The Week in Review: Boot Camp, Boot Camp, Boot Camp

by Meiera Stern Apr 10, 2006

The blogosphere couldn’t agree whether Boot Camp signaled the apocalypse, as Newsweek’s Steven Levy claimed, “It’s like Pepsi in a Coke bottle, DeLay as a Democrat, Johnny Damon in a Yankee uniform (oops, forget that last one).”

Or whether it is merely a gimmick, as Charles Cooper, Executive Editor of CNET quipped. “When America’s doughboys returned from World War I, the question was how they’d ever remain on the farm after seeing Paris. When Windows users get a gander of the Mac, how many will remain loyal to Ctrl-Alt-Delete?”

Our staff also had a lot to say about this latest move by Apple.

Chris Seibold thought that Apple was making a huge mistake, “Instead of the Mac software eco system getting more robust with the move, it has been invaded by a destructive, noxious weed that will stifle growth.”

Devanshu Mehta pointed out that perhaps this was all just a PR move, as it was already possible to boot XP on your MacIntel. And he took us inside Boot Camp for a closer look.

Hadley Stern dug in his heels and asked us all to take a pledge not to tarnish our Macs by booting Windows.

Our reader, Paul seemed to agree with my suggestion
that there was something Matrix like about the ability to boot Windows on Mac. “Matrix Quote: “The pill you took is part of a trace program. It’s designed to disrupt your input/output carrier signal so we can pinpoint your location.” (Morpheus)
Translation: Any switch to the Mac after a life of being enslaved to Windows will be disruptive. But you will be free.”

Greg Ng said, “As a Mac user, these can be some exciting and depressing times. Intel inside Macs? Unthinkable! Windows booting on Macs? The horror! As I heard the news yesterday I felt like I was witnessing the end of a war. Like we were seeing Steve Jobs taking a sledge hammer to the Berlin Wall and hordes of East Windowans were lining up to jump across. I felt like David Hasselhoff stirring up the crowd to the masses as I IM’d all my friends with 4 simple words, “What’s your excuse now?”

Chris Howard proclaimed, “We’ve lost the PPC, the one button mouse, and now we get Windows. All in less than a year. Plus throw in a couple of security scares and, really, you’re right, what is left to hang our hat on?? Can it get any colder in Hell? We’re really going to have to start clutching at straws. The “i” prefix? White plastic? OSes named after big cats?”

And Julie Salickram took her earbuds out of her ears to beam, “I truly feel, as someone tied to
PCs for so long, that it makes a Mac all the more enticing now.”

Comments

  • 4 ever-lovin’ stories about Boot Camp on the front page right now, which pushed off the OTHER stories about Boot Camp from yesterday.

    Please let’s talk about something else.

    In the meantime, here’s my summation of the reaction:

    “THIS will finally be the product that increases the Mac’s marketshare.  Sure we said the same thing about the original iMac, the Cube, DOS boards, OS X, the iPod halo effect, and the Mac Mini.  But by-gum, this time we MEAN IT!”

    Beeblebrox had this to say on Apr 10, 2006 Posts: 2220
  • There’s a product created by Apple, which can increase Mac’s marketshare. Yes, it’s an existing product… Yes, it’s what “everyone” is afraid of…
    Yes, it’s Mac OS X for “little Dell boxes”. Seriously, there’s no other way Apple can do anything about 90-something % marketshare Windows has. Of course, they’ll try “Windows on Macs” plan first (with virtualisation, of course). But if it doesn’t work (and, of course, it won’t) they will release their precious OS for PCs. How about a simple plan?
    1. “Mac OS X for PC” beta magically appears in P2P networks.
    2. Mr. Jobs “gets angry” and promises to find everyone who installs it and make 100$ iPod leather cases of their skin.
    3. Mr. Jobs admits that too many people are using Mac OS X on their PCs, so he cannot find them all. Who would buy all those cases anyway?
    4. Mac OS X is sold all over the world for just 99$. (99 Euros in Europe - it’s a tradition!)

    “We did all we could to stop it”, says Jobs, “but people really needed a good OS so they didn’t care”.

    Hey, it can even happen before Vista is out! Sounds scary, right?

    Frosty Grin had this to say on Apr 10, 2006 Posts: 33
  • Scary?  It’s what I’ve been waiting for!

    Beeblebrox had this to say on Apr 10, 2006 Posts: 2220
  • Part of me says, “Yes! Make OS X available to everyone!” but another part of me says, “But, then why would Apple continue making Macs. And if they did, why would anyone buy them other than for looks and the supposed ‘it just works’ factor?”

    BootCamp is interesting. I also want to believe I understand its true uses… But I am a pessimist, tried and true, and I really feel BootCamp is going to cause more problems than it will solve. Personally, I won’t be using it at all as I have NO need to.

    My biggest fear is that it will discourage software porting; but, I’d rather go pay for Mac software than pay for Windows and Windows software.

    Waa had this to say on Apr 11, 2006 Posts: 110
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