It was perhaps one of the most significant events the PC industry has seen in the last decade: Apple opening up its hardware to Windows operating systems through its proprietary
Boot Camp software. Not only did it allow Mac owners running Intel-powered machines to dual boot XP at will, it did so completely gratis (well, save for the cost of a Windows license). Unfortunately, the honeymoon may soon be over for Tiger users accustomed to the free boot loader: according to a report on MacScoop, Steve and friends plan to begin charging about $30 for the software once
OS X Leopard is released and Boot Camp leaves beta for the greener pastures of commercial. For those Macheads planning to upgrade to Leopard, this wouldn't be an issue, of course -- the new OS will offer Boot Camp as one of its standard features. Still, if you're planning on keeping the old Tiger and your draft-N router around for awhile longer, it sounds like there's a good chance you'll need to squirrel away about $32 for the future: $30 for Boot Camp, and
two bucks for the privilege of
unlocking your wireless card's dormant 802.11n functionality.
[Via
Slashdot]
posted January 21st 2007 8:38PM
A boot loader that emulates and creates a virtual BIOS to boot a completely different OS than the system was built to operate? - You feel should be completely free?
Sure. You dev up something complimentary and we'll see how it goes over.
On the Mac vs. PC argument, it's been going on for ages guys.
Mac builds nice looking, great working hardware. PCs are developed by everyone under the sun, and are hence given a terrible reputation. A Mac system spec'd to the same as your desktop will burn it up in flames. No question about it. You'll be little pieces of dust floating in the air. A Mac system equipped to spec will burn any PC.
It's sad that most of the Mac bashers here have never used a Mac system, or haven't used one since the G3. Please, please- for your own sake, go use one. Just go to the Apple store close by and tell them you'd like to try one out. Tell the guy you're a diehard Winblows fan, and have never touched a Mac- but want to learn the ways of the Jedi.
...
Chris
Ok... now a lot of ppl are slipping put of the point here.. The basic story is "Apple's gonna charge $30 for boot camp" rite?
now.. what is boot camp used for? to run windows.
Whom are we having arguements with? Windows fanboys/Mac Haters.
See the point? We are never gonna run Windows on a Mac for any useful reasons. Windows fanboys are never gonna buy a mac. So why are we still arguing over apple charging $30 for BootCamp? Mac Haters should've never even commented on this article.. totally out of ur league.. now go back and play with calculator.. (which came freeeeeeeee with windows.. wooohoooo!)
I agree that a lot of windows machines are shit, but my personal windows box doesn't have a brand name. Like a lot of my peers if I need a new computer I find the components I want and I put the system together myself. I install a clean version of windows (which is incredibly stable if the manufacturer hasn't fucked with it) and I can enjoy the most advanced 3D games on the market. I can also enjoy a remote desktop connection with my PC at work, does OSX have anything like that?
Apple hardware is over priced, and their software releases and OS updates are expensive, they charge for everything. (for instance I'm using Windows Media Player 11, a piece of software upgraded for vista, on my XP machine, I won't be charged for it when vista is released)
@Aaron
" I can also enjoy a remote desktop connection with my PC at work, does OSX have anything like that?"
Mirosoft themselves provide a free Remote desktop client for Macs, Which works perfectly fine. (I use it all the time). And dude, dont even talk about OSX's networking /remote capabilities whn you dont have a clue what you are talking about.
OSX is built on Darwin (which is a Linux like, Unix based core), Unix is the most networking capable OS in the world... You ask for something it's there..
Now to the overpriced hardware bit, ok look at this now. I configured Exactly similar spec'd Mac Pro and a Dell Precision Workstation. Hardware used:-
2x Dual Core Xeon Processors @ 3Ghz
4Gb RAM
QuadroFX 4500 512MB graphics
1.5 TB HDDs (2x750GB)
Mouse, Keyboard etc.. but the above are the Main specs.
Mac Pro has Wifi and Bluetooth (dell doesnt have).
Guess how much they cost?
Mac Pro £4,899.02 INCLUDING VAT!!
Dell £5,478.00 EXCLUDING VAT!
Including VAT the dell was £6,466.03..
Thats almist £1500 more expensiver than the Mac.. Still think macs are over priced? think again..
(Go to the apple site and the dell site and see for your self.. I aint joking)
The only roadblock is the BIOS, the system itself works totally fine with Windows since Macs use the same hardware as a typical PC. If you remember there was a free boot loader for Macs before boot camp came out, that one was made the hard way. For an Apple programmer that has direct access to everything he needs in the EFI its extremely simple to create an emulator. There have been many video game emulators made by high school kids, if you want to talk about getting something to work on a different system then you cant get much more different than that.
LOL! you guys arguing about these stupid stuff. just download your Leopard or Vista on bt for free. who pays for software nowadays?
Why does ever mac person assume that people who are commenting negatively against the mac assume we've never touched a mac before in our lives, or at least not recently? I've been to the Apple store before, and they do look great. It's just on a usability level that I don't find any more justice to buy a mac than another neat laptop (EX: Sony Vaio)for much cheaper. I even used my sister's imac, and I really didn't like using it. The mouse, the keyboard, sometimes the way it showed up on the screen was real annoying. It's slick, but it's not enough for most people to spend cash on. Think about it, why isn't everybody a mac user? Because not everybody finds the needs for a mac are great. I'm no hater or lover. I'm just honest.
As others have already said, this is really not that crazy.
Boot Camp has been touted pretty much from the beginning as something that would be a feature of Leopard, and the public beta was something that allowed people to try it out now, and also to help give feedback and improve the product (which is of course one of the big reasons behind a public beta). I don't recall Apple ever promising a free version of Boot Camp for anything besides Leopard, and frankly wasn't expecting it to be available in its final version for Tiger at all.
It seems like Apple is giving people who want to stick with Tiger the option to be able to make use of the Boot Camp functionality without having to pay the full price to upgrade to the full OS X 10.5 if they don't want or need the other features of the new OS. As others have pointed out, this is somewhat similar to what Apple did with iChat AV.
Apple could just as easily have not even made a final version of Boot Camp available for Tiger (again, which wouldn't be that crazy considering it was always touted as an upcoming feature of Leopard, not something meant to be a free feature of Tiger), forcing Tiger users to buy Leopard if they wanted to use it, and I imagine there would be a pretty big outcry over that as well.
I find it funny how all the people that are clowning on apple have the lowest ranked. This is a big "FUCK YOU" to all you apple fans.
Mac users are already used to paying more for their Chinese made PC`s...so why not charge them? Bend over , Mac users !
@John Doe
What are they going to sue them for? Not providing access to a piece of hardware that is not yet certified and isn't supported by Tiger? Its not like they were advertising Draft-N technology and then asking you to pay for it. Fact is, most people won't be able to use it anyways, since N is still in its infantile stage, and if you DO need it, its because you have a new Airport or Apple TV, both of which come with the necessary drivers.
As you can see, there's no argument that someone could come up with that couldn't be shot down by lawyers.
Another misinformed Mac user...it`s like asking Leo Laporte for Windows advice...his knowledge is outdated. We who use Windows have free AV and anti-spyware programs to use. And if we want to be safer than even a Mac...we just use the FREE "Sandboxie" program.I have used XP for years with and without AV...and the truth is I never got infected , I just use common sense computing practices , asshat ;)
too bad macs dont have viruses to be protected from.. :( i feel so bad.. I want a virus in my mac..
With a news piece in this nature, could we at least wait for the official press release to announce.
MacScoop's report is extremely skimpy, almost an one-line rumor. I'm not certain we should encourage others to bash a company bashed on such minimum credibility.
Let me add... MacScoop's report reads like a hearsay of another hearsay via one unknown source.
Engadget, you folks surprised me...
No ill will. Simply a slight reminder of responsibility.
One of the most significant events of the last decade? That 2-3 percent of the market is able to run the same OS 90 percent of the market is already running? It would have been significant if they released OS X to whitebox-manufacturers, now it's only a novelty for the PC-industry as a whole.
LOL! it's like QuickTime Pro again. No doubt most users actually using Boot Camp and that pre-N stuff with Tiger will get those for free from somewhere on the Internet.
Apple charges for iLife, software available with its OS, albeit greater capabilities. Would you expect ms to offer their os for free? Remember, ms came up with the idea of offering multiple oses of the same product but with key features missing or unenabled in order to get people to spend more ms tokens on the more expen$ive version. This is $30 here, a fair price for most software. If you don’t like it, then buy Parallels....
Just a couple of things to add to the discussion.
1) EFI. It's true that Macs boot off an EFI chip as opposed to a BIOS one. But Apple released a firmware update at the same time as the Boot Camp Beta that contained a BIOS emulator. You don't actually *need* Boot Camp to install Windows on a Mac, but it does contain a GUI'd partitioning tool.
2) Charging for software. It's been mentioned on here already, but I find it odd that people expect any software company to give something away for free. It's been in Beta up until now. Why would they give it away? Microsoft gave away free Vista betas. If I buy a new PC, I get Vista as part of the deal. If I want it on my old PC, I expect to have to pay for it.
3) Fanboys. Both sides of the fence. Please, grow up will you. You all sound uneducated and foolish when you start 'bragging'. It's a computer. Inside, it's full of wires and circuit boards. Get over it!
4) Kev 50027. Whatever your opinion on the Mac vs PC 'debate', you did yourself a diservice with this comment: "Microsoft gives out tons of software for free.. Apple? Nope."
If you had bothered to just do a tiny bit of research you would have known Apple has offered iLife '06 for over a year now. Photo editing tools, audio creation utility, high def movie editing, DVD authoring and web site creation tools have been a part of the price tag for a long time.
Comments like that make your subsequent arguments weaker, as you risk coming across as someone who doesn't know what they are talking about.
Let me see.
Apple might charge for the full product of a software that allows people to use the competitors OS, if you don't buy the latest version of their OS. Since you can get the beta until the Leopard is shipped - and if you purchase a mac after leopard is shipped it will be bundled I really can't see an issue.
Will Bootcamp run Vista, or just Windows XP Home?
What about a Mac Mini, can that handle Vista?
I believe it can.
As to the original topic, $30 is a drop in the bucket compared to its usefulness... I think we've all bought software that cost more than this, then used it a greand total of one time.
As usual, both sides are completely pathetic in this case (for the most part).
Most of you Mac bashers have never even used one and still have an image in your heads from the early 1980s. You elitist Mac assholes are no better, preaching about how your OS is the greatest thing since sliced bread and "Omg M$ is t3h ghay lolololll" is how most of your comments can be broken down without losing much.
When is it going to get through your asbestos suits that Macs and PCs can both do a lot things really well? Macs are better at some things, PCs are better at some things. Macs are stable, in part, because there is complete control on the hardware side. It's a lot easier to make your system stable when you can basically predict every combination of hardware that's going to be on the machine.
PCs, on the other hand, are more open. You can put whatever hardware you want into a PC, do some work, and odds are high that you'll get it to work properly. In addition, Windows sees a lot more usage worldwide, so odds are excellent that you'll be able to find software for it.
See how that works? Pros for both sides, cons for both sides, you mouthbreathing Neanderthal fucks. You're giving *everybody* a bad name, whether they worship at the Altar of Stevie J. or the Altar of Billy G. Just fuck off.
I'd find it quite funny if Microsoft were to include some sort of code in Vista which detected and prevented it running on Macs...
with big red writing "NO CRYSIS FOR YOU! TEH LOL!1!!"
Apple software/OS's are cheap, but they also update them a lot more often than Windows. Since Windows XP was launched, there has been OSX 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, 10.4, and now 10.5. $130 for each one... $650. Windows XP Pro OEM however, costs...$129. Windows Vista Home Basic OEM... $90. A total of $219... $431 cheaper than how much you'd spend upgrading OS X.
Macs are not really for games. Thats why I have 3 Windows machines. You are comparing macs to PCs in different areas. Macs are mostly used for Creative/Research etc areas. I would love to see how your super duper overclocked PC do, rendering animations and such compared to a mac.
Well, Different PPL have different opinions on different things.. but even the hardcore M$ fanboy would think twice before making comments like "I get frustrated every time I am forced to use one, the interface is so counter-intuitive.". The aqua interface is hands down the best interface in the world.. You can't even argue about it..
Like Mr Lizard said, by looking at your previous comments I highly doubt that you have used a mac recently.. And by looking at your PC specs You are probably the type of a person who sits near the PC the whole day Playing CS or WoW or whatever ppl play these days and brag about how many n00bs u pWn3d, on XFire.
Actually, I'm a freshmen at a rather difficult to get into college, and working my sorry ass off for a major in political science and a minor in psychology. You can't say the aqua interface is the best and claim it's a fact, that's your opinion, and opinions can be based on false facts, but they cannot be "wrong". I dislike the interface for several reasons, and I find Windows XP/Vista easier to deal with. Doing minor tasks in Windows tends to require fewer mouse clicks than on a Mac, and I'm not a huge fan of navigation using the keyboard.
I do play games, but only on weekends, and rarely even at that.. mostly Battlefield 2142 when I'm not doing work.
For gods sake people, get over yourselves already. This was a post about Apple chargin 30 bucks for a great app and a set of high-quality drivers to run Windows XP on your Mac, not an invitation for flamers to try and prove their worthless points. People just need to realize that Apple computers are now officially better than PC's now because they run both operating systems, at full speed, or in virtualization mode which is simply amazing.
Don't like paying Apple for Boot Camp, or don't like the dual boot system?... then look into Parallels Desktop for Mac. Think Parallels is too expensive?... then just settle into the lesser features of Boot Camp. Don't like either? Then do some fucking reasearch and look into XOM which is an open source solution to put Windows XP on your Mac.