Apple Supporting Windows, All That's Left Are The Shiny Boxes
from the just-another-pc-maker dept
Ever since Apple's announcement that they would switch to Intel chips speculation has swirled over whether the computers could run Microsoft Windows. One group held a contest, offering $14,000 to whomever could get Windows to boot on one of the new Macs. Today, despite Steve Jobs' insistence that the company would never support Windows, Apple released software that guides users through the steps of loading Windows onto a Mac. So now that this is possible, who will this appeal to? Are there a lot of Mac users who secretly prefer the Windows OS? Or will Windows users, envious of Apple's slick boxes, finally make the switch? Probably it's some of both. Either way, it reinforces the idea that Apple is a design company, not a technology company. Like the rest of the economy, they outsource the guts and production of their products, while profiting from their expertise in style, usability, and branding.
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Finally
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Re: Finally
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Re: Finally
Most of the time when people say 'proprietary' I just pretend they said 'I don't understand this'.
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Not impressed.
Yes, I know that "similiarly configured Dell systems are about the same price", but those will drop drastically as Dual Core gets more popular. The same won't be true about the MacBook prices.
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The dark side...
Given the cost of doing it and the tiny Mac share of market, I think not.
Hey, Steve! I think you just shot yourself in the foot. And got mine, his and hers with the ricochet. And Martha says, this is not a good thing...
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Re: The dark side...
Apple has - and always will have a niche market among companies in the multimedia industry.
Its in the desktop market where apple has suffered.
Besides, once the OS is compatible with intel chips - it would be easier for Adobe to port its software across to the mac environment.
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Secret preferences
More likely, there are a lot of Mac users who not-so-secretly would like to run a software title that's not available on the Mac side. Game software comes to mind -- I would have been playing "City of Heroes" from the day it came out, but buying a separate Windows PC just so I can play a game is a hard sell to my wife.
Another potential market are people who work on Windows boxes at work but prefer Macs at home (again, I fall in this category). A dual-boot offers tempting work at home possibilities.
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Won't affect many people...
I'm more interested in actual virtualization being made available. Being able to run a Windows app side by side with a mac os x app will be key. No one that has used both will choose Windows (IMHO) except that some applications are only available on the MS platform.
Dual boot, I suspect, is a way to address that concern, i.e. I would love to use Mac OS X but I really need Windows to run X application.
In the end, dual boot might increase market share for Mac OS X because people will be able to say "I can always default back to Windows" and buy into it.
The idea that software developers will just say "Ah, the can run Windows and hence I don't need to support Mac OS X anymore" is interesting - but with the same underlying platform available now, that became much more manageable. I doubt that would be the case.
My 2 cents. :-)
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Re: Won't affect many people...
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Re: Won't affect many people...
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Running a virtual OS will always be a hack. It would easier to reboot into the other OS than to run some buggy virtual environment.
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Apple Still Does NOT Support Windows
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Re: Apple Still Does NOT Support Windows
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True, dual-booting isn't 'ideal' compared to virtualization, but I'll certainly take it in the interum!
And, yes, companies will still develop mac versions, because OS X is a better operating system because it doesn't support legacy hardware anymore. It's a modern OS. This won't kill Apple at all, but actually help them because people will use the Mac OS more than Windows, thus showing that perhaps mac versions need to be worked on more.
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Re: The only reason!
Frank P. LIVING IN THE WILDS OF THE APPLACIANS OF SOUTHWESTERN NY. MY NEXT WISH IS FOR SOMETHING GREATER THAN ISP DIAL UP OUT IN THE MOUNTANOUS WOODS OF THE WILDS. YOU CAN'T BELIEVE THE TIME I HAVE HAD IN ENJOYMENT THUS FAR. Your's ln faith, Steve Jobs, lead me to nirvanna!
Frank P.
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Re: The only reason!
Frank P. LIVING IN THE WILDS OF THE APPLACIANS OF SOUTHWESTERN NY. MY NEXT WISH IS FOR SOMETHING GREATER THAN ISP DIAL UP OUT IN THE MOUNTANOUS WOODS OF THE WILDS. YOU CAN'T BELIEVE THE TIME I HAVE HAD IN ENJOYMENT THUS FAR. Your's ln faith, Steve Jobs, lead me to nirvanna!
Frank P.
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Re:
Then you're not looking.. uh, at all. Checkpoint makes a Mac client, Cisco makes a Mac client, and there's always VPNTracker. Or the built-in OS X stuff, which works great. Even with Cryptocard or SecurID.
/me has set up several systems
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And the day I can run all my games in OS X will be the day that I have a new frisbee with the windows logo on it.
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Missing the point
1) Let Windows boot on the Mac. This will expose more people to the mac HW and increase sales. It will also allow more people to experience a Mac and possible switch.
This will first be a hit to Dell and HP. If I can buy a Mac and run OSX, Win, and Linux in style why would I buy a Dell box. So the first hit will be against the PC vendors. MS will actually benefit initially.
2) But the second part will impact MS. Now that more people will be buying Macs to triple boot, the more people will be exposed to the mac experience, the more converts Apple will get. Apple does not have to worry about losing people, they already have a core population supporting them.
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Re: Missing the point
for those who want a unix environment with all it's command line tools.... why reboot to linux when it's all there in OSX?
Get some OpenSource apis into the Aqua stuff and you'll start seeing opensource apps for apple.....
4) maybe Gnome and KDE will get left behind
or perhaps even be inspired to do a lot better.
-E
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Re: Missing the point
If Mac users can run software that they want that is currently PC only, they no longer have a need/reason to switch or buy a second machine. Think games and business software.
The number of PC users interested in switching to a Mac (at a higher cost) is going to be tiny. The average PC user thinks dual-boot means owning 2 pair of boots and Linux is that kid in the Peanuts comic strip.
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Re: Re: Missing the point
I just am absolutely certain it's wrong.
There is a LOT of 'buzz' among Windows users already about this and I'm getting calls today from even very non-technical clients considering new machines in the near future to ask why not buy a Mac?
Many Windows users already own Windows XP SP2 on CD and there will be a non-beta of Boot Camp coming that will work with an XP SP2 burned as an updated CD from the original. Or somebody will work around it and publish it.
If cost was the killing factor people who buy the Mac hardware are not going to be run off by the cost of buying XP SP2 on CD.
Also Mac isn't that much higher of a cost and will be far less so in coming months with cheaper machines.
And the factual bottom line - Mac is cheaper by far when you do even a rough estimate of time spent working vs. time spent fixing, supporting, reloading, patching.
The Mac software is a legitimate snag in the machinery though - be interesting to see what effect this has on it.
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Re: Re: Missing the point
also comments about a $4,500 system, that is only if you go on the high end. you can just as easliy spend that much on a high end PC with the MS tax.
Just for a point of reference, after 15years in PCs, and HATEING the original MAC SW I recently made the switch. and I'm not going back. OSX blows Windows away once you get use to it.
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Am I missing something huuuge here?
Mac + OSX + Windows = bah, just shiny boxes.. :P
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Viruses
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Re: Viruses
Viruses don't care about the hardware, they care about the OS (and occasionally the software). If you run WinXP on a Mac, you are facing the same WinXP viruses. If you run OSX on your Mac, you will have the majority of all viruses (all known to me as of this date) not affect you in the slightest.
From the Apple BootCamp site: (http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp
"Windows running on a Mac is like Windows running on a PC. That means it’ll be subject to the same attacks that plague the Windows world. So be sure to keep it updated with the latest Microsoft Windows security fixes."
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Not quite there...
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Huh ?
Created the original digital camera, first laser printer, firewire, ...
What koolade do you drink ?
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Re: Huh ?
>Created the original digital camera, first laser printer, firewire, ...
>What koolade do you drink ?
i don't drink koolade, i drink truth serum. Here's the truth:
Apple may have originally been a technology company, and was recently a design company.
Now that they are using the Intel CPUs, they are merely a *marketing* company. The only difference between Apple and Dell, Compaq/HP (and by extension, Ford, GM, Thomson, RCA) et. al. is that Apple is pretty damn good at it.
Watch 'em take a big slice of market share in the 24 months following ship date of these boxes.
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Re: Re: Huh ?
So switching CPUs make them a "marketing" company? You're clueless. Apple was never about the CPU, dumbshit.
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Re: Re: Re: Huh ?
>So switching CPUs make them a "marketing" company? You're clueless. Apple was never about the CPU, dumbshit.
-- until they decided to market the same shit as everyone else.
i'm clueless? Yeah, well maybe i'm clueless.
But you're blind. And there is none so blind as he who refuses to see.
You make me wish for a revival of the eugenics movement.
Cordially,
-- dan
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Huh ?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Huh ?
At least you're honest.
>-- until they decided to market the same shit as everyone else.
How do you figure? Apple's hardware, aside from having an Intel CPU, is hardly the same as a Dell notebook. As people have pointed out, there is no legacy BIOS.
>You make me wish for a revival of the eugenics movement.
Dumbshit. Racist too.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Huh ?
No, i'm not a racist. i don't know your race, nor do i care.
i'm simply predjudiced against stupid people. And i do know you're stupid.
-- dan
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Re: Huh ?
First digital camera: Kodak (or Sony for the first marketed 'filmless' camera)
First laser printer: Xerox (Or IBM for the first commercial one).
However, Firewire you can have.
Apple may be the word on every fashion conscious person's lips nowadays, but they re-invented themselves as a design company and there is no going back.
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Re: Huh ?
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Re: Huh ?
Looking at this staement we have yet another fine example of the American educational system, next h'll say that allpe invented the GUI, say that they invented the firest transistor while you're at it....
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new hardware
instead of vmware, wine, etc, just alt-tab to the other OS running in the background. user friendly by late 2007.
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Pigs are flying and I think Hell just froze over.
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Uh...
Having to buy an Apple AND a copy of XP? What, I'm made of money?
Only person this would help is Bill Gates. More computers to have his OS on.
In My situation, i would buy an apple for just Apple Programs; Final Cut Pro, iDVD, QuickTime Support when exporting to video in Flash.
Now if Windows could export QuickTime Video In Flash, I would definitely reconsider.
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Yes it IS a big deal...
Sounds like a few of the Mac crowd are worried there will evetually be nobody left for them to pretend they are superior to. "Gosh, they're letting 'those people' into the
club now?" Waah.
I've been using and supporting Windows as an admin for many years but started out on a Mac, and this news is HUGE. I ordered a new Mac Book Pro today and three others in my office did too.
We'd all rather use an OS that works instead of working for an OS. Period. No contest.
Those forced to use Microsoft garbage will spend more and more time in OS X now that they have an easy, practical choice and this WILL 'trickle down' sooner than later.
Common sense: buy a Windows-only machine or get a Mac and have the choice?
Having a choice is always a big deal. But this is huge.
Wait and see.
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Not a good gaming machine? Are you nuts?
WTF? have you read the specs on the laptops alone? They benchmark WINDOWS XP faster than the Windows Intel machines do.
http://gearlog.com/blogs/gearlog/archive/2006/03/21/8212.aspx
I am running numerous games on a Mac Book Pro - with it's 7200 RPM 120 GB drive and 256 MB graphics. They scream on it - much faster than the other two laptops I have running Windows.
The Mac desktops are just as capable of gaming as any others - you have no clue what you're talking about.
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Wrong WRONG WRONG!!!
WRONG! You have it EXACTLY BACKWARDS!
No one I know is STUPID enough to pay $4500 for a box to run WINDOWS ON.
I can get a faster stronger box from any number of companies for half the price and if I'm a geek (proudly thanks) I can build one even better for even less.
A sweet design will NOT insure sales, reliability and security insures sales.
You want to make REAL money? Make OSX run on ALL Intel hardware, Give MS some REAL competition, you'll only be helping them in the long run, a REAL competitor will let them avoid all the monopoly and anti trust charges.
And I think it's OBVIOUS by now to everyone that there's one heck of allot more money in software than hardware.
Why would Apple want to become Dell? Don't become Dell, become Microsoft!
Put that AMAZING Apple capability for Cool Useful intuitive design into the OS, make it run on EVERYTHING & RULE the WORLD bwhaaaaa!
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Dear Coward,
Thanks for enlightening us - whew! Thank god you spotted our huge error.
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Steve Jobs, {umm, ya, right}
I rarely bother to post here, this is my 3rd ever and the Dell laptop guy wasn't me So your little attempt at an ad hominem attack just makes you look dumb...
The point is that the size of PC industry has turned hardware into the cheapest commodity possible. I used to work for a company that sold PC's to business, we don't sell hardware anymore as there is NO money left in it. Software? Ya we sell plenty of that, Support? You bet! Hardware? No.
The cheap clients go to Office Max and buy boxes with XP, a 15in LCD AND printer for $350 after rebate and pay us to install the extra ram they want and still come out cheaper than an equivalent Apple machine could EVER cost. The rest of em buy the same package from Dell.
In either case, Microsoft gets it's $$ and could care less...
Why Apple would want to get into a business where 4% is considered a good profit margin is beyond me. There have been enough failed PC "manufacturers" (I am using that term loosely as most of them are just assemblers) that the lesson should be OBVIOUS to even the most insulated executives. Many of those failed companies made Cool customized PC's and STILL fell prey to the ever shrinking margins.
I stand by my assertion that I think they will make a good deal more by making OSX the new replacement for XP.
I happen to have 2 PC's and a Mac under my desk and I would gladly run OSX on all 3.
I have MANY customers that COULD use linux but don't have the confidence to make it their desktop OS.
OSX on the other hand is from a "large well established company" and would give them all the confidence they need.
The window of opportunity is open, Vista has been delayed till '07.
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Graphic Arts
It's not a bad thing to me. I really don't care either way though, since I have turned strictly to Linux for my personal use(I do my gaming on consoles). The only thing that comes close to making me care is that if I can pitch the idea well enough to dual boot intel-macs, there may be a bonus in it for me. Woo Hoo.
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where are these numbers coming from
Take a look at what the markets think- AAPL is up 9.5% today.
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Many TechDirt Commenters Missed the Point....
If you learn on a Mac in school currently, you have to re-learn (unlearn?) when you get into the business world and enter the world of Windows. This move is so you can bring your tools that you know and trust with you into that fray and still be able to run the work environment stuff. It also shuts up the school boards and the PTA groups from whining about money spent from the school's budget on Macs because "no one uses them".
This is a very good move for Apple, and this is in no way a bad thing for Microsoft (more copies of Windows sold to Mac users, etc). This IS a wakeup call for hardware manufacturers to a) make better hardware, b) release stable drivers that work and continue to support them after it leaves the design floor, and c) innovate. Ditching antiquated BIOS technology alone is a fantastic move. I'm sure there will be more.
Now… OS X retrofit to work on hardware that is slapped together in bizarre configurations in an environment which can’t be predicted or controlled, let alone “normalized”? It will never happen, and it should never happen. But that’s a completely separate lesson.
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Virtualization and gaming
1. Only the iMac, Mini, and MacBook pro currently have Intel CPUs and would be able to run Windows XP natively.
2. None of those machines have display adapters suitable for what most people call "gaming" under Windows.
3. You can currently use Virtual PC for the Mac to run a Windows XP-based virtual PC session on a Mac. This should be more than enough to allow you to support your business applications. Granted, it's not as clean as it could be (having to boot a Virtual Machine image first), but it's not bad.
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Video Conferencing
Incidentally, I don't regret purchasing the Mac one bit. It's stability, speed, included software and the operating system is fantastic. I'm glad I didn't buy another PC.
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Maybe...
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new computer.
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now if i can just convince my wife
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Vista release
Because Vista has been built from the ground up, with a new kernel, it is a new OS. Not a new version of "Crapdows". The similarities that I have seen so far with OSX's fancy visual features are unmistakeable.
Will Apple have to start over when they get their hands on the final release of Vista?
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Re: Vista release
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I have a Powermac and a home-built Athlon. Lan parties are one of the things that I do for socialization, and the Mac just doesn't cut it for that...
However, an Intel based mac that can run XP means that I can ditch the Wintendo, and have a single machine that I can afford to keep more up to date. This will save me lots of money.
Have you ever used Photoshop on Windows? It sucks. After I've gotten used to not having "Application Windows" that all of my documents _must_ remain in on OSX, I'm not going back. Window's interface is a hacked up kludge that's still partially based on the Windows 3.1 windowing model, which is pathetic. Athough it took me some time to get used to OSX's interface, I'm now more productive on OSX than Windows, and not by a small amount. The kicker is that my Mac is lots slower than my Athlon.
Much of this is due to how much easier it is to multi-task on OSX. When I work doing web design, I generally have 10 or more applications open. Switching between the windows simply doesn't scale very well on Windows.
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Next Step
Imagine a free 30 day trial of OS X, to try it out. How many NEW people will get hooked? It should have a one click install, with simple dual boot instructions - it would capture an easy 10-20% of Windows market share within months...
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I've used Windows since version 2, and DOS before that. I got my first Unix account in 1990. I've used Linux since 1997.
My first memory of a Mac was being shown one and asking "Where's the command line?" When I was told that there wasn't one, I lost all interest in them.
So to rephrase: I know Windows. I maintain networks of Windows machine at work. I have Windows machines at home. I don't really like Windows very much at all. It's terribly proprietary, and closed. It's got some completely obnoxious behaviors by default, and some that require hacking out (I don't use MSN messenger, I don't want it on the machine, I don't want it running or restarting itself when I terminate the process). Every version of Windows seems to want to do less of what I want the machine to do and foist more crap on it that I don't want. Vista seems to be going even farther in this direction.
OSX is 70% open code. I can actually download that much of the OSes source code for free. I can edit the config files using a text editor. I can add languages to exixting proprietary programs by translating a few files and making a new directory. I can edit the icons used by a program.
In short, I can do pretty much anything I want to to the OS that I want to do. I am not being protected from myself or kept from hacking my own machine. I can replace the existing command line utilities or even change the boot loader screens. Regardless of how much Apple is seen as being proprietary, their OS (NeXTStep's successor) is very very open. Of the OSes I've used, only Linux or FreeBSD are more open.
Unlike FreeBSD, which I used for many things (dual-booted with Windows), OSX also has commercial software support. And the programs seem to be more user efficient (few actions needed to get something done) than software for other OSes I've used.
The point is that if Apple decides to use Windows anything for the "Mac Experience" then they'll lose everything that caused me to switch in the first place. Many of us feel this way.
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haHA
Mac + OSX = omg so cool, yipee! great, omg omg!
Mac + OSX + Windows = bah, just shiny boxes.. :P]
Look Billy, a zealot....
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Win for evil work, MacOS for everything else ...
The ONLY reason this is a good thing - and I am sure this has already been said countless times by the true Mac-heads - is that the dual-boot option will finally allow me to only have to carry one laptop :-D
There simply is no other value for Windows on Apple HW.
Hopefully a side effect here will be that PC HW vendors (read Dell) will step-up and stop delivering absolute crap HW (both looks and performance).
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Impression Threshold
- Hurk
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Since that's what I really want. A tower that will take a newer CPU (minis and iMacs are CPU upgradable), and a standard video card (I thinking 7900 GT or so).
Then I can have the ultra-fas Mac and Gaming rig all in one.
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Would there be a chance of a "cross contamination"?
I realise Windows apps don't run on OSX, but hackers and virus writers tend to be a very creative bunch, I am sure that it would not take much to tweak the code of a Windows virus so it can run on both platforms.
So, infiltrate the machine through a Windows vulnerability, infect the hard drive, then attack the Mac locally. Does that seem plausible?
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OS_X_86
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ñaca, ñaca, truka
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This is a great move for Apple. Are you too poor to afford Apple's price premium. Is that it?
>You make me wish for a revival of the eugenics movement.
>No, i'm not a racist.
Now you're making me call you a liar. And what's with "You're dumb. No, YOU'RE dumb" ... J.H.C, these things degenerate fast. Farewell, it's been fun.
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Within all the articles i read on Techdirt, by FAAAR, the articles about Macs are the ones with more idiotic ramblings per comment i ever seen.
1.
>So switching CPUs make them a "marketing" company? You're clueless. Apple was never about the CPU, dumbshit.
-- until they decided to market the same shit as everyone else.
When the hell Apple was all that about the CPU ? Next you're going to tell me that it was Apple who designed and manufactured the PowerPC ? IBM and Motorola ( mostly IBM with the POWER microprocessor ) did all the hard work, Apple just contributed ( for their one use ) with the OS - and even worse ... they failed! the initial OS created for the AIM alliance fallen in flames worst than the . The main revenue source for IBM with the PowerPC was the mainframe market and embedded market anyways!
Apple developed the first digital camera ? WTF ? The first laser printed OMG
> How do you figure? Apple's hardware, aside from having an Intel CPU, is hardly the same as a Dell notebook. As people have pointed out, there is no legacy BIOS.
OK it _MIGHT_ be not that similar architectural wise ( not thaaat much different but whatever ), but it isn't just because it doesnt use BIOS ffs, the x86 platform CAN USE EFI ( if it didn't, Mac OS X wouldn't boot with EFI anyway ), the only reason a Dell computer doesnt use EFI is because WINDOWS doesn't use it and at least, till date, most Dell costumers are Windows users! U can easily find various bootloaders for Linux f ex that boot EFI.
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Macs & Stuff...
Now the part where I get jumped on and beaten senseless by all the Mac fanboys.
Macs are cute and all with their pretty designs and nice programs for pretty graphics, animation, music and an extremely secure OS, but the fact is, that they can't run jack compared to a PC. Another big deal is that I can build my own pc for $1000 or less that will eat any Mac on the market for breakfast and if you even try to argue with that about how powerful macs are, you're a complete freaking moron.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending microsoft. Windows annoys the hell out of me, Vista is going to be HORRIBLE from what I've seen so far and I love the way OSX runs and "feels". So the REAL story is long before this when a few hackers got OSX running on a normal non-proprietary PC, that doesn't cost ungodly amounts of cash. And guess what? It runs FASTER! Obviously if Steve Jobs had any sense at all he would concentrate on OSX for a normal PC (without all the hacking) and worry about the Mac's themselves secondly. He'd make a whole lot more money and get a lot more people interested in Macs. And wow...I could actually run the high end games that I want to play and still use OSX, without spending an arm and a leg.
I nearly died laughing when I read about the framerates on the Mac version of UT2004. They were around 30-40 FPS for even the HIGH end power macs! My PC is only a mid range one with a geforce 6600, and I can get over double that framerate. It's all so very sad.
Anyways...yeah. I'd love OSX to run on my PC alongside Windows XP SP2, but apparently, Stevie boy hasn't figured out what a good idea it is yet. But if I didn't have a PC, I would NEVER buy a Mac to run windows on...it just doesn't make sense.
*waiting for the flaming to begin*
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Honestly?
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Mac and Windows?
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Steve Jobs: Flip-Flopper extraordinaire
Then: "PowerPC is better than that stupid Intel crap."
Now: "Mac OSuX is 30% faster on that Intel crap!"
Then: "We will never support Windows."
Now: "Here's some software to help you use Windows on our products!"
Then: "Mac OSuX is the best."
Now: "Mac OSuX is the most inconsistent OS that ever came to market! You can't even resize a window from all four corners! It can only run on one type of hardware, ours! You should be using Windows XP!"
See what I mean?
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