Apple's Boot Camp

http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/

So what do you think? Will this be the smartest move Apple ever made?

I think it's really smart. Apple does it all (almost, at least.) Switching has never been easier.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

which is exactly what apple wants. They don't like people fiddling about with their hardware, using it inappropriately. If I was still actively using my windows PC, this event might have pushed me to the Apple side. Fortunately for me I fell for Apple last summer when I was finally able to afford the insanely expensive Ipod... Later on I buyed my first Apple powerbook. I can't possibly imagine ever buying a windows PC ever again, now that boot camp has been introduced. I think many others will feel the same way.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Why headless? The Apple monitors are top of the line.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

There shouldn't be a price drop. What they offer is of supreme quality, and quality costs money. Pay and enjoy, or don't pay and get stuck in the world of Windows.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Well, unless you've actually USED a mac with OSX, you can't really get deeper into this...

Once you've worked with OSX for about two weeks, you know why you'll never go back to Windows.

I was speaking idiomatically.

I agree.

And:

Originally Posted by Free.User

I think this isn't too bad, as long as XP doesn't run more slowly than it would on a similairly priced non-apple machine. I'm a bit skeptical however; when operating systems are emulated (VMware), the performance goes downhill. This is becuase not only does the computer have to process the emulated OS, but it has to process it`s own commands simultaneously. Unless Apple has somehow allowed XP to function independantly, I don`t think It will go over that well.

It runs natively, so unless I'm missing something, it'll work without any emulating.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Well if that's true, it's going to be a (if not THE) best move Apple ever made. Even if some people say that they've just sold their soul.

Looking at this purely from an objective point of view, if I had no computer and had to decide between an apple computer that runs the best of both worlds or a Windows based PC that runs only Windows (and not even as good as the Apple hardware) it wouldn't even be a decision anymore, a Mac would be the obvious choice.

Double Post:
Ofcourse, the big question is, how long will it take before Microsoft starts fighting this.

Double Post:
Also: By the time this is integrated in OSX 10.5 Leopard, Vista will probably be out, and people will want to buy that instead of XP...

FELIPE NO

That's never gonna happen. And those are Apple's words, not mine.

Why would MS fight it? Well, they might sell more copies of Windows, but they'd also be helping Apple conquer a much bigger part of the computer world.

I think Microsoft would much rather fight Apple over this to ensure their own dominance on the market than make a bit more money on Windows sales.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

OSX is sex for the brain

:biggrin:

No, let's not go down that road, but you can't argue with millions of dedicated fans worldwide. OSX doesn't get in your face like Windows does. I'm actually a fan of XP as well, before I got OSX I was pretty happy with the way it went, but then it was one virus after the other and things went downhill very fast from there on... OSX is a tool that sits quietly in the background, but does everything you want it to do, very gracefully. Anyways, that's just my two cents.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Merv Burger

There's equal amounts of things that would make a user confused/wonder why the fuck they chose a way to do something/etc., etc. in OS X, Windows, and Linux.

To deny this would mean you're naïve. Or maybe even stupid.


What the fuck are you even saying.

That may be your $.02, but exchange rates say otherwise.

Hey, to each his own. No need to get so defensive all the time. I respect your point of view. Maybe you should try doing the same.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

What I meant was that, in my opinion, XP asks alot of your attention as a user. Not only when it comes to settings (e.g. drivers, network settings, etc) but also security (e.g. Spam, spyware, viruses, ...) or those annoying little things like when you disconnect a network cable you constantly get that little pop up window at the bottom right corner that just keeps coming back. There are more things but I can't really think of them. XP basically has the ability to really get on my nerves, whereas OSX has never once done that.

Again, just my opinion, because you probably have a million things to say that would completely undermine this post.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Cless

OS X exposes functionality in a graceful, well-designed, and more often than not in an easy-to-understand way. Windows obfuscates functionality behind wizards and helpers and basically hand-holds a user most of the time. Whereas Windows is always popping up some "helpful" notification at me from the system tray or trying to "dumb down" something complicated by adding a wizard, OS X just makes it simple and logical in the first place.

Which is to say that overall OS X is more friendly to both new users AND power-users. For those who are relatively new, OS X makes life pretty easy to understand. You've got the Dock, you've got the Applications folder, you put your documents in the Documents folder, your music in iTunes, your pictures in iPhoto, etc. For the experienced power-user, you can do basically what you want with your system without being confronted by a lot of helpers or wizards—you can just DO shit.

The sort of object lesson of this is OS X's Terminal. Obviously OS X has a UNIX heritage—it's essentially BSD on a Mach microkernel with a lot of Apple enhancements and a pretty face. A new user can use OS X and never need to know all that. But an experienced user or UNIX jockey can jump right down into the Terminal and get into the guts of the system to do all the usual stuff they can do elsewhere... AND they can run Photoshop or Final Cut or other big-name apps natively.

That's the long version of what I believe MagicalVacation was trying to express.

Yes. That was my point, but I'm not a professional Mac-Head. I only know the basics and a little bit of the underlying architecture, but it ends there. Thanks for clearing it up.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

I don't think Vista will run on it... The boot camp has been designed for existing Windows XP versions. Isn't Vista going to have a very different architecture? Or is it going to be similar...

Double Post:
Also, I found this on CNET today.

Quote:

Apple released Boot Camp today, a free download that lets you run Windows on an Intel-based Mac. The 83MB download is available as beta software, and Boot Camp will be included in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard later this year. We don't, however, expect to see Windows preinstalled on Macs anytime soon (Apple makes it very clear it will not support Windows). Interest in running Windows on a Mac has been evident ever since Steve Jobs announced the Intel-based iMac this past January, and it reached a crescendo last month with various contests for finding a hack to run Windows on an Intel Mac. Boot Camp, therefore, isn't the first time the world will see Windows running on a Mac, but it certainly makes the process much easier.
We installed Boot Camp on the iMac Core Duo; the software will also work with the Mac Mini and the MacBook Pro. Before we could run the app, we first had to update our iMac to Mac OS X 10.4.6, followed by a quick firmware update. We were then prompted to burn a disc of Windows drivers (for the iMac Core Duo's video and audio adapters, peripherals, wired and wireless networking adapters, and so on), which are included in the Boot Camp download. After ejecting our newly minted driver disc, Boot Camp then asked us how we'd like to partition our iMac's 250GB hard drive. The default was a paltry 5GB for Windows; we upped it to an even 100GB, then inserted a Windows XP Pro with Service Pack 2 disc. Note: You must supply your own copy of Windows; you can use either Home or Pro, but Apple's documentation states that it must include SP2. The Windows installation proceeded per its norm, the iMac restarted, and we were looking at the strange site of the glossy white iMac framing the familiar XP Bliss wallpaper. It's alive!

A quick scan of the Device Manager showed that we were a few drivers short of a full deck. We installed the contents of the driver disc that Boot Camp had us create, which filled in most, but not all, of the gaps. We were still missing a USB driver and a PCI driver, along with some unknowns. From our first pass with Windows on the iMac, however, the system appeared to be fully operational. We were able to connect to our LAN and the Internet, and even play a game of Minesweeper.

What Boot Camp doesn't let you do is run both operating systems at the same time. You must shut down one before booting to the other. Whichever OS you had running last will boot upon the next start-up. To halt that from happening, simply hold down the Alt-Option key while the system powers on, and after a few seconds, you'll be presented with a gray start screen with two images of hard drives: choose the one of the left for Mac OS or the one on the right for Windows.

Boot Camp also installs an icon labeled Startup Disk in the Control Panel in Windows and in the System Preferences window in Mac OS. It opens a window that lists the Mac OS and Windows XP partitions. Choose one to shut down the current OS you have running and boot to the other. Switching between the two operating systems was fast and easy. Also, Windows appeared to be stable; it crashed only once when we were investigating DirectX settings, not an unusual occurrence on any Windows-based PC.

There's more to this than playing Minesweeper on a Mac, of course. Aside from the wow factor, Boot Camp, especially when it becomes a standard feature of the Mac OS, should usher in a new era for the Mac platform. Though you'll need to pony up for a copy of Windows, your Mac will be able to run any software that its PC competitors can run, not too mention all the Apple apps that PCs can't run. With Boot Camp, for example, you can run the iLife apps and the latest 3D game, say, F.E.A.R., on the same system.

As surprising as the Boot Camp development might be, the performance results are decidedly boring. Given the Intel processor and motherboard, the iMac Core Duo's performance when running Windows was right about where we expected compared to other Windows PCs'. On CNET Labs' Photoshop CS test, it trailed dual-core PCs from Dell and HP, but only by a small percentage. We didn't expect it to top either of these systems, given their more powerful Pentium D 900-series desktop processors. Compared to the same iMac Core Duo system running Mac OS X, the system showed a large but not unexpected jump in performance with Photoshop. Where the iMac Core Duo in Mac OS X took 6.5 minutes to complete the test, because it must use the Rosetta translation software, the same system running Windows XP Pro took less than 3 minutes.


Adobe Photoshop CS test (in seconds)
(Lower times are better)
HP Pavilion Media Center TV m7360n
143
Dell XPS 400
151
Apple iMac Core Duo (Windows XP Pro)
169
Apple iMac G5
216
Apple iMac Core Duo (Mac OS X)
390
We're also not shocked by the iTunes, video-encoding, and Doom 3 tests. As it was written with the Mac OS X in mind, iTunes has historically run slower on Windows PCs. The same holds true for the iMac hardware running Windows: the Windows partition on the iMac took 26 seconds longer to finish our test. Our Sorenson video-encoding test looks much better on the Windows partition than on the OS X side for the same reason the Photoshop results skewed in favor of Windows: Sorenson runs natively in Windows XP and is emulated via Rosetta in OS X.


Apple iTunes 4.7.1.30 MP3-encoding test (in seconds)
(Lower times are better)
Apple iMac Core Duo (Mac OS X)
86
Apple iMac Core Duo (Windows XP Pro)
110
Dell XPS 400
110
Apple iMac G5
111
HP Pavilion Media Center TV m7360n
124


Sorenson Squeeze 4 video-encoding test (in minutes: seconds)
(Lower times are better)
Dell XPS 400
232
Apple iMac Core Duo (Windows XP Pro)
256
HP Pavilion Media Center TV m7360n
262
Apple iMac G5
311
Apple iMac Core Duo (Mac OS X)
1440
The release of Boot Camp doesn't change our opinion of the iMac as a gaming system. No matter which OS you run, its weak ATI Radeon X1600 graphics chip, which shares memory with the system itself, isn't going to deliver high frame rates. The iMac Core Duo performed better under Windows than under OS X (25.9 frames per second vs. an even less playable 16.2), but we still don't recommend it for serious 3D gaming.


Doom 3 (Custom Demo) (in fps) (Higher scores are better)

Doom 3 1,024x768 4XAA 8XAF
Dell XPS 400
46.6
Apple iMac Core Duo (Windows XP Pro)
25.8
Apple iMac Core Duo (Mac OS X)
16.2
Apple iMac G5
11.7
HP Pavilion Media Center TV m7360n
2.7

I was speaking idiomatically.