April 07, 2006
Ghost in the Machine
I'm okay with the "ghost in the machine" but doubt I'll use Windows much.
From today's The New York Times:
Windows on Apple
Editorial
Published: April 7, 2006
Everyone saw it coming. First, Apple chose Intel, synonymous with Microsoft, to make chips for a new line of personal computers. Now Apple has announced Boot Camp, which will allow some versions of Windows to run more or less natively on an Apple machine. How you feel about this depends very much on whether you're a Windows or an Apple person.
From one angle, Boot Camp looks like a sensible effort to expand Apple's slice of the personal computer market. So far, switching from a Windows desktop to a much sleeker iMac has meant abandoning Windows for Apple's Mac OS X operating system. That means giving up some highly specialized applications for which there is no Apple equivalent. For better or worse, Apple has never quite been able to destroy the preconception that Windows belongs to business in roughly the same way that Apple belongs to the arts. An Apple computer that can run Windows will do away with such distinctions.
Apple people do love their hardware. But the soul of the machine is still the operating system. And most people who switch from Windows to Mac OS X do so not merely for the pleasure of owning Apple hardware. (An iPod would do, after all.) They switch because, so far, Apple's Unix-based operating system has been far more stable than Windows — as clean and elegant as the product design for which Apple is noted.
So the prospect of Boot Camp raises two very different scenarios. Windows users will buy Apple machines to run Windows. Or they may try out Apple's operating system just for the fun of it and get hooked.
All well and good. Still, serious Apple users who are very worried about letting Microsoft into their Windows-free environment can take comfort in the fact that Apple will allow Windows into its computers, but will not actually support it. It will merely be the ghost in the machine.
From today's The New York Times:
Windows on Apple
Editorial
Published: April 7, 2006
Everyone saw it coming. First, Apple chose Intel, synonymous with Microsoft, to make chips for a new line of personal computers. Now Apple has announced Boot Camp, which will allow some versions of Windows to run more or less natively on an Apple machine. How you feel about this depends very much on whether you're a Windows or an Apple person.
From one angle, Boot Camp looks like a sensible effort to expand Apple's slice of the personal computer market. So far, switching from a Windows desktop to a much sleeker iMac has meant abandoning Windows for Apple's Mac OS X operating system. That means giving up some highly specialized applications for which there is no Apple equivalent. For better or worse, Apple has never quite been able to destroy the preconception that Windows belongs to business in roughly the same way that Apple belongs to the arts. An Apple computer that can run Windows will do away with such distinctions.
Apple people do love their hardware. But the soul of the machine is still the operating system. And most people who switch from Windows to Mac OS X do so not merely for the pleasure of owning Apple hardware. (An iPod would do, after all.) They switch because, so far, Apple's Unix-based operating system has been far more stable than Windows — as clean and elegant as the product design for which Apple is noted.
So the prospect of Boot Camp raises two very different scenarios. Windows users will buy Apple machines to run Windows. Or they may try out Apple's operating system just for the fun of it and get hooked.
All well and good. Still, serious Apple users who are very worried about letting Microsoft into their Windows-free environment can take comfort in the fact that Apple will allow Windows into its computers, but will not actually support it. It will merely be the ghost in the machine.
posted @ 7:48 AM
