Apple Releases Boot Camp Beta

[balamw]

And that's really the key point...

We'll now have the exact same three options that Linux users have had.

1. Dual Booting: For the fullest software compatibility
2. Virtualization: Virtualization can give a great combination of performance and compatibility, but guest OSes runs on generic virtual hardware
3. Translation: WINE supports plenly of simple apps, without the need for a full virtual environment

For the occasional small app, just run it in DarWine alongside your OS X apps. For larger more complicated apps, use a virtualizer like Parallels, VMWare, VPC, which give you the full Windows OS, but keep OS X running. If you need "bare metal" performance such as running CAD or a 3D intensive game, you have the option to dual-boot.

B

 

[shrimpdesign]

Appel will be death or over run in the next 6 to 12 month
they just cross a deal with the devil sorry for them .....

The day Apple that they where going to use the intel prosessor i knew it was bad ......
Apple should have remember IBM and OS/2 rules in informatic never trust M$
Never deal with M$ .....
all the sudden i hope that Stevie Job still as a job at Disney he will need it .

1. The OS/2 comparison doesn't work, OS/2 didn't have a loyal and strong like Macs do. As someone has already pointed out, the majority of Macs are still PPC, developers won't stop making Apps for OS X.
2. Apple didn't deal with MS, they're just letting users install XP on a partition.
3. Jobs doesn't have a job at Disney, and never has.

 

[OllyW]

with in 6 month of virus and trouble apple will be so much in trouble

Why do the doom merchants assume every Mac user is suddenly going to install Windows?

At this current time, Intel Macs owners must only cover a couple of percent of the total Apple user base. Out of this couple percent there will probably be less than 10 percent who will actually go to the bother of trying Boot Camp Beta and Windows.

What it does is help those who need specific Windows programs, reassure switchers with a safety net to fall back onto and hopefully allow gamers to go for Macs.

I have used dual boot systems in the past (Windows / Linux) and it is a complete pain. I'm hoping for some sort of virtualization in Leopard, so we can run Windows programs in OS X without the hassle of re-booting all the time.

 

[Saladin]

Boot from external disk

I have a MBP, and I would like to boot Windows to play games, but I will not partition my drive just for windows. I have read Apple's site and these pages, but I'm still not clear whether or not one may install and boot XP on an external hard drive. Anyone have an idea?

 

[sonnys]

For me it would be a blessing if Microsoft dropped Office for OS X. At last someone would have an incentive to write some decent Office software for the Mac. I think Office is better than the open source versions, but if Apple or another big company decided to make a full featured replacement for Office I don't think it would be hard to make a commercial package that's better than Microsoft Office. In the good old days software like MacWrite Pro was far better than Microsoft Word. I think recent packages like ClarisWorks and newer stuff like iWork are just trying to avoid competing with Microsoft.

Doing that would force someone like me, an independent graphic designer who uses a Mac for his daily work and the MS Office suite on his Mac for compatible interactions with clients, to buy a PC and Windows.

Oh but wait, I could just install Windows on a separate partition and boot into that... okay cool, I can still keep my Mac.

Oh but wait, then I have to reboot to get back to the Mac side to do real work... okay, so I'm back to buying a PC w/ Windows for Outlook, Word, and Powerpoint compatibility and putting it on the network with shared drive.

Okay, for MS to drop support for Office would be bad for me and many thousands like me.

 

[wnurse]

Don't be such a drama queen. I never said Apple is their biggest competition, just that they're stronger competition than they were yesterday. And no company is ever happy about their competition getting stronger. "Death of Microsoft"? Nice strawman.

Not sure why you make mention of computers crashing, it has nothing to do with my post.

Ok, i see you miss my point. I believe the original quote was that Dell was pooping in his pants. A stronger competitor would hardly cause Dell to poop in his pants. That competitor causing Dell to loose market share would. I don't see how Dell would lose market share. Dell demographics doesn't even overlap with that of apple. They sell to totally different segments of the same market.
Apple is a high end boutique shop, Dell is low end. Suddenly being able to run windows on apple will not cause people looking for low cost computers to switch to apple. That is why i said the companies most likely to be worried would be sony, gateway, hp etc.. I seriously doubt this will result in even a minor dent in Dell market share.. it's not like this is first time in history we have been able to run windows on a mac. Look, personally, i would be happy with Dell's demise (as a system builder, it's impossible to compete with them).. but as a business man, i would be a fool to not properly analyze my market. Wishing a competitor would just vanish is the surest way to defeat. There are lots of companies that thought they could beat Dell. The computer graveyard is full of them. I can see a scenario for Dell to increase their market share, apple to increase their market share and Gateway to fold (bought by dell or someone else). As to trying to figure out if apple can effect dell's rate of growth, good luck with that one.. I think Dell would only be worried if the rate of growth slows down significantly but if it is approximately the same, then apple's advancement would be irrelevant to Dell.

As to computers crashing, yeah you didn't make the point but you left it in your post (i guess someone else originally made the point). It was not an important point anyway so you could ignore that part.

The bluetooth thing is still driving me nuts though (again, this has nothing to do with your post ).

 

[cyberddot]

Wow, it's the lead story on the New York Times online right now:

Is the trailer-park the Apple lab in Seattle, or the Microsoft lab in Cupertino?

​

 

[weldon]

I wonder how long it will be before Apple sells Windows XP in the Apple Store. They could probably sell the OEM version bundled with a new Mac for special pricing, but then maybe they have to provide support?

 

[iMeowbot]

Where on the boot camp page on apple's site say that Leopard (10.5) will do boot camp in the same way (dual boot) that this current version does?

Who's to say that the next version wont use virtualization technology? Note how carefully it is worded.

Apple may add VM capability to OS X some day, but the Boot Camp stuff isn't really a necessary step to get there. The main change is in the firmware, where Apple have added back the missing CSM -- that is, an actual BIOS. Even the device drivers they just released don't help to host another operating system under OS X.

 

[hoppo99]

For me it would be a blessing if Microsoft dropped Office for OS X. At last someone would have an incentive to write some decent Office software for the Mac. I think Office is better than the open source versions, but if Apple or another big company decided to make a full featured replacement for Office I don't think it would be hard to make a commercial package that's better than Microsoft Office. In the good old days software like MacWrite Pro was far better than Microsoft Word. I think recent packages like ClarisWorks and newer stuff like iWork are just trying to avoid competing with Microsoft.

It might be a blessing for you but like it or not Office is the de facto standard and without it the Mac platform would lose at lot of credibility. Office is better than open source solutions mainly because it has fewer rough edges and people feel more at home with it. There still is plenty of room to compete with it. Back to the point though, Apple needs Microsofts continued support at least for now. iWork is Apple's way of just reminding Microsoft that there are potential alternatives rather than as a direct competitor. I use it though and it's great!

BTW since when is ClarisWorks recent?! Isn't some of it's code based on MacWrite Pro anyway? It is nearly the same as the WP component of ClarisWorks.

 

[milo]

3. Jobs doesn't have a job at Disney, and never has.

Jobs is the chairman and CEO of Pixar. Since they're merging with Disney, and he'll be the biggest Disney stockholder, the chances of Jobs ending up with a position at Disney are looking pretty good.

I have a MBP, and I would like to boot Windows to play games, but I will not partition my drive just for windows. I have read Apple's site and these pages, but I'm still not clear whether or not one may install and boot XP on an external hard drive. Anyone have an idea?

Not with this version.

 

[JGowan]

Boot Camp "Dry Run" for Leopard Virtualization

I bet Apple didn't want to do it, for legal reasons (e.g. accusations of reverse-engineering Windows, to figure out how EFI should emulate BIOS?) and decided to wait until someone else had figured it out.

And then bought the solution.

I bet you're wrong. Apple would NEVER buy this type of implementation from some back-of-the-garage type of operation. Kudos goes out to the people who got it to work, but from all accounts, XP on their "solution" is too slow to work as it should.

I guarantee you that for as long as Apple has been working on OS X on an Intel chip, they have been working on getting Windows to work on it, too. Steve Jobs has simply been biding his time for this.

Now, I bet THE CONTEST and announcements from others (including the software company, Parallels) may have pushed the Boot Camp announcement a little early, I think Apple wanted to see the reactions (and their stock price) rise before their big August Leopard reveal.

As others have speculated here, having 2 OS's running simultaneous will probably happen and this Boot Camp is sort of the "dry run".

 

[hoppo99]

I wonder how long it will be before Apple sells Windows XP in the Apple Store. They could probably sell the OEM version bundled with a new Mac for special pricing, but then maybe they have to provide support?

That's a joke right?! Apple will never sell a version of Windows. Allowing users to boot into Windows is to placate existing users who need to use Windows as well as OS X and as a fail safe for potential switchers, to make them feel more at ease about the purchase of a Mac.

 

[supremedesigner]

**Chewing popcorns*** Boy, this exaggerating rumors sure does look interesting than watching a movie. *BWRRAAAPPP*

 

[Bonte]

We need to see osX as the successor to XP and not a competitor, it just needed XP for the backwards compatibility in the same way that Vista would need it. osX is the long awaited upgrade for XP and Vista is a dead born bloated freak.

Maybe it will cut into the sales of Mac software but not that hard, games are years overpriced so nobody bought them or maybe just a few like me that abandoned Windows out of our lives. Mac sales will double fast so we'll see more compatible software on the same disks, the future is looking good.

 

[Yvan256]

Does this mean we could run non-native pro apps on windows properly? I use adobe cs2, macromedia studio 8, and pro tools. I have to have a laptop before august (for law school) so i can't wait for the apps to go native to make the switch to a mac, but if boot camp can run all my apps fast and with stability, i might just cancel my dell order.

You can cancel your Dell order. You will need to buy a MacBook Pro and a full version of Windows XP SP2, however.

But yes, you'll be getting both a Mac and a Windows laptop by doing so.

 

[NVRsayNVR]

WOW!!!


NEVER, NEVER NEVER EVER... SAY NEVER!





"Think Alike... BE Different!"

 

[1macker1]

What if the programs running in Windows (adobe, macromedia programs ..) run faster in XP than in OSX. Wouldn't this get people to thinking, "no need to buy a more expensive Mac, when a similar spec'd PC can do things faster for less money." I hope they see this doubled edged sword they are playing with.

 

[milo]

A stronger competitor would hardly cause Dell to poop in his pants. That competitor causing Dell to loose market share would. I don't see how Dell would lose market share. Dell demographics doesn't even overlap with that of apple. They sell to totally different segments of the same market.

As to computers crashing, yeah you didn't make the point but you left it in your post (i guess someone else originally made the point). It was not an important point anyway so you could ignore that part.

I don't agree that their markets don't have any overlap. The mini is fairly inexpensive, and dell does sell some expensive, fairly high end machines. I think the potential is certainly there for Dell to lose some market share to Apple (note that I say SOME, not a huge amount). And I don't think Mista Dell would be happy about that.

My comments about the BSOD were in response to someone who claimed that it no longer exists in XP. I haven't made any comments in this thread about whether macs or pc's crash more.

 

[wnurse]

I don't agree that their markets don't have any overlap. The mini is fairly inexpensive, and dell does sell some expensive, fairly high end machines. I think the potential is certainly there for Dell to lose some market share to Apple (note that I say SOME, not a huge amount). And I don't think Mista Dell would be happy about that.
.

umm... the mini is not a competitor to dell low end computers. Sorry.
Dell low end computer COMES with monitor and keyboard. Have you seen Dells latest commercial?.. 399 for a computer? with free 512 memory upgrade, a flat screen monitor, etc. What mini competes with that?. To me, the mini is the mid range competitor. The mini might be low end for apple but that is not low end for Dell. Now that Dell have bought alienware, they definetly compete in the high end consumer market. That will be interesting. This is where Dell might need to work hard to retain market share. I still maintain Dell will not suffer.. i guess we have a difference of opinion. Only time will tell who is right.

 

[hoppo99]

Maybe Apple is doing this to drive Pro Mac sales. Now professionals can run apps such as Photoshop natively on the Intel hardware and can switch back to OS X when the univeral versions are ready...

How long will it be before XCode can compile for Windows?! A truly Universal app!

 

[HiRez]

Does the CPU whine go away when using MS XP ?

I don't know but initial tests indicate user whine increases by over 350%.

 

[King-Louie]

I've read in several places that this version of Boot Camp is a trial version with limited time. In no places does it actually say how long the trial is for. Does anybody know?

 

[zelmo]

Focusing on current Mac owners for a minute: how many are there, 25 million or so? Why do people choose Mac over Windows again? Oh yeah, the OS is elegant, stable, and (at worst) relatively secure. Surely most of us are looking for any excuse to switch to XP.
Some of us may choose Macs only for the cool hardware, but they wouldn't stay Mac people long, would they? At least, not if the OS sucked, or if they got tired of paying steep Apple premiums just for cool looking kit.
Of the alleged 25M, how many are really going to buy/install a copy of XP? 2%? 5%? 20%? Okay, let's say it'll be 20% (it won't be). Even that over-inflated estimate leaves a market of 20M Mac owners who already have or will be making the switch to Intel Macs over the next three years, and will not be installing Windows. The other 20%? They have a program or two, most likely games, that they want to run and they don't want to purchase a 2nd computer to run them. They're not going to re-purchase all of their s/w to run on Windows. Windows is their necessary evil, their guilty pleasure, and that's it.
The Mac s/w market won't go away. There will be at least as many current Windows users falling for OS X as current Mac users turning to Redmond.
Relax.

Of course, I could be completely wrong about all of this pure speculation....

 

[Heese]

I don't know but initial tests indicate user whine increases by over 350%.

well played