Second Look at Boot Camp Landscape
After spending some time bouncing around various blogs, it looks like there are two prevailing opinions. The sensible one is that Boot Camp is Apple's way of addressing a single class of challenge that might prevent some people from buying a Mac, the "Windows is the New Classic" perspective.The more extreme fringe feels that Apple is either going to stop developing Mac OS X or enable installation on generic hardware. Yikes. Fortunately, there's a complete yet succinct explanation of why neither really make sense.
Who Benefits?
So all of that said, what's the advantage of Boot Camp? The obvious answer is that you can switch to a Mac with a safety net. In a sense, Apple started down this path when the Mini originally came out. It was designed as a compact device that could, amongst other things, be wedged in an existing Windows desktop arrangement, using existing input devices and displays. At a few hundred dollars, it's a low-risk proposition.
There's only one problem with this. What if you're mainly a laptop user? Suddenly you're stuck with the reality that you can't easily bring two laptops with you everywhere. But wait, these computer things are programmable. It turns out that this is ultimately a software problem. Let's simply enable our Intel-based Mac hardware to run Windows natively. It's so crazy (or obvious?), that it just might work.
Then there's the gamer type. This class of buyer has a natural aversion to spending $2500 on anything that can't run Half Life 2 really, really well. A dual-boot solution is a nearly perfect fix, or at least a workable one. Virtualization is, of course, the real fix. A lot of people think we'll see this in Leopard, which seems totally doable. The jury is still out on the state of Mac games after this move, but we'll see.
A More Subtle Effect
Everything practical aside, I love the "read between the lines" aspect of Boot Camp. That is, not only has Apple succeeded in making a fantastic platform of its own, but it also had enough gusto left in the bag at the end of the day to actually improve the experience of another OS.
Apple has made Windows itself easier to use. Even if your only real goal is just to run Windows, Apple's MacBook Pro still might be a better choice than another brand because the buying and setup experience tends to be so much better. Of course, we might be getting a little ahead of ourselves because Boot Camp is still an unsupported beta, but it is an option.
The situation is even more compelling for those giving a long, hard look at the quality of Final Cut, Motion, Aperture, iLife and such, and even the remarkable polish of independent, third party software like Delicious Monster and the Panic apps.
Second Look at Boot Camp Landscape
Posted Apr 15, 2006 — 8 comments below
Posted Apr 15, 2006 — 8 comments below
Joshua — Apr 16, 06 1106
kevin — Apr 21, 06 1117
How so? I would think that having to buy a retail version of Windows and then install it would be more onerous than a HP with Windows preinstalled.
Happy — Apr 22, 06 1118
I understand that Apple isn't interested, but this is an opportune moment to reintroduce Yellow Box development to permit properly coded Cocoa apps to run in Windows.
Why? I'd suggest that Apple needs more Mac developers. The increasing ease of running Windows on Mac boxes, either through dual-boot or virtualization, makes it easier for Windows programmers to ignore the Mac market, and easier for large multi-OS developers to let their Mac development stagnate (as long as Mac users can run their apps in Windows).
Pushing Cocoa cross-platform will sell programming tools, introduce more programmers to OS X, sell a few more Macs, and enable Mac programmers to get some sales to Windows boxes. It helps keep programmers in the Macosphere, helps them make more money, and introduces new programmers.
Scott Stevenson — Apr 22, 06 1119
Like who?
Look carefully and you can see a seismic shift among Mac game developers
This isn't exactly the meat of the market. In any case, it really doesn't affect Cocoa.
Pushing Cocoa cross-platform will sell programming tools, introduce more programmers to OS X, sell a few more Macs, and enable Mac programmers to get some sales to Windows boxes. It helps keep programmers in the Macosphere, helps them make more money, and introduces new programmers.
There's really nothing to suggest things would actually work out this way, and some history to suggest it wouldn't. I just don't think this makes sense.
Scott Stevenson — Apr 22, 06 1120
I suppose that's a fair point -- if the job is already done for you.
kevin — Apr 22, 06 1123
Can you elborate? The only thing I see is the dynamic partitioning. How else has Apple made Windows easier to use? Jack needs attention?
With regard to the "seismic shift" of game developers : I suspect that porting a game from intel to intel is notably different from porting from intel to powerpc.
I've noticed that Mac users care about their applications. Quick and dirty ports from Windows are generally shunned. Look at how many *nix command line programs are given a Mac front end that supports drag and drop. Good Mac applications are celebrated.
Look at the death of Classic on Intel Macs : most people don't seem to care. (I think it is tragic. Does anyone think that Basisilk will ever be rootless with drag & drop? Worse is that Apple could have ported Classic to work on Rosetta but chose not to) It is fascinating to look at the number of Classic apps I have replaced with Carbon or Cocoa apps. I can't think of any Classic apps that I use that doesn't have an carbon or Cocoa alternative avaliable.
Scott Stevenson — Apr 23, 06 1126
I think that was probably the right call. Supporting Classic indefinitely strikes me as a poor use of resources.
Paul — Apr 26, 06 1130