Apple would create such a thing. After all, with barely 2 percent of the market for computer operating systems, should Apple be trying to win market share for Mac OS X and not offer a way for Mac users to run Windows? Not exactly. Unlike Microsoft, Apple doesn't actually make a lot of money directly from sales of its OS. Instead, Apple makes most of its money--even now, in the heady days of iPod supremacy--by selling computer hardware. So one might think of Boot Camp as a win-win. Apple wins because a much wider audience of users can now consider its Mac systems, secure in the knowledge that they can run Windows if they want to. Microsoft wins because these users will still be using--and paying for--Windows. And best of all, we as users win, too, because now we can have the best of both worlds: the elegance of Apple hardware coupled with Windows, the operating system that runs all those applications we want to run."
"Some Mac users don't see it that way. They'd like you to believe that Mac OS X is all anyone would ever need, and they're actually quite a bit distressed that anyone would want to run Windows on a Mac. Get a life: This software will open up the world of Apple to a much wider audience and if OS X is as great as they think it is, surely some of those people will start spending time with OS X instead of Windows. I can't really see the issue there," Thurrott writes. "While Boot Camp isn't perfect, it's still a semi-miraculous solution that lets you dual boot between Mac OS X and Windows XP on an Intel-based Mac. That, folks, is what's known as the best of both worlds in these parts, and I'm personally very excited at the prospect of, or at the opportunity to, purchase Apple notebooks and desktops in the future. There's precious little chance I'd ever want to switch to Mac OS X, but I do need to maintain OS X systems for testing purposes. Life would surely be a lot simpler for me if I could run both Windows and OS X on the same hardware. I suspect the same is true for many other people as well. Rejoice."
Thurrott, destined to be the last Windows user on Earth (why would he ever want to switch to Mac OS X when almost every one of his websites' revolves around the use of Windows?), installs and tests Boot Camp Public Beta on a base Apple Mac mini in the full article here.
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I'll say it again. It's about security and saving the $$ of software investment for windows users. I'm helping my 4th friend set up their new mac since this announcement, and I've got one more who is buying 4 iMacs for her salons. MASTERFUL move by apple. 9 months of "MACS RUN WINDOWS" before the holiday season.
Gateway is toast, dell is next.