Dual Boot OS X and Windows - Officially Supported

[Hae-Yu]

The sky has fallen and Apple is actually making an intelligent business decision. I'm not saying they haven't offered great products, but the business side of the house has been pretty deficient for the last couple of... decades.

Apple today has released the Boot Camp demo.
http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/
Boot Camp allows you to dual boot your Intel-based Mac with XP. It will be baked into OS X Leopard for Intel-based Macs. You have to bring your box (or utorrent) copy of Windows to the table. It provides a boot manager, disc partitioning tools, and will even burn a driver disc for you so you don't have to dl anything.

It's a beta product and it says clearly on the FAQ about 90 times. All hardware isn't supported as of right now and won't be:
Are there any Macintosh features that I should not expect to work when running Windows XP on an Intel-based Macintosh computer?

Even after installling the Macintosh Drivers CD, the Apple Remote Control (IR), Apple Wireless (Bluetooth) keyboard or mouse, Apple USB Modem, MacBook Pro's sudden motion sensor, MacBook Pro's ambient light sensor, and built-in iSight camera will not function correctly when running Windows.
This is a fantastic move by Apple. One of the great barriers to transitioning to Apple is that you have to buy all new software which adds to the cost considerably. You can dl much of it on the side, but the OS X warez community isn't as forthcoming as the Windows world (bigger ecosystem and all). This has been the #1 issue holding me back.

In addition, the support they offer will be limited. It is solely meant to offer switchers a painless upgrade path. You can reboot into Windows to get your work done, but there will be enough "gotchas" along the way to prevent you from getting too comfortable running Windows. Things like your iTunes DL's needing reauthorization for each OS you run, Power Management options, right-clicking on trackpads, etc. Nothing essential to running your PC and getting stuff done, but the Bells & Whistles Dept is definitely MIA.

[Nebula]

thats it... all of us PC gamers are fucked

[Hae-Yu]

I don't know about that, but gaming on a Mac is finally an option. They don't have to wait 3 years after the PC release date to get in on them.

[Nebula]

hehe... well, I'm just saying that when it comes to graphic abilities... Macs always seem to have the upper hand in comparison to Windows.

However, I dont know what that is - but I think it comes down to the OS... so perhaps they would lose that 'edge' they always seemed to have while running Winderz...

However, if its mostly hardware related.. we're going to be going up against people who can probably accomplish twice the frames with have the resources...

bastards...

[Hae-Yu]

I don't think you have to worry. Most of the video cards available to Macs are mid-low end. I don't think any of these cost over $140 and most are $100.

ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 on the MacBook Pro.
On board Intel video on the Mac Mini
Power Mac G5 (assuming it will xfer over to Intel with similar specs) NVIDIA GeForce 6600 LE with 128MB of GDDR SDRAM or the regular 6600 with 256M
iMac - PCI-Express ATI Radeon X1600

Apple machines have pretty average consumer-level machine specs. If I were making a gaming box my eyes would pass right past the components they use. OS X is the only advantage and that's useless when gaming.

[Johnnie Walker]

wow thats huge.
The only reason I'm assuming many gamers don't get a mac is because of the constraints on what they can play. Hell even I am considering it now.

How reliable are mac laptops? I was considering getting a newer one but hate the limited life on them once you put games on them. (maybe I just have bad luck haha)

Hae, but because of this there could be higher spec components created because of demand I would think...once this is out of the beta stage or maybe even before.

[Nebula]

Powerbooks are awesome.. but they still use the Apple chipset...

I think the new laptops (with the intel chips) are going to be called MacBookPro's ... havent handled one yet though.

[Hae-Yu]

And here's something else (http://www.forbes.com/technology/feeds/afx/2006/04/03/afx2643961.html)I found in the wake of this story.

Asustek (Asus) won the contract to deliver 1.2 million Intel-based iBooks for Apple. I didn't know Apple sourced the whole shebang. I thought they bought components and then assembled them in Apple plants. Asus makes its own laptop models so we may see some cross-pollination here.

As far as reliability, I know the Powerbooks from a few years ago had some serious motherboard issues, but I haven't seen too many in the last 2 or 3. The MacBook Pros and minis are getting good reviews and feedback. In Consumer Reports and other non-industry groups, Macs rate high in customer satisfaction. A lot of honest techies I know say they have the same amount of problems on OS X as they do on XP. Crashes, hangups and junk like that - usually because of an app, not the OS.