itssamuel.com is the home of Samuel Cotterall, a web designer & developer from the north west of England.

Bootcamp.

So, after all that hype around the first person to boot Windows XP on an Intel Mac, I was shocked to see that Apple themselves have released an application, Bootcamp, which allows an easier, less “hacky” way of doing it.

I don’t know a lot about it, and I don’t own a Mac never mind an Intel based Mac, so I haven’t tried it, and it’s way to early for any real evaluation, but I can offer you some really nice photographs taken by some guy who just ran it on his Apple MacBook Pro. You can see speedye’s photos here (Thanks to Digg).

It’s currently in beta, but it’s available to download right now if anyone else (with the right hardware and a legit copy of Windows XP) wants to give it a go, but will be bundled with the next release of Apple’s OSX. So really do check it out.

Some Thoughts and a Kick in the Balls for Samuel.

What’s annoying is that I bought a ThinkPad last December on the grounds that I sometimes have to deal with Windows applications at uni - which is the same reason I moved back to Windows from Linux. You know, now I think “Hang on, I’m doing a web system development degree, surely I can do this on any platform - after all that’s the idea of web standards…” but the course handbook clearly states that I need a PC that runs at least Windows 2000 and I didn’t want to end up with this great Apple computer and all my class mates mocking me because I still have to go into uni to use the Windows machines.

I could have waited a few months until the Intel based iBook comes out, but no. Stupid me.

But Why?

I fail to see any other reason why anyone would want to dual boot both Windows XP with Apple’s beautiful “made for Mac” OSX.

In my experience people I know or know of switch for one reason: they hate Windows. Well, should I say they hate what comes with Windows: spyware, virii, poor and often expensive third party applications. They don’t buy a Mac because it looks good (although I guess that does have some persuasive effect) - they buy it for the operating system. Yes, Apple is a hardware company, but what would it be without it’s operating system? Put it this way, if I could legally run OSX on my ThinkPad, I would have done it yesterday - and probably not bother saving for a Mac.

But I can’t see many people being so attached to Microsoft Windows that they have to go to these lengths. I honestly can’t think of a Windows only application that I either rely on so much that I couldn’t do without or can’t get something that does the same job for OSX. And yeah, I own some expensive software that would be essentially useless - but what sort of person buys a Mac? Yes, the sort of person who has a specific task to do: graphic designers, music/video producers, photographers, etc …are these people going to buy themselves a MacBook Pro and boot into Windows to run Photoshop? No, they aren’t.

Sidenote: I’m sorry if this is a bit incoherent: I have really bad ear ache…

The End of OSX. I Think Not.

It seems that a lot of people are concerned about OSX being ditched in favour of a Microsoft OS. I know John C. Dvorak wrote a piece on this some months ago and I shrugged it off as nonsense. Today I suddenly thought to myself “Oh shit! It’s happening”. Just now I figured “No, wait, it’s not”. And this is why…

Firstly, yes, there would be an obvious financial advantage: it would get Apple hardware on more desks if people know they are going to be able to turn it on and run Windows applications. I’m not blind to the advantages, and in an ideal world all my software would work on all my computers, but it’s not a perfect world…

If I had a Mac (I have a wishlist, btw) I’d buy all the applications I needed: some graphics/photo software, some decent office application, and I’d install them. That’s all I’d want installed on my computer: the stuff I need/want. With the average Windows based computer you have all the stuff you need/want (provided it’s made for Windows), all that third party stuff you hate having but need (burning software, FTP apps, Zip apps, etc) and then the bitch, the main reason I don’t ever think Apple hardware will come with Microsoft software: fucking malware.

Who is going to pay Apple sort of money for something that is just as susceptible to this as a Dell or Lenovo which costs half the price?

Then just think about what they have done today. Would Apple have released Bootcamp if they intended to merge the two operating systems? I don’t know what the rest of you think, but I figured that Steve Jobs was thinking “Hey, these people are cracking XP onto these machines because they need to run some Windows apps… Let’s help them a little.” - You just wouldn’t bother. Instead you would have your Bootcamp workforce franticly working on the MS/Mac operating system. With the press release behind Bootcamp, it says to me “This is what we are offering you. If you need Windows apps you have that option. Buy our computers…”

And my third and final point is that I don’t think Apple geeks would buy into it. They kicked up enough fuss when the Powerbook name was dropped, or the Mighty Mouse was released. Know what I mean.

All I know is that if I hadn’t rushed out and bought this thing, I’d be half way through the Bootcamp setup right now…

Tags: Apple, Mac, Bootcamp, “Boot Camp”, Boot Camp, Microsoft, Windows