Boot Camp

This is a long overdue blog about Apple's latest added feature to their Intel based computers called Boot Camp. I know that my blogs have been very sporadic lately, but every since Annel got her new job she comes home around 6:00 pm now which leaves me very little dedicated computer time.

Let me first say congratulations to the Kruddler. He had the foresight to predict that his recent MacBook Pro purchase would yield such wonderful features such as dual booting OS X and Windows, as well as using virtualization software to run Windows inside of OS X.

I think it's interesting that Apple first said they wouldn't prevent hackers from dual booting XP on their new Intel based systems, but I think it's even more amazing that they are now providing their own official solution. You can bet there was some heated arguments at Apple's executive level to decide if this was a good idea or not.

Personally I think its a great idea. You can play games (#1 reason to still have a PC) in XP, then boot back to OS X for everything else. You can even run Windows on top of OS X using virtualization tools such as Parallels Desktop for Mac for those less demandning Windows apps. Apple has hinted that the next version of OS X, Leopard is going to introduce some even more native virtualization tools.

The argument against doing such a thing would be the fear that software developers would eventually stop writing software for the Mac platform thinking that Mac users can just dual boot Windows if they need to run their software. I don't think this will happen. The Mac developers are a dedicated bunch, they have been working on ports and exclusive Mac software for years now, knowing full well what the Mac market share is. Why would they stop now?

On the humor side of things, Joy of Tech has relased quite a few comics of Boot Camp, here, here and here.