| Tuesday, April 18, 2006 |
15:06 - Battle of the Deprogrammers
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So the Windows people think Boot Camp is going to cause Mac users to be "deprogrammed" and switch to Windows (or else they abjectly fail to understand what Boot Camp is, and then write clueless bash pieces sight unseen); and on the other side of the fence, the Mac pundits think Boot camp is going to both establish OS X as the premier PC operating system, and lead to a new era of trouble-free Windows computing).
At least, that's what Cringely says, and to me this article reads like a bit of a backpedal from his previous entry in which he sagely claimed that Apple would start selling Windows. It's a backpedal, to me, in the sense that I think he's justifying his position as best he can, while hedging with reasons that might make it possibly make sense. Even when it doesn't.
Sure, the benefits he points out are concrete, provided a true virtualization solution for Windows under OS X is fast enough and usable enough that the people who would like to live under a reimage-Windows-every-night administration scheme can tolerate the tedium of it all. (This isn't a small concern. Seasoned computer users all have their deeply-entrenched usage habits, and even a single extra minor step in their routines can become maddening, which is why everyone was so relieved to see their last Classic apps go away. Windows apps that would be run within a Windows virtualization window within OS X, where Windows would have to launch on demand like Classic, would inescapably be less seamless than a fully booted-into-Windows experience, and unless they only use Windows for the occasional little utility, people are going to be pushed one way or the other—into OS X full-time or Windows full-time. This will especially be true of gamers.)
But my personal feeling remains that driving Windows-related features is not Apple's top priority in Leopard. Just because they're on Intel now doesn't mean the architecture shift can be read as a preparation for such a drastic shift in the business model. I still think that considering the minimal engineering investment that Boot Camp really represents, adding Windows compatibility to the Intel Mac hardware is really just a courtesy—something they would have had to be ridiculously parochial not to do, in fact. It was just really, really convenient. Plus it gained them a lot of goodwill across the industry and a lot of press, to say nothing of a stock price boost. What's not to like?
We still don't know what big new features are planned as the centerpieces for Leopard. But the notices are starting to circulate for WWDC in August, where Leopard's first previews will be rolled out. That's when we'll know just how far Apple intends to take this whole Windows thing.
(I do, however, like Cringely's idea that with Avie Tevanian's departure, we might see a move away from Mach, Avie's pet kernel. OS X does need help with its I/O and VM performance, and there are better kernels out there.)
UPDATE: Oh, shut up, Dvorak. Nobody's listening to you, especially Apple. Thank goodness.
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Brian Tiemann
