macnews.net.tc
2005-06-11
Windows on future Macs, cool?
One really interesting point of an intel/Mac will be the (possible) ability to dual-boot Windows and Mac OS X on those machines. With the PowerPC, we had to persuade people to move to the Mac and basically leave Windows (and the apps they've already paid for) behind - or to buy VPC, which for people who were actually working with Windows apps, was probably too slow (and for the G5 didn't arrive for quite some time!).
This is going to change with the intel/Macs. Windows people can then buy a Mac as their next computer (They WILL look nice, right? That was never the problem.), and if they really don't get infected with the one existing Mac virus (i.e. the "illness" of becoming a Mac user), they can always just use Windows on the machine. Phil Schiller has said they wouldn't prevent or support installing Windows on the intel/Macs, which means it'll work, since Apple will be using intel chips, BIOS and PC standard graphics cards etc.
But even better yet: You'll probably be able to use VirtualPC by Microsoft at a decent speed (because no processor-emulation is needed) or some other kind of virtual machine software. The nicest thing, of course, would be if Microsoft would finally deliver on what was once rumoured for VPC when it still belonged to Connectix: That Windows apps would open without a root window, i.e. they'd look a bit like Classic applications, using a different UI but in the background, they'd be using the same Desktop etc. (Don't fear, security-aware users, you could still decide _not_ to install VPC or to use it in its own biotop...) Microsoft would probably like that and hate that at the same time, since for one thing, they'd sell a Windows license with every copy of VPC (well, the non-pirated ones, anyway) and probably some other software licenses, too. The negative point for them, of course, is that once people are actually "switching" to those intel/Macs, safely because they can still use Windows and its apps, they're halfway there and do get used to software that actually works and certainly looks better.
On the other hand, there's the fear that if Windows apps work too well on Mac OS X, developers could say: "Just buy the Windows version, it runs fine, we don't need to build a special Mac version..." And knowing that even Adobe tends to like cutting development hours, it's not completely unthinkable that they would urge us to buy Adobe CSwhatever Suite as the Windows version with this exact argument.
But I think the positives outweigh the negatives here. And we'll tell Adobe and others *not* to do the bad step early enough, won't we. - posted by Patrick Armbruster @ 03:46 [article link]
This is going to change with the intel/Macs. Windows people can then buy a Mac as their next computer (They WILL look nice, right? That was never the problem.), and if they really don't get infected with the one existing Mac virus (i.e. the "illness" of becoming a Mac user), they can always just use Windows on the machine. Phil Schiller has said they wouldn't prevent or support installing Windows on the intel/Macs, which means it'll work, since Apple will be using intel chips, BIOS and PC standard graphics cards etc.
But even better yet: You'll probably be able to use VirtualPC by Microsoft at a decent speed (because no processor-emulation is needed) or some other kind of virtual machine software. The nicest thing, of course, would be if Microsoft would finally deliver on what was once rumoured for VPC when it still belonged to Connectix: That Windows apps would open without a root window, i.e. they'd look a bit like Classic applications, using a different UI but in the background, they'd be using the same Desktop etc. (Don't fear, security-aware users, you could still decide _not_ to install VPC or to use it in its own biotop...) Microsoft would probably like that and hate that at the same time, since for one thing, they'd sell a Windows license with every copy of VPC (well, the non-pirated ones, anyway) and probably some other software licenses, too. The negative point for them, of course, is that once people are actually "switching" to those intel/Macs, safely because they can still use Windows and its apps, they're halfway there and do get used to software that actually works and certainly looks better.
On the other hand, there's the fear that if Windows apps work too well on Mac OS X, developers could say: "Just buy the Windows version, it runs fine, we don't need to build a special Mac version..." And knowing that even Adobe tends to like cutting development hours, it's not completely unthinkable that they would urge us to buy Adobe CSwhatever Suite as the Windows version with this exact argument.
But I think the positives outweigh the negatives here. And we'll tell Adobe and others *not* to do the bad step early enough, won't we. - posted by Patrick Armbruster @ 03:46 [article link]
