Dvorak Isn’t Crazy
- April 5th, 2006 - 8.57 pm UTC
- WoA Feature Articles
- Mickey
Awhile back, John C. Dvorak wrote a column for PCMagazine Online illustrating his opinions about Apple switching to the Windows Operating System. While this article listed many good and well researched points, many people were dead against the idea, and made sure everyone knew it.
But…
….He might not be so crazy after all.
Today, Apple announced Boot Camp, a revolutionary way to dual boot Windows and Mac OS X on Macs. Now, before you go out and buy a Mac, ready to get started, stop; there are a few things to think about.
First off, Apple does not sell Microsoft Windows – you have to buy your own copy.
Second, Apple does not support Microsoft Windows – if you have a problem, you are out of luck.
Third, you need an Intel Mac – you can’t use that old G4 in the closet to run Windows.
But the fun doesn’t stop there. Not only can you get the Boot Camp Beta now, but also with Leopard, it will be built in. That means, built into the OS, you will be able boot Windows. That sounds great and all, but for Apple, it is just another brick in the wall, and we wouldn’t want that. However, this brick in the wall business won’t happen, because many people believe this concept will be taken to the next level…
…But how?
Some people believe that you can have a Windows application on your desktop, and when you click it, you will be booted quickly into Windows. The other way around, you can have a Mac application on your Windows (on the Macintosh computer) desktop, and you can quickly boot into OS X.
This would be the turning point for Apple’s market share. Consumers don’t trust Microsoft, but they are forced to use their software because of compatibility issues. That is all about to change. Here is an example I found on a website: (Weblogs Inc.)
“Imagine a school budget that simply replaces all the computers campus-wide with new Intel Macs that can run anything we throw at them. Need to run Windows? Image the iMac with the WinXP image. Need to run Mac OS X? Image the iMac with the Tiger (or Leopard) image. Need to run either (because it’s a dual-purpose classroom)? Install both and teach the lab assistants and instructors how switch between the environments. It might even be scheduled to reboot the classroom between classes so it’s transparent to the end-user.”
What do you think? I think that Dvorak isn’t crazy, and us Macheads are slowly being pushed to the Windows OS.
Comments
Bob 5th April 2006, 21.26 pm
“booted quickly into Windows” something of an oxymoron there…
I can agree with your points about dual-booting and its usefulness in some environments, but I can’t see Apple – or Microsoft – introducing a level of: “you can have a Mac application on your Windows (on the Macintosh computer) desktop, and you can quickly boot into OS X.”
I just can’t see users standing for constant switching back and forth between OSes. If Apple wants compatibility between Windows and Mac OS, a more likely scenario IMO would be emulation-esque layers like WINE being developed (or built on) to allow for applications to be run natively in each OS.
andy 5th April 2006, 22.45 pm
god this almost feels like 10 years ago or so, apples – amigas – ataris – pcs, let battle commence lol, (btw – i was an amiga man before apple)
andy 5th April 2006, 22.45 pm
well, more like 15-20 years ago – shittt im older than i think lol
shrimp 5th April 2006, 23.33 pm
No, Dvorak is still crazy. He said that Apple would drop OS X for Windows, which is crazy.
duncan 5th April 2006, 23.58 pm
dvorak is still the same nutjob he was before. supporting windows booting isn’t the same thing as ditching your OS to for windows.
a) i don’t see steve jobs in a million years willing to be a dumb box manufacturer. OS X is the key to apple.
b) too much of apple’s internal software (iLife, iWork for example) require the underpinnings of mac os x, there would be no simple “recompile” as with the ppc to intel transition. though who knows maybe apple has had another secret building going all along with builds of OS X running on the win2k kernel.
Mickey 6th April 2006, 01.23 am
I never said that Dvorak was completely correct, I just said that he was on the right track.
Bubba 6th April 2006, 02.37 am
I don’t understand the harsh invectives hurled at Dvorak – he is an entertainer and it’s part his job to make outlandish statements that get all kinds of blogosphere coverage. More hits = more revenue.
Zac 6th April 2006, 03.10 am
First of all, many well-researched points? Dvorak’s points were idiotic. Cutting firewire support out of iPods indicates that Macs will soon be running Windows? Am I the only one missing the connection there? Dvorak is a moron, or a showman, wither way, I have no time for him.
Secondly, Dvorak was stating that Apple would REPLACE OS X with Windows, not that Apple would ADD Windows support. There is a world of difference there. Replacing OS X would be stupid, removing the number one reason to get a Mac. Adding Windows support is a smart business move.
acrobat 6th April 2006, 06.51 am
i think everyone’s missing what’s really going on here. i switched to Apple four years ago for two reasons…
1) their computers were cooler looking (i’m not above admitting that)
2) OS X kicks Windows’ @$$!
OS X is easier to use, better to look at, more stable and (virtually) virus free. (i know… i’m preaching to the choir.) Jobs doesn’t care if people boot Windows on his machines. he knows (or is confident) that people will see Windows and OS X side by side and realize which is superior. and then, when they really need to run Windows for a particular program, they still can.
Keir 6th April 2006, 08.23 am
This is said to probably push potential-switchers over the edge but frankly, a lot of people wouldn’t be able to justify the extra markup on system running inferior hardware.
I have a Mac, but to be honest, it just sits there checking my email, and occasionally running Adium (when it doesn’t continually give me error’s when sending messages).
Mac’s look nice, I’ll give them that, but there’s no way you could find a Mac of similar Spec to my PC for the same price, or anywhere near the same price.
Dvorak is a nut job, who’s simply driving people to his blog by coming out with crap like this.
Apple has OS X over Windows. Its a superior operating system, and a few of their apps are better than the windows competitors, however thats where the superiority of Apple’s computers stop. The hardware still sucks, and is overpriced….dramatically.
Blake Watters 6th April 2006, 08.30 am
This is merely a calculated move to gobble up market share by disarming the compatibility argument. OS X is not going to be dropped in the near or long term. Apple is merely enabling a new class of users who have been attracted to the Mac platform, but unable to make the jump because of legacy applications or work requirements that can’t be skirted.
This probably also foreshadowing an impending push into the enterprise space, where integration and interoperability are prerequisites. I imagine we’ll begin seeing upper management types doing their daily work on MacBooks and a refreshed Xserve line capable of pushing OS X, Windows, Linux, or your favorite BSD flavor appearing in the server closet. These are the decision makers who will purchase the IT infrastructure over the next 10 years and are key to expanding Apple’s reach beyond the hip and enlightened.
BillT 6th April 2006, 08.33 am
>>“booted quickly into Windows” something of an oxymoron there…
Well if you could quickly and transparently do some sort of hibernation of the Windoze partition which I guess Apple could well arrange if they wanted to, we’re talking of sub 30secs. Not too slow, right?
draegloth 6th April 2006, 08.36 am
Let me start by saying that I’m a long time Windows user, and I’ve only recently (like this week) started using a Mac on a daily basis…
It’s hard to see exactly where this is going to lead us. I can see Apple adding this support to increase hardware sales with the secret (or not so secret) hope of winning people over to OSX through exposure they otherwise would not have had, but I can also see it backfiring.
Microsoft is not particularly generous to its customers, yet manages to keep them by leveraging the work and products of other companies like Dell and nVidia. Average tech savvy MS customers distrust Microsoft, but average MS customers in general don’t know what the differences between windows and osx are, other than that osx won’t run their games and macs cost more. That’s enough to put apple out of most consumer’s homes. Tech savvy Windows users use it because that’s what’s out there. That’s what makes them money. That’s what they use at work. That’s what plays games and allows them to be productive.
Apple holds onto its customer base by giving them what they want (even if they didn’t know they wanted it until Apple made it available to them.) Apple doesn’t leverage other companies products or services to 100th the degree that MS does. Apple seems to have somewhat of a cult following, and those are always hard to explain. I will say that using OSX for a couple of days made it hard for me to go back to Windows. But, Windows is where I have most of my money and experience invested, so it’s a necessary evil for now. That I can now run both on one machine is a great boon in my opinion.
A much better option for me would be WINE-like virtualization, certainly, as I really don’t like rebooting or sacrificing that much hard drive space for something I’m only going to use occasionally… That, or for Apple to release OSX for generic PCs so I can build a machine with a separate drive for each OS… Sure, I like Apple’s hardware, but I like OSX more, and would prefer to run that on any old PC than run Windows on a Mac.
Whatever happens, it’s going to be an interesting year.
mattmase 6th April 2006, 08.39 am
acrobat hit it on the money.
Dvorak was half right, just mixed things up a bit. Jobs wants a monopoly on OS X and the only way to do that is to slowly convert Windows users over.
The iPod.
The HP iPod.
The iPod that works with both Windows and Mac seamlessly.
The intel Macbook and iMac.
Bootcamp for Tiger.
Mac OS X Leopard that makes it easy to boot Windows
after that, Windows users will start buying macs because they are cool. They will be exposed to the Mac OS and later decide that it is cooler than Windows as well.
Samuel 6th April 2006, 08.42 am
I hadn’t thought of that – I was thinking more from a home user point of view.
I wrote a blog last night which said pretty much the same, only my reasoning why I don’t think Dvorak’s prediction will come true.
Any comments would be cool.
Keir 6th April 2006, 08.50 am
All apple needs to do now is bring down the price of their hardware to a competitive price. They seriously overprice for what you get.
XistenZ 6th April 2006, 08.51 am
This is just stupid IMHO . Dual booting OS X and Windows, will only bring more and more people to buy an Intel Macs. And soon, converting from windows to Mac OS X. Why? Because it’s prettier, faster and better OS than windows. Or at least that’s what Apple believes.
What Apple is doing, is bringing OS X and Windows on a head to head fight. It’s giving you the opportunity to try OS X without leaving Windows (and on their hardware of course).
Now I can buy a beautifull and Powerfull Mac, run a great OS on it, and still get to play my favorite games on windows
samurai 6th April 2006, 08.54 am
OMG you n00bs.
cant you see whats happening?
Incase you havent read, Apple is going to release an API set to allow windows xp to run OSX Universal Binaries.
Guess what……
Macs are using intel…
wait for it…
Ever heard of Vanderpool?
Intels upcoming technology that allows seperated memory spaces to run at the same time on a single CPU (or dual core if u wish).
It functions like a KVM for your cpu.
Okay now….
Dual Core, Vanderpool Intel CPU’s, executing both Windows XP and OSX86 at the same time, with switching at the flick of a button.
HRM….. if thats what you need you can have it.
But otherwise, meh im sticking with Getting my work done in XP (with all my handy tools) and playing DOA 4 on XBOX 360 with a beer in my hand.
meh!
Justin 6th April 2006, 09.21 am
This isn’t an entirely new scenario – remember the old Macs that had a PC card in and switched to Windows at the ‘touch of a button’?
Those were amazing at the time! I wanted one but I was only about 14 and didn’t earn enough getting £1.20/hr for bagging potatoes.
Demis 6th April 2006, 09.42 am
Dvorak is still on crack!
This move will only increase OS X market share! Dvorak suggested the exact opposite where he thought Apple would start to replace OS X with windows.
VStrider 6th April 2006, 10.00 am
XistenZ got it right. That’s exactly what Apple is doing and I believe it’ll work out briliantly for them. Well done.
Just one warning:
MS has launched a multi-million dollar campaign against linux, bringing paid-for studies, even paid-for shills that mascarade as forum posters.
So far, Apple had it easy as far as MS is concerned. Expect this to change. Don’t be surprised if you start seeing “studies” that show how windows has better TCO and whatnot from OS X, or if you start seeing posters attacking Apple on forums.
Wait for it, it’s comming. The clock is ticking.
Alan Moore 6th April 2006, 10.05 am
Surely it’s all a lot simpler than this?
As a convert to OS X and Apple who just splashed 3 grand on a quad G5, who used PCs for 16 years before making the switch… who runs a studio with a 60/40 PC/Mac ratio… maybe I’m seeing this more clearly?
(a) Geeks have hacked intel Macs to run XP
(b) XP is unstable on said machines, and OS X is running on a compromised machine
(c) There is a possibility that not only will XP run like a dog (expected), but so might X.
(d) A newbie, trying out X on said hacked machine (a geek friend set it up for them, promising it’d be ‘fine’) has a very bad experience of X due to the compromised machine, and surmises X is no better than XP.
(e) Next time, newbie saves a couple of hundred buying a dell.
The solution? Give them the best dual boot experience they can, and you have a convert who uses XP less and less until one day… they are X only.
Oh, and the other way of looking at it? No that nice spanky machine can run Quake 4 out of the box, and XP is only used for games, all the work is done on x.
Roger Born 6th April 2006, 11.54 am
BootCamp is just the beginning.
After BootCamp comes the real deal – Running any Windows app natively in OS X, without the need for Windows XP at all.
A brick fell in Redmond, and soon the wall will fail. When no one needs Windows any more, how lond does anyone think it will be before there will be no more Windows OS?
Everybody needs Windows to run their apps and games. But no one really likes the OS. What other OS in the world is more buggy, unsecure and wasteful of human computing time and productivity?
The day that the Mac OS can run all Windows apps natively, will be a great day in computing history.
BootCamp is just the opening shot, IMO.
T 6th April 2006, 12.24 pm
Creating Boot Camp is basically Apple being smart enough to realize that people were going to do this anyway with hacks so why not get involved and do it right. Windows, however pathetic and horribly made it is, is still vvaaasssstttllllyyyy more popular than OS X and catering to it on your machine will bring in business. Period. They’re not dropping OS X, they’re luring all the windows kids with a big lollipop then locking them in the basement of apple hardware. Its a smart move.
Regardless, what I would prefer is that Leopard had an emulation app instead of dual boot. I hate VPC and all I really need to do is check my web designs in IE. Someone please hack that up a.s.a.p.
Krafty 6th April 2006, 15.10 pm
BTW, Parallels released their free beta of a virtualization server for Intel Macs today… so dual-booting is reduced to yet another option how to run XP (and every other OS compiled for Intel) on a mac.
http://www.parallels.com/en/products/workstation/mac/
PEG DASH FAB 6th April 2006, 15.21 pm
You will be able to switch between Mac OS and Windows in a flick and a click when they are running on top of a common virtualization layer.
Tim from Canada 6th April 2006, 18.54 pm
This analysis of Windows infiltrating Mac users is superficial, IMO. It assumes two things: 1) that Apple is making decisions willy-nilly, based on fairly short-term trends; and 2) The 2 OSs are comparable to use – they aren’t. Windows XP irritates at every turn, even without thinking about viruses and malware. OS X is a pleasure to use, that provides one with “oh, that’s neat!” moments continually while using. My wife describes our iMac as the first computer she’s ever liked (and she’s a software developer, too
)
Apple clearly pays an enormous amount of attention to designing and planning their products. Do you really think they don’t put the same amount of effort into their business plan?
IMO, Apple has been carefully following a plan laid out years ago, based around OS X. The first step was getting OS X to a stage where it is superior to Windows in every way, and will be for the foreseeable future. Leopard will definitely be that. Next, it’s all about opening the doors for Windows users to switch en masse, which has started as well.
The one move that I’ve been expecting Apple to make, but haven’t yet, is to introduce a superior but compatible alternative to MS Office, or embrace OpenOffice. Should be soon.
Not to mention all the other cool products Jobs et al have in mind to enhance and extend the Mac. Exciting times!
Tim from Canada 6th April 2006, 18.55 pm
PS Dvorak’s an idiot.
Peter 6th April 2006, 20.07 pm
The trick ist to find a way to use windows-applications without showing up the windows-os. That would be bigfun: OS X beeing able to run all the windows-apps… check mate!
Bryan 7th April 2006, 00.12 am
Boot Camp is a gamble, but probably a good one.
There are two ways this could pan-out:
1) the Dvorak scenario, wherein developers stop making programs for Mac OS because it’s easier for them to just code for Windows and tell mac-users to dual-boot, and Apple becomes just another OEM competing for razor thin margins and quickly disappears. In this scenario, I go back to using Linux.
Or 2) the Gruber scenario, wherein more people buy Mac’s because only a Mac can run *any* OS, thereby giving them access to *any* software, and most of these Mac purchasers will quickly discover how much better OS X is for most purposes (not to mention how much better the bundled applications are). This will cause a huge surge in Mac sales in the short term, and a long-term increase in the adoption of OS X, especially when Leopard comes out, leaving crufty old XP further in the dust. By the time Vista finally hits the market, many will have switched to OS X, and even those who stick with windows will by buying Macs to run it on.
There are several reasons I think scenario 2 is much more likely. Firstly, John Gruber is smarter, better informed, more articulate and all-round more believable than John Dvorak, and Steve Jobs is smarter than both of them put together. Secondly, when Apple releases Xcode with YellowBox, it will provide developers with a really slick, free, and immensely powerful tool-set that will allow projects to be compiled natively for OS X, PPC, OS X x86, and Windows simultaneously, simply by checking a box. What developer would choose not to check the OS X boxes? Since Adobe is already switching over to Xcode, this leaves only Microsoft as a major developer who will have to find a way to make their code run on all of these platforms, but they’re already doing that, and they’ve committed to continuing for at least another 5 years.
So rather than a death-knell for Apple, I see Boot Camp and the virtualization solutions that are becoming available as just another reason to buy a Mac rather than a Dell.
Cheers
Dan 7th April 2006, 01.51 am
Keir.
You don’t understand that when you get a Dell laptop for $600, all you have is a potention virus infested piece of junk. So you buy the virus software for the 2 years that the computer will last you (ADD $$$), then you buy Adware protection, and spyware protection, and a webcam, and a bluetooth adapter, and some good networking software, and a remote, and spend a few hours on teh internet downloading all the programs you know you’ll need (ADD $$$). 2 years later you’ve had to upgrade, repair and buy more crap for it (ADD $$$).
-OR-
Buy a Mac… 6 years later you still have it.
I don’t see how a $550 dell with 1.7 GHz, Combo Drive, a 4-cell battery, and basically no good software out of the box that is 50% thicker with no bluetooth, no camera, no IR, no firewire, a 10/100 ethernet port, no support for dual display, no optical audio in/out (and much
moreless) can compare at all….AND FOR GOODNESS SAKES! NOT EVEN SONY BUILDS THEIR HINGES INTO THE BACK OF THEIR FRIGGEN LAPTOPS!
mattmase 7th April 2006, 07.40 am
What’s so bad about hinges on the top? You know how many USB and firewire ports, I can fit back there, maybe even a multi card reader or something?
Apple’s design is awesome but sometimes people want to customize and have dongles out of every USB port available.
Dan 7th April 2006, 12.21 pm
Hinges on top are:
1) Ugly
2)Increase visible size of bezel
But I understand what you mean.
Both are entitled to our opinions.
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