Today Apple announced a small but massively important beta application called “Boot Camp” — a masterstroke which may just explode the userbase for Apple’s computers. The software lets new Intel-based Macs (AKA “MacIntel”) install Windows. Let me repeat that: Mac now does Windows… natively. Last week, a couple of hackers won fame (and $12,000) for coming up with their own solution, which involved owning an actual PC, burning a custom Windows install disk, using three rolls of duct tape, two cases of “Orange Shasta” plus a sacrifice of a small marsupial to the angry “B’lgateus” demon.
Running Windows on Macs something that has been tried before in various ways, but never satisfactorily. A decade ago, Apple released a kludgy option of having a “DOS compatibility card” installed inside first generation PowerMacs. It was basically an 486-era computer-on-a-card, stuck inside a Mac; it had its own processor, memory and video output, but its price was comparable to buying an entirely new PC. Suffice it to say, it wasn’t the most popular of add-ons. It was eventually replaced with a “PC Compatibility Card” using a PCI interface, with a 100Mhz Pentium which could be installed in nearly all pre-OS X PowerMacs. And there have been number “emulators” which ran Windows in a software environment– the most famous being VirtualPC, which was bought out by Microsoft a couple of years ago, who brought out updates through the G5 processor line. Since Apple switched to Intel chips, the Microsofties have been silent as to the future of the product, but it’s unlikely now that VirtualPC for Intel Macs will ever happen.
Followup coverage: different views on the same process
* “You need to download the Boot Camp software and step through an installation process that will be daunting to non-expert users. At one point, if you accidentally make the wrong selection, you can erase the Mac operating system from your computer.” (Macs running Windows won’t shift balance, Mike Landberg, Mercury News.)
* “Aside from the C: drive caution, it’s almost impossible to make a mistake if you pay attention to Boot Camp’s onscreen instructions. As I write this brief report, the iMac functions flawlessly in either Mac OS X or Windows mode.” (I Install Windows XP on a MacIntel, Gene Steinberg, MacNightOwl.com.)
Because you’ve said that I’m the only one who ever comments, now I feel bound to comment. But the problem is that the news in this post is–well, let’s just say, not as thrilling to me as it is to you. I’m not even sure I understood it. But I did enjoy the last sentence in the first paragraph. So that’s something…