Results tagged “Apple” from The Hardware is Not Enough
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Here's the press release. Astonishing.
Public Beta Software Enables Intel-based Macs to Run Windows XP
CUPERTINO, California—April 5, 2006—Apple® today introduced Boot Camp, public beta software that enables Intel-based Macs to run Windows XP. Available as a download beginning today, Boot Camp allows users with a Microsoft Windows XP installation disc to install Windows XP on an Intel-based Mac®, and once installation is complete, users can restart their computer to run either Mac OS® X or Windows XP. Boot Camp will be a feature in “Leopard,” Apple’s next major release of Mac OS X, that will be previewed at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference in August.
“Apple has no desire or plan to sell or support Windows, but many customers have expressed their interest to run Windows on Apple’s superior hardware now that we use Intel processors,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “We think Boot Camp makes the Mac even more appealing to Windows users considering making the switch.”
Boot Camp simplifies Windows installation on an Intel-based Mac by providing a simple graphical step-by-step assistant application to dynamically create a second partition on the hard drive for Windows, to burn a CD with all the necessary Windows drivers, and to install Windows from a Windows XP installation CD. After installation is complete, users can choose to run either Mac OS X or Windows when they restart their computer.
Pricing & Availability
The public beta of Boot Camp is available immediately as a download at www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp, and is preview software licensed for use on a trial basis for a limited time. The final version of Boot Camp will be available as a feature in the upcoming Mac OS X version 10.5 “Leopard.” Apple does not provide support for installing or running Boot Camp and does not sell or support Microsoft Windows software. Apple welcomes user feedback on Boot Camp at bootcamp@apple.com.
System Requirements
Boot Camp requires an Intel-based Mac with a USB keyboard and mouse, or a built-in keyboard and TrackPad; Mac OS X version 10.4.6 or later; the latest firmware update; at least 10GB of free space on the startup disk; a blank recordable CD or DVD; and single-disc version of Windows XP Home Edition or Professional with Service Pack 2 or later.
A former Apple employee who worked in their enterprise division gives his opinions on Apple's efforts, in this interesting blog entry. He makes some good points, some of which have been made before but are worth repeating.
Certainly, when I last wrote an article on Apple's efforts in the enterprise market, I was told by the Apple marketing person I spoke to that “Apple didn't really compete in the enterprise market” - this despite having launched Xserves and Xraids that year.
Apple may be almost dead on the desktop for most enterprises, but there's one area where they're doing well: storage. They're pulling $185 million and are ranked 10th in the world now, which just goes to show you what cheap but reliable Serial ATA drives can do for both prices and margins.
Rob Enderle, who's probably best known for spouting unconvincing opinions about Apple and Microsoft, is now arguing that the Apple-Intel relationship is going to be rocky in 2006. For once, I think he's right.
I've spoken to Enderle and he clearly knows what he's talking about: it's just his conclusions that are frequently the problem. Here, however, he's spot on.
Apple is notoriously bad at dealing with partners: its resellers frequently get a kicking and have to suffer competition from Apple Stores while simultaneously dealing with high wholesale prices that make it impossible to offer significantly cheaper prices; equally, high-profile partnerships such as those with IBM (G5 chips and Via Voice), Motorola (G4 chips/ROKR phones) and Sony-Ericsson have all been truly badly handled.
Intel has been equally inept and arrogant. So the only chance of a smooth relationship being carved out between the two is if they both realise they're never going to be able to push each other around. I hold out little hope of that happening.
The Inquirer has a good, balanced piece on why Apple can continue to produce under-specced but reliable kit but still make money.
PS Sorry for the use of the work 'rocks' in the headline.
Mactels are looking more likely, despite comments earlier in the day, thanks to an invitation I've just received from Apple. It's for the 10th and it's a chance to attend a live satellite broadcast of Steve Jobs' MacWorld keynote in San Francisco. Apple hasn't bothered with the last few keynotes. In fact, the last time they ran a satellite feed for Euro journos was over two years ago in Berlin – and that was for the launch of the first Power Mac G5s.
However, they're not flying us out to Berlin (curses) as they did in 2003: we're having to make our way over to White City and the BBC this time. This suggests that maybe it's not something as dramatic. Maybe the BBC and other broadcasters have signed up for the iTunes Music Store. Or maybe it's that media distribution network that Think Secret was on about. So I'm only upping Mactels to 90% likelihood.
Incidentally, Bite PR – if you're reading this – I know it wasn't you who sent out the invites, but you did promise to put me on the Apple events list. I got my invite to the event via... LinuxUser & Developer. Could you give Apple a little nudge about its priorities? Ta.
Technorati Tags: Apple, Bite PR, Mactels, Macworld
Updates and related entries
March 5, 2008: To a certain extent, I imagine doing Apple's PR must be a slightly cushy number. Apple are usually extremely reticent to talk about anything you want to talk about, preferring instead to drone on about what they want to...
The Register reports that Apple has pulled iRingTones, a proposed feature of iLife 06, after being pressured by network providers.
This is mixed news. On the one hand, it sounds like it would have been a cool feature. Plus anything to stick it to those avaricious, customer-unfriendly network providers is good in my book.
But on the other hand, it would have allowed people to create their own ringtones more easily. It's bad enough people downloading their own ringtones from providers already. At least they've been put together by people with an ounce of musical ability, if not taste. But people mixing their own tones? Oh dear God, no.
I'm setting up a review of various mice from a certain magazine I write for. Apple's Mighty Mouse is a must-review, so I ring up Helen Lord at Apple and leave a couple of voicemails for her, asking for a Mighty Mouse. No reply. So I email Bite PR and they get back to me. No problem, they say, but you'll have to fill out a “loan agreement”.
That's right, they want me to fill out a form agreeing that if they don't get their Mighty Mouse (RRP £35) back within a week, they can break into my flat to retrieve it.
Logitech is just sending me their mice without complaint, as are Contour Design and 3D Connexion. Novell gave me a mouse on Monday for free, and they don't even make mice; admittedly, it was full of water and had an “N” floating inside it, so no one in their right mind would want it.
But Apple can't even spare a mighty mouse for more than a week. Tight. So very, very tight.
Technorati Tags: Apple, Journalism, Mighty Mouse
Updates and related entries
March 5, 2008: To a certain extent, I imagine doing Apple's PR must be a slightly cushy number. Apple are usually extremely reticent to talk about anything you want to talk about, preferring instead to drone on about what they want to...
The Inquirer (and others) is reporting that Apple is killing off FireWire. Jason O'Grady in particular has heard that the Intel iBooks won't have FireWire at all and the PowerBooks will only have FireWire 800. The absence of FireWire in the iPod Nano and iPod video also seems to suggest the end of Apple's own fine interface standard.
I'm not totally convinced. Apple's trying to take the price of the iBook down as far as possible so it can compete better with PC laptops. No laptops at that price range have FireWire and it would add to the costs. Also, what are the uses of FireWire? Connecting to camcorders: not a good plan with an iBook - something more powerful, with a larger disk drive suits that task better, plus how else to drive interest in the desktop iMac? Connecting to an external hard drive? There's USB 2.0 for that plus it's not top of the portable requirements list. Connecting to an iPod? No need, now they're USB 2.0.
The removal of FireWire from the PowerBook says something else though. Remember when the first iMacs came out and the only interface they had was USB, even though next to nothing worked with USB? All the manufacturers rushed to create USB-compatible printers, et al, and it wasn't long before every PC included a USB port, after years of the standard being ignored. Is Apple attempting something similar with FireWire 800? It's the fastest interface standard around, running at double the speed of both USB 2.0 and regular FireWire. Only Gigabit Ethernet is theoretically faster, but its real-world throughput isn't as good and it really isn't a device-to-device protocol like FireWire. 800 is in a slightly better position than USB anyway, since you can buy a simple adaptor to make 400 devices work with 800 ports.
FireWire 800 has languished, however, with only the pro Macs including it, making it a poor choice for any manufacturer that wants to get to as wide a market as possible. If Apple is trying to stimulate the FireWire 800 market, expect it to be included in the Intel iMacs. If FireWire's dropped from them, however, we'll know that Apple really is trying to kill off FireWire - and intends to commit suicide by abandoning camcorders as part of the “Digital Hub”.
Ever since the lawsuits started flying and Apple started feeding it false info, it's been hard to know how much to trust Think Secret. But two new rumours seem very well researched and likely to be true, so I thought I'd add them to my blog.
Apple's new media experience coming soon hints at a new video distribution system that Apple's been working on that might actually be interesting and get a few users. Meanwhile, details of a new, improved Intel-based Mac mini due in January are almost mouth-watering. I hope they're both true.
Updates and related entries
December 20, 2005: Mactels are looking more likely, despite comments earlier in the day, thanks to an invitation I've just received from Apple. It's for the 10th and it's a chance to attend a live satellite broadcast of Steve Jobs' MacWorld keynote...
So newish iBooks have been failing aplenty, according to MacFixIt.
As we've been reporting for the past few days, iBook G4s -- produced within the past two years -- are suffering logic board failures similar to the failures that plagued earlier iBook G3 models (for which Apple offers a replacement program).
Common symptoms include problems starting up (not booting, blank screen on startup, etc.) , issues with the display (flickering or other strange behavior) that can sometimes be resolved by attaching an external monitor, erratic trackpad movement and/or frequent freezes.
A friend of mine has had exactly this happen to his iBook. Apple duly agreed to pick it up (which they did on Tuesday), repair it and send it back to him (which they did yesterday). Here's his report of what happened next:
Started it up. Wouldn't start up properly. Would get the blue screen and just stay there. Then after resetting the PMU etc, it wouldn't even do that. Instead, on startup I would get the screen of death telling me to restart. When starting off CD it wouldn't acknowledge that there was a hard drive there to install to. I have had to take it to a local Apple service provider to be fixed - at Apple's expense. What a pain in the arse.
Apple, have you considered testing your work before you send back your repairs?
Technorati Tags: iBooks, logic boards, repairs
Updates and related entries
December 6, 2005: You may remember my previous entry on failing iBooks and Apple repairs. My friend's iBook is still at the repairs and will be for some time. Here's the latest: According to the woman I just spoke with, they haven't had...
ZFS is a pretty nifty file system used by Solaris. Sun has just made it available as an open source product. It's of limited use anywhere except the server, so I wonder how much porting will be done on it. I imagine with Reiser and all those other FS ported to Linux, it won't be long before ZFS makes the leap.
Will Apple do anything with it? After all, wasn't its virtual file system support one of the great high-end features touted when OS X first leapt onto our computers? What have we got so far: FAT, FAT32, UFS, HFS+ (journaled), case-sensitive HFS+, plus a few CD file systems and a limited, community port of NTFS. Not very impressive so far. ZFS support could be the kind of thing that could make enterprises think really seriously about OS X Server.
Technorati Tags: Macs, Open source, servers, storage
Who's the undisputed king of the GUI? Apple, of course. Why? Ease of use. There are dozens of studies that show that Macs improve people's performance in everyday tasks. One of the main reasons for this ease of use is consistency: the same menu items and the same keyboard shortcuts perform the same actions in different applications. As a result, you don't spend hours learning that it's Apple S to save in Word, Apple Option S in Excel, Shift F3 in Quark and so on.
So quick question guys: how do you right-click on a Mac (assuming you haven't got a two-button mouse that is)? Long-time Mac users will instantly answer “Hold down the Control key then click”. Try it now, if you've never tried it before. See? A whole range of commands you never knew existed will suddenly appear.
Another question then: how do you right-click in Word? That's right. It's Control click. How do you right click in the Finder? That's right. It's Control click.
Last question: how do you right-click in Safari? If you answered, Control click, you'd be right. Kind of. Try it on this web page and you'll get your menus. Try it on a Java applet though. Doesn't work does it? Why? Because the correct combination for a right-click is Command click. That's right. Hold down the Apple key instead.
Daft, isn't it? Insane even. How long would you try looking for a contextual menu if you didn't know that? You wouldn't. You'd give up.
Now I've looked and looked for a technological or usability reason for this, but can't find one. Anyone know why this should be?
Not so long ago, I wrote an article on what was good – and bad – about Apple's .Mac service. I hear iCreate is very popular with the .Mac team in California, but guess what: just about everything I said was wrong with the service has been fixed. Backup now works with multiple computers and the storage available to each user has been bumped up to 1GB. My, I'm so influential!
True, Backup's still not brilliant and iDisk is still as slow as treacle, but with my .Mac account renewal due in under a month, I don't feel so aggrieved about handing out the cash any more.
If you haven't checked out Nerd TV, rush over to watch Bob Cringely's interview with Andy Hertzfeld. Half an hour in, Andy comments on Cringely's classic mid-90s show Triumph of the Nerds and Steve Jobs' reaction to it.
In the final episode, Jobs memorably aired his view that Bill Gates and Microsoft have no taste. After watching himself accuse his rival of Philistinism, Jobs decided he'd crossed his line with his comment and rang Bill Gates to apologise.
This is where it gets interesting. Jobs' idea of an apology was this:
“Bill, I'm sorry I said that. It's true, but I shouldn't have said it publicly.”Pipe Steve a clue: his one is missing.
About me
I'm Rob Buckley, a freelance IT journalist. I've edited infoconomy.com; the XML & Web Services newsletter; and Mapping Awareness, for which I won an award.
I'm also a regular contributor to MacFormat, Computer Arts, Computer Arts Projects, LinuxUser & Developer, SC Magazine and enterprise IT magazine Information Age.
I've hands-on IT experience, having been IT manager for two companies, looking after everything from Solaris, Linux and Netware down to Windows 3.1 and Mac OS 6.
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