Apple Boot Camp sounds like a late April Fools joke, but it looks real.
As tempting as this sounds, somehow it just feels dirty.
Is Apple selling out here? What’s this going to do to the Mac games market or the Mac 3rd party software market? It’s one thing to use an Intel chip, but to actually enable and encourage Windows installation and use? This will probably kill off the Aspyr and MacSoft type game porting companies. Why would anyone wait the extra six months to purchase a ported game when you can buy the original when it’s released?
This essentially changes the game. The hacks that were already in the wild are complicated and probably only for the technically adept. Boot Camp seemingly brings dual booting Windows XP to anyone with the time to try it.
Will this be a big hit? I can certainly see the appeal. I myself would love to no longer need VirtualPC for the few Windows only programs I need. Being able to work on .NET development for my clients on an uber-cool MacBook Pro during the day and boot back into Mac OS X for product development cetrainly would be nice. But at what cost?
Comments
2 responses to “Apple Boot Camp: Run WindowsXP on a Mac”
Apple isn’t selling out at all, they’re being smart.
1) People are going to hack windows on there anyway.
2) As long as they officially restrict OS X to Apple hardware, they are not directly competing with Microsoft.
3) People will be able to buy that pretty looking machine and still use Windows, and they’ll also have that other OS on there to play with and try. It eases switching considerably.
People who were considering switching but couldn’t justify the risk now can. “Alright, I’ll give that Apple stuff a try, and if it doesn’t work I’ll still have that kickass hardware with the XP safety net.”
It’s subversion, not submission.
After some time to think about it, I agree with you on all points.
I’m still very concerned about the games market drying up, though. Hopefully, this will entice enough new OS X users that it’ll more than make up for the people who can’t wait for the ported version of games and go the dual-boot route.