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Has Apple been hoping for this?


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I've been thinking: given the problems Apple created among their most devout followers by announcing they'd use Intel Chips (ie become less distinct from the rest of computers), wouldn't it make sense for them to release their new systems with Windows booting hurdles that are simultaneously designed to be high enough to convince purists they're still distinct, while at the same being low enough to allow determined peolpe to jump over them.

 

Now they can sit back take the orders, wait until the dust among their hardcore followers has settled, then, with some statistical backing about people running windows on Macs, begin to officially support the idea. They probably won't become a windows OEM, but they might directly include in their EFI what's needed to boot XP.

 

Just some thoughts - what's your opinion?

 

YM

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Oh My, another conspiracy theory. I think if Apple wanted people to run WinXP on their PCs, they would provide proper Windows driver for the hardware. Right now it looks like the setup is not running too well.

I can't imagine people running out to buy Apple because it could also run WinXP poorly. More likely they would just buy a compatible generic PC which runs the hacked OSX86 much better than the Intel Mac could run WinXP.

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They are probably (it has been rumored) working on a compatibility layer like wine/darwine for Mac OS 10.5, I speculate that maybe even based upon it.

 

if they don't, they should

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I doubt it, not many viruses are designed to completely wipe out the HD or to make physical damage to the computer (ie frying CPU or GPU, etc)

 

so viruses will only affect the Windows installation, and windows doesn't read HFS+ so no files on the OS X partition will be infected, damaged or deleted

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so viruses will only affect the Windows installation, and windows doesn't read HFS+ so no files on the OS X partition will be infected, damaged or deleted

 

unless of course if the user was running macdrive, then the virus would maybe affect the HFS+ partition?

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In that case, I guess could damage or delete some files.

For example: a virus designed to find word documents (.doc) and delete them, if the user have macdrive (and the HFS+ drive in't mounted read-only)it's possible that it may find some .doc files on HFS+ and delete them.

 

But it will never do any "intelligent" work (like changing Mac OS Configurations or altering binaries) on OS X except it is specifically designed to do that.

 

although I'm no virus expert

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never is a long time. A virus could deffinately target this specific configuration, but i don't think there is much point. From what i can tell, the creators of viruses seem to enjoy mass media coverage, seeing all the major news agencies warm people about some malicious code that they created.

 

Whats the market share of apple machines in general, 5%? 10% at the very most?? (I think it's more like 3-4%)

 

ok, so of that 3 to 4 percent, how many will be running windows on new intel macs? i'd guess at very most 10% of that 3 to 4 percent.

 

How many people are going to create a virus that will only affect a couple of people? Unless it's some sinisterly motived person at Microsoft or Apple i doubt this will ever happen.

 

Long term i think it's likely the mac will slowly pickup more market share from the transition to intel. They (macs) really will be as fast as (intel) PC's. I just like OSX, and for general computing (typing/email/downloading things/watching movies/music/etc) i'd far rather use my 700mhz G4 i only got about a month ago, then my 3.2Ghz P4 machine.

 

I think the 'mums and dads' consumers would far, far rather use a mac, if only they actually did for a little while.

 

I'd like to see Apple embark upon a series of Television commercials directly comparing the OSX experience to the Windows experience. Although this might be treading on dangerous legal ground i'm sure they could find a happy balance.

 

At the moment, the consumer has to see an advert/hear about mac. Be bothered/moved enough by it to go to an Apple store. Then hopefully have the perfect salesman. And then decide to spend more money than a basic el cheapo PC. And why?

 

If in prime time they showed typical quality apple adverts, depicting home users experencing losing their files VS spotlight on the mac, getting viruses/spyway vs not, every single thing you can do with ilife VS what you can't do with a base install of XP, it would have to win more users over, or atleast make them bothered to go to www.apple.com/switch or whatever.

 

I like little things, like in X's default mail app, it automaticly highlights any other emails with the same subject contents so you can follow threads easily. Great!

 

Sorry, getting carried away here, gone off topic, i'll shutup :lol:

 

btw, i've been a PC tech for 6 yrs, but i am open to other things. I have a largish collection of old/classic computers etc.

 

As soon as X1600 video works under XP, i'm getting a 20" imac and popping my P4 beast on eBay. It's got dual 74gb Raptor 10,000rpm drives in a striped raid :P

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If you read carefully i said: "Unless it is specifically designed to do that".

 

But a virus designed to infect Windows and then damage OS X if is present on the computer, if the user is running macdrive or similar, is a long shot. We will probably see one or two proof-of-concept virus

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  • 2 weeks later...
If you read carefully i said: "Unless it is specifically designed to do that".

 

But a virus designed to infect Windows and then damage OS X if is present on the computer, if the user is running macdrive or similar, is a long shot. We will probably see one or two proof-of-concept virus

 

BUT...a virus can corrupt the Windows system. and as we all know from using Virtual PC, it can possibly screw up a Mac. I think you're all taking this idea too lightly.

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They are probably (it has been rumored) working on a compatibility layer like wine/darwine for Mac OS 10.5, I speculate that maybe even based upon it.

 

if they don't, they should

 

The problem here is that Apple wants to convince developers to port to and develop for OSX. If they release a compatibility layer to run Windows apps on OSX this can effectively shoot that goal in the foot. If an application works well enough under such a compatibility layer, incentive for many developers to port is lost. They can write for one platform (Windows) and it works on OSX. Why bother with an OSX port?

 

What Apple will and is doing is focusing on virtual machines. Boot OSX, and then boot Windows, Linux, or even OSX again under the VM. Helps developers (they like VMs), helps people transition to OSX (you can run applications that have yet to be ported to OSX under a Windows VM), doesn’t pull you from the OSX environment like dual booting does, and doesn’t diminish the incentive to port as much as compatibility layer would, since the user is still sufficiently inconvenienced.

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