Twelve Black Code Monkeys

Apple’s 30th birthday came and went Saturday without a word from the company on any new products. No shiny new deluxe Video iPod, no 30th Anniversary Mac. Late last night, though, Apple unveiled a new software product that will allow their new Intel-based Macs to boot Windows:

Quoting from Engadget:

I think this is a great step forward. Finally, one of the big players, Apple, is allowing their machines to run both OS’s. Then again, MS doesn’t make machines themselves so they weren’t exactly preventing this. In a sense, the ball was really mostly in Apple’s court all along. And there were ways to run Windows in a slow emulator mode, but now that Macs come with the same Intel-based CPU’s that have been running Windows all along, it was that much easier to get this to work. And hackers did get it done. Thankfully, instead of being obnoxious and trying to sue or putting up more technical roadblocks, Apple wisely saw that potential users still needed Windows for some applications which are not available for the Mac.

Personally, this makes me a lot more likely to buy a Mac as my next computer. I have been using Windows now for about 15 years, and am completely comfortable with it, but much of what I do with my home system now could just as easily be done in OSX. Having the added protection from a better security model that guards against viruses and zombifying and such is a big plus. Oh, and of course some of the applications on the Mac I’ve heard about also appeal (Final Cut Pro and iLife come to mind). But there are still applications that only exist for the PC which I need - specifically ones I use for programming. So until now, I couldn’t go completely Mac without having a second computer with XP on it.

There are a couple of downsides though. One is that you can only run one OS at a time. This is expected, of course, but wouldn’t it be great to plug in two monitors and have one running XP and the other OS/X off of one system? If it were even possible, it would probably be sluggish even on a pretty high-performance machine. A more realistic downside is the price. Apple’s systems generally have come at a premium due, no doubt, to lack of competing forces as with PC’s. Apple is the only company making Mac hardware. Some argue that you get what you pay for and the quality of Macs isworth the extra money. Yet, there have been hardware problems with Macs that even I have heard of (not being someone who keeps up with the Mac world), and while I’ve had my share of problems with home-built PC systems, some systems I’ve bought, say from Dell, have lasted many years without problems. I know others who have had constant problems, so most of this is anecdotal I realize. I’m not that concerned either that my computer having to look stylish. I just want it to work well and not to have to spend a small fortune on it. This summer, my Dell laptop, which serves as my main (only) computer, will turn 3 years old. It got a slight upgrade a few months back when I added a gig of memory, but typically three years is about the longest I’ve gone before upgrading over the years. With a new child, though, that may have to stretch a bit longer, and as much as I might love to get a new Intel Mac, I fear that I really couldn’t justify the difference in price at this point now that my money goes to feed more than just my own mouth. Maybe I’ll just have to settle for getting a bare bones Mac Mini? Then again, in another year, both that Mac Mini as well as my 2Ghz plain P4 laptop will be even more noticably sluggish as I continue to challenge them with more video and photo editing tasts, video encoding, etc.p>

In any case, for many of you out there, I think this may become a turning point where people no longer have to pick and choose wich platform to use. They can have both Mac and Windows. With MS delaying Vista even longer, this becomes that much more tempting for those getting frustrated with Windows’ security issues or those simply being curious to try out the Mac. Now all Apple has to do is allow their OS to run on non-Apple hardware. This would allow people to buy much cheaper machines and I think could only increase Apple’s market share. Then again, Apple is constantly saying that it is a hardware company first and foremost. Perhaps, though, with their foray into media with the iTunes Music Store, their collaboration with Disney and other media players to bring digital video to the masses, etc., they will see that they aren’t mainly a hardware company, but a company that has many facets - an OS company, a hardware company, a software company, a media company, etc. I doubt this will happen any time soon, but part of me feels like Apple’s need to control the hardware end of it is a confession from them that they can’t produce hardware that competes in terms of value. Instead they need to artificially limit competition so that consumers only have one choice. Oh well, at least they are now giving people the choice of what OS to run on their Macs!