Apple misses self-imposed Windows 7 boot camp deadline Apple has missed its own deadline for Windows 7 support, after the Jobsian outfit failed to release a "Boot Camp" version allowing users to dual install the latest Microsoft operating system with Snow Leopard on their Macs. The company was supposed to confirm support by 31 December 2009. As we reported in October, Apple said …
It all works well apart for the Magic Mouse support which is sporadic at best. It works fine in a VM but if you want to see how your favourite FPS works on an i7 with 8GB of RAM and 4 cores with 2 threads per core, you really don't want to be doing that on VMware Fusion, as good as it is, it just puts another level of abstraction there and graphics are always where VMware falls down. The latest update to V3 of Fusion is good but .. no cigar when it comes to Frame rates on the latest Wintel games.
If you ditch the Magic Mouse and use a standard USB mouse and implement the well documented ATI driver fix then all is well but ... I want to use the Magic Mouse - don't see why I need two mice connected to my new iMac.
Apple are a _hardware_ company. They want to sell hardware. They majority of the profit which comes from Mac sales are due to the hardware. As long as you buy their hardware they are happy. Allowing W7 to run on new Macs means more people will consider buying their hardware. Allowing OS X to run on other peoples' hardware means Apple don't make a hardware sale and thus make little to no profit (and may even lose money). They are a hardware company. They want to sell hardware.
So it's alright for Apple to have Windows installed on their machines, but you can't do it the other way round without a team of lawyers.
If I were MS I would put something in the EULA to prevent this double standard. 'Dual installation on any Apple computer with an operative OS will be tantamount to Infanticide' or similar.
Waiting for all the fanboys to say they don't want W7 anyway etc.
It is perfectly legal for a company to limit the usability of their own product. It is not OK to prevent other companies' products from being used with your own.
Apple preventing use of OS X on non-Apple hardware is OK.
MS is free to prevent Windows on Apple hardware if they want (they don't want, btw).
Dell is _not_ free to prevent Windows/Linux running on their hardware.
Apple is _not_ free to prevent Windows/Linux running on their hardware.
However, if Dell (or any other computer manufacturer with a large market share) were purposely preventing ordinarily compatible operating systems from being used with their hardware, then that would be illegal as it would be anti-competitive. Of course, this only applies to operating systems whose licence allows such use, so Dell preventing OS X installation would be OK.
Please check your info before writing.
"Official" support of Windows 7 is missing in Boot Camp and is late indeed.
However, WIndows 7 in Boot Camp works.
It has been possible to install WIndows 7 in Boot Camp before Windows 7 was available at retail.
Boot Camp drivers for Vista work for Windows 7.
There are many reports of people who have been using WIndows 7 in Boot Camp for a long time.
If you want to have some fun, please check Paut Thurrot's "Winsupersite" article about exactly the same topic (is it where El Reg gets its pristine quality info?) here : http://community.winsupersite.com/blogs/paul/archive/2010/01/02/shame-on-apple-for-not-providing-windows-7-drivers-by-now.aspx
Then check his December 4, 2009 article about WIndows 7 on the Mac here: http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/win7_on_mac.asp
This part is particularly fun :
"As of this writing, Apple has yet to ship Windows 7-specific Boot Camp drivers, but the driver versions found on the Snow Leopard Setup disc, which are designed for Windows Vista, will at least work"
Sure, it would work just using EFI, but for some idiot reason Apple cooked a half-arsed version of EFI 1.1 which doesn't support the new video mode from UEFI 2.0 that Windows Vista/7 needs.
But I'm only reporting my experiences with my 2007 MacBook, which I had to download x64 drivers from Mac Pro to install my copy of Windows 2008, because neither Win2k8 nor x64 OS are supported by Apple.
I've got 10.6 and Win7 running NOW under boot camp. Even have Parallels 5 running it in coherence mode right from the partition (though I'm dissapointed I still can't suspend the machine or do snapshots if running from a bootcamp partition).
I simply loaded bootcamp, and installed 7 right into it. Is there something I'm missing???
"Of course, some will argue that Boot Camp support from Apple is a futile pursuit given that there is so much VM love out there today."
I guess those who argue that aren't running Windows on their Macs to play games, because I can't imagine doing so in a virtual environment and taking the performance hit, when you can run natively under Boot Camp. I'm one of those anxiously awaiting official support.
'Chagrin of the fanbois'. I thought they were so happy with their OSX they shouldn't need Win7 on their gold plated desktop ornament..
Oh wait , that's right, there's no apps for that right ?
I remember the 'old days' (before OSx) of mac. The fanbois were ranting and raving how their os was so much better than all the 'Microsoft' stuff out there. And when you asked : and what applications do you use with it. Microsoft word, Microsoft excel , Microsoft powerpoint , microsoft internet exploder (apple didn't have a browser back then)... que 'eye roll' ...
the only reason I have Windows 7 running on my Mac is that I need to TS into my work machine once a month.
If MS actually made a RPC program for mac that supported TS Gateway then I wouldn't need to run it at all (P.S. they make an RPC program but it doesn't support TSG before you shout)
I switched to Mac from Windows but still use the odd piece of software that runs under Windows and doesn't have a Mac equivalent.
All my documents are now in Pages, Keynote and Numbers (all Apple) my preferred browser is Safari (also Apple.) I've been using these since I bought my Macbook in September - Pages hasn't crashed on me yet. Word 2007 on my work PC crashed twice on me just yesterday.
Things have come a long way. The difference in your argument, however, is that Apple have historically been a hardware company, Microsoft always software.
Not this shit again, listen numb-nuts, in fact all of you trolls....
When MS demanded manufacturers of all PCs only install Windows, they prevented consumer choice. You couldn't buy a PC without Windows. No matter which PC you bought, you had to have Windows, no choice! They effectively prevented YOU from having a choice of what to buy to run on your PC!
When you buy an Apple machine, you have a choice to run their own native O/S or you can run any compatible Intel based x86/x64 O/S you wish, if you don't like theirs. Apple does not demand you run their O/S, you have a choice.
Now here's the kicker, Apple tightly control their O/S so no one can run it, they do not wish you to have it run on hardware they do not stand a snowball's chance of supporting, so it's easier to simply stop you doing it rather than everyone having tears at bedtime. Now by doing that they are not preventing your consumer choice, in fact they are promoting it, you have to think twice about being whether you really want to be shackled into their shiny, locked down Unix clone!
That is the complete opposite of what companies like MS have done. If you want to run OSX, then you buy an overpriced Apple toy, if you want run any O/S you want, you can buy any PC, including Apple kit, YOU HAVE CONSUMER CHOICE!
I guess you need some reading comprehension, since there is only a single post above that compares Apple to MS.
What people are laughing/complaining about is Apple's own contradictions of locking down their software for only their machines, while trying to make their machines run the OS they say is so bad on all their adverts (and therefore "it's easier to simply stop you doing it [i.e. stop you trying to run a crap OS from MS] rather than everyone having tears at bedtime")
A new year and the same comments from the asinine 'tards that frequent these once hallowed pages.
Himpe, you utter fool, Microsoft Word, Excel etc are software *applications* that were initially developed for the Macintosh OS by a company called Microsoft - a *software* company that was founded in Albuquerque, New Mexico - you might have heard of them. *Windows* is an *operating system* developed by the same company, Microsoft, which in its 1.0, 2.0, and 3.x guises were not as good as Macintosh, not even close - some would add 95, 98, ME to that list as well. NT 4.0 is another matter.
@the double standards 'tards; No. This isn't. This is doing exactly what Microsoft want. Apple moving to Intel was a good day for Microsoft. Full value licenses bought by part of the market that was previously unobtainable! Marvellous. Not allowing for Windows to be installed would be anti-competitive, which I guess is what you are all actually trying to say. Well done in proving that the average Reg commenter has as much intelligence as a bag of educationally subnormal badgers so early on in the year!
Microsoft = shift software on as much tin as they can at a high margin. Microsoft don't give a toss about the hardware ... just the license seat. Don't worry about the optimization. Unfortunately for Redmond this margin has been rapidly eroded over the last 2-3 years with Open Source and Apple's move back into mainstream on the back of all things i Series. Another problem Redmond has is the sheer number of lines of code it has to write to support all adapters on all motherboards on the x86, x64 and Itanium platforms.
Apple = shift hardware at a high margin with the added bonus of a trusted OS and the backing of mainstream tech bods. Apple get double bubble. Apple only have to support their line of hardware in code and can control it. Apple's model is like IBM's with Mainframes/Z and P series kit. Apple won't port Mac OS to standard Wintel because that is one of their trump cards. Macs are bought for Mac OS. Port it and my £200 PC will run it.
I buy a PC now to play a FPS type game and I can pick up a 4 core i5 with OS for about £400. I've just paid £2000 for an iMac 27". Six years ago I paid a similar amount of money for a Dell XPS. I wouldn't pay over £400 for a Wintel box now. All my Wintel boxes run Linux in a VM for real work or I use Cygwin in a CMD prompt. For games my current bent is that I'd just buy a Xbox or PS/3 and be done with it and use the iMac for work and proper stuff and the Wintel machines are now becoming delegated file servers. Machines with SATA slots I can plug terabytes into. The Wintels are still there but I'm in the process of deprecating them. Only one has a screen plugged in - the rest are VNC'd. When you buy a Mac, it's not just the aesthetics and the hardware. Other vendors can do that but Apple have complete control of the OS AND the Hardware.
Windows 7 is an improvement but I still find that its Networking and collaboration is still way, way behind its natural predators. DirectX improvements in 7 over Vista are noticeable but all the other business type bug bears of Vista are still manifest. In short - if you want games - buy a Xbox with a Win 7 Directx update on it.
It speaks volumes that the Magic Mouse is the only thing I've found to fail on Win7 Bootcamp. Why would Apple want to write a driver for it? The Touch tablet mouse is a great selling point for the latest line of Macs and Snow Leopard. The Mini Div port too - why do you think there is no DVI support there? They want you to plug a new Mac Book Pro in there ... not an ageing PC with DVI out and an Uber graphics card. HDMI support? Apple are not soft. They know their target market and it is Dicks like me who know how to dot the i's and cross the t's How to put this stuff together themselves and assemble a barnstormer of a machine ... as I said they know their target market. They know I'd just buy a Mac. I've owned one since 1987. They know their market and no matter how low their place went under Sculley ... the fanbois still kept buying ... then came the i Series :-)
Seriously...besides the endless pursuit of the industry one-up, what incentive is there for Apple to adopt the trappings of the massive majority of the personal computing demographic into their cozy elitist mindset? They already have a good thing going charging people 2 to 3 times what their hardware is worth, strictly for the privilege of cherry-picked components guaranteed to minimize compatibility problems...something the diligent enthusiast can do themselves if they could be bothered.
Ever tried that exercise where you have the Apple store on one browser tab and an online PC retailer on another, and you construct comparable machines using 99% of the exact same parts? I built this dual-socket Skulltrail system for $2,500...and an equivalent Mac was nearly $7K. So, same components, factor in the usability of Windows 7 (which might add another hundred bucks but still stays well under half the cost of the Cupertino option) and add the fact that it won't need to migrate back to the nest whenever there's the slightest problem (assuming a decent competency level for the user). I'll admit that for style Mac is the Mercedes Benz of personal computing, but if Apple think they're going to devour Redmond's market share, they're about as likely to succeed as the C230 Kompressor is to replace the Honda Civic in car parks 'round the globe.
Mine's the one with the Nokia phone, the Sony Walkman MP3 player, and the NTFS-formatted flash drive stuffed into the inner pockets. No Apple devices, yet I live and breathe. Can it be??
Way to preach to the choir there sport! You're not the target demographic, are you. Compare like for like. Do the same exercise with Dell and you'll find the final prices are not a million miles apart, with Apple being cheaper more often than you'd care to think. Then again that's an argument that a geek like you cannot get their head around, is it? It's been trotted out more times than accusations of Nazi leanings in these sort of discussions. One can buy and build a performance kit car for a fraction of the price that it'd cost to buy a recognised one. Would you recommend self building to an a performance car to an average consumer? If you are comparing your self build machine to an iMac, don't forget to add the cost of the display, which cannot be had for less than $2000 for similar (exact matches cost more but that's not the game you're playing, is it.)
You list Nokia phones (patent trolls) Sony mp3 players (forgot about the drm/rootkit debacle then?) as if they are pargons of virtue, as if you think you are somehow better than those that chose Apple product. You're not. Your “kool-aid” came out of a different bucket. NTFS formated flash drive? So what?! I can read those on all my Macs, I can write to them too! The trouble with being a clever-dick is that it does rather leave you open to being called on it. Well done, you've not bought an Aple device. I've never owned a Nokia phone, because other than snap-on covers, to this date Nokia have failed to make a feature rich, user frienly device that isn't bug riddled. Get over your self, son.
"and an equivalent Mac was nearly $7K"
Hmm, no doubt you upped the RAM and disks in the Mac to the max, that's the only way I can think you'd ever get such a price. Like most brands Apple charge stupid prices for extras.
Now, try using the base spec Mac and buying the extra RAM from Crucial and disks from Dabs. Different story huh?
...I doubt there's much "chagrin" among Apple enthusiasts because they can't yet (officially) install Windows 7.
I would like to think that in the next year we could see balanced reporting in a neutral tone about the various corporate players in the market. You might even see a better class of comment instead of playground posturing. I suppose it won't happen.
I have several Macs and the mice/mouses/moose are shite! Magic mouse, my arse!
I have big man sized hands, not girly metrosexual ones as depicted in Apple PR bumpf, I use Logitech trackballs, they work well and don't clog up with gunk and breakdown every 5 weeks like Apple's designer mice!
I'm a little confused by the term "supported" used in this article... When I see this word I expect it to mean that the company in question will provide tech support and liase with "supported" products from a 3rd party company.
An example of this is if one of my SUSE Linux Enterprise Servers running atop of Hyper-V on Windows 2008 R2 Datacenter runs into a problem I can phone Microsoft PSS and they will get me a fix for where the problem lies. Even if the problem is with SUSE, they will liase with Novell and get it dealt with. This is what I expect when "supported" is used by a company about another company's products.
It appears that in this case, the word "supported" mearly means, "oh yeah it'll work and we'll give you drivers and stuff but if you get stuck; bugger off we won't help you". I wonder how many times the guys at Apple support will instuct users to contact Microsoft PSS for this "supported" OS. I wouldn't want to ring up PSS without a support contract, it can get very expensive without one!
It seems Apple's idea of a "supported" OS is alot like VMWare's. VMWare claim that they support Windows NT 4... how does that work when Microsoft don't even support it, in any sense of the word?
anyway, the article seems fair enough apart from the VM red herring at the end - Unity is good for MS apps but most of the Macbooks now have half-decent graphics hardware so the opportunity to run a few games on them is being taken by most owners
anyway, it's not as if there's a huge pressing need to upgrade to Windows 7 quite yet, is there?
i'm sort of expecting a downvote and i don't know why
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