Unreal: Apple Officially Supports Windows with Bootcamp
I still can’t quite fully believe this, but it is true. Apple now supports dual-booting. The implications here are mind-boggling. Apple now sells hardware that it is going to officially allow and support Windows to boot.
Let me repeat that because it is so significant. Apple hardware supports Windows!
Apple link here. I just got a MacBook Pro yesterday, so I’ll try and get this going soon. Does anyone else find this weird? Nay, unsettling? I do.
I think the OS wars are now over.
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Adobe would be totally shooting itself in the foot to give Mac users the finger and tell them to buy a copy of Windows. That is fairytale-land, never gonna happen. That’s just them opening up the door wide open to a competitor in a professional market that they currently dominate.
DB.
Apple does not “support” Windows. From the Boot Camp page:
“Apple Computer does not sell or support Microsoft Windows.”
Apple hardware runs Windows and Apple now makes a product that will help you do it, but officially Apple does NOT as you say, “sell[s] hardware that it is going to officially allow and support Windows to boot.”
Apple would be nuts to “support” Windows, but giving people the opportunity is an excellent move. Business hardware sales will explode as mobile forces all over will want Pow.. Mac Books instead of plastic windroid machines. Innumerable curious people will taste the Aqua. A few months later we will see a tidal wave of switchers.
I think the most common scenerio will be people buying Apple computers because they *can* run Windows, but they’ll see OS X and decide to not bother installing Windows afterall. This will only increase the base of OS X users and force MORE software developers to develop for OS X, not less. Now Apple HAS to make TV ads.
I bet Leopard will inlcude virtualisation to let you run windows apps alongside mac ones - leading to massive corporate uptake
Masterful stroke!
You take this. And the news couple of days ago that a Japanese Bank is going all-mac. Then the turmoil surrounding Vista. And the plague of netbot masters and malware hounding Windows.
I think we’ll finally be seeing some traction on Apple’s Switch campaign.
I wonder if Mr. Jobs had this all meticulously planned out the day he shook hands with Mr. Otellini to seal the Mactel deal.
The icing on the cake is imagining Michael Dell making like a Munch painting when he heard the news. What’s that one-trick pony going to do now?
It seems to me that this serves the same function as Virtual PC, giving existing Mac users access to XP-only apps without having to buy a whole new machine. Only now, because of Intel architecture, it doesn’t have to run in emulation.
The implications beyond that are a bit speculative, to say the least. I think the idea that this will increase Mac marketshare (and jeebus, what new product DON’T Mac users think will increase marketshare) is a bit of wishful thinking. I certainly don’t think Apple did it to show off OS X next to XP.
We already have it up and running on a recently purchased MacBookPro in our department. XP flies on it. In one simple software intall, our department has the fastest windows computer in the organization.
Windows on a Mac? Why didn’t they release this news on their 30th birthday on April Fools Day…? Eeeerrrrr aaah because it WAS April Fools day…
/M
Apple’s battle to raise Mac’s market share in the desktop and laptop markets will be a long slow slog very similar to Toyota’s decades-long assault on GM.
There will not be one magic app or accessory that will trigger an overnight jump in market share. Instead it will be a series of sound forward-looking and daring business and product decisions that have the collective effect of attracting more and more customers.
It also helps that the company (companies) in the cross hairs is big, fat, is in denial about the future, and deathly afraid of adopting new technologies for fear of ‘losing’ their existing customers.
As to Boot Camp being the same as VPC but without emulation. Yeah, and a Kia is the same as a Ferrari, only without the 500 hp engine, and the high performance drivetrain and suspension.
As to Boot Camp being the same as VPC but without emulation.
I didn’t say it was the same. I said it served the same purpose, which is to give existing Mac users the ability to run XP-only apps without having to buy a new computer. With Virtual PC not available on Intel Macs, this fills that gap.
And speaking of Mac users, what is with this unhealthy obsession you and other regurgitating Macbots have with Michael Dell? What does Dell have to do with anything?
Beeb, Dell is the Antimac
What I think is the nice bit is that everyone getting a piece of Mac hardware “because it’s cool & can run Windows” (this is of course talking about people who actually *know/care* about what their PC runs) will have OS X pre-installed. That way (curiosity) OS X will get a lot more exposure. Apple does not need to “show it off”. People will come looking by themselves. And finally, to Apple it does not matter if they do switch to OS X or not. They already bought the hardware.
Now don’t go back and try to change what you meant now. You made it sound that Boot Camp is no big deal because it just does what VPC did.
You and I know that VPC is a dog. It’s slower than molasses on a January morning and can’t do advanced graphics (read PC Games). Boot Camp let’s Windows XP do all the things it’s meant to do but on a Mac. That is a significant difference.
And what is this unhealthy obsession of yours with attacking everything that Apple does? Really, what pleasure do you antiMacbots derive from that?
As for me yes I’m a fan. (But not a deluded fan.) How can I not be when everytime I look at my AAPL holdings I can’t help but smile. Oh, gotta go it’s ticking up again.
Adobe can just say to mac users, “well, the hardware you own supports windows, so just buy a windows version of photoshop, etc.”
While on the one hand it means being able to run Photoshop at full speed on an Intel Mac, it also would mean purchasing CS2 for Windows as well as purchasing Windows itself. I don’t see Adobe abandoning the Mac market any time soon.
While the Mac world seems all a twitter (8 stories about it at MDN), none of the speculation about switchers makes all that much sense. A switcher would not only have to buy the more expensive Mac hardware, they’d have to buy Windows as well. And in the corporate market, I can’t see companies going for dual-booting machines just to have fancy hardware when they can do what they want on cheaper mass market brands.
What I think is the nice bit is that everyone getting a piece of Mac hardware “because it’s cool & can run Windows” (this is of course talking about people who actually *know/care* about what their PC runs) will have OS X pre-installed.
I’m sure there are some people like this out there. My point, BB, is that you and everyone else seems to be grossly overestimating the size of this market.