Almost as bad as the reporting on Mac viruses and security issues...

Apr 6, 2006 13:45 GMT  ·  By

It is saddening to see the reaction of journalists all over the world to the latest development in the Apple saga. The reactions and comments are many and varied, but some are just so plain wrong that they need to be cleared up.

One example comes from Reuters of a blatant mistake and ignorant writing. "By enabling the move to Windows, the world's No. 1 operating system, Apple hopes to draw people who want Macs, considered by many as easier to use and more stylish, but prefer the Windows operating system," Reuters reports. "The final version of Boot Camp will be available as a feature in the upcoming Mac OS X version 10.5 'Leopard' personal computer."

First of all, the famed Mac ease of use and style comes from the operating system, by using the Windows OS, users are not seeing that ease of use and style. It is like saying that now that the engine can be taken out of a Trabant and placed in a Ferrari, everyone can now enjoy the famed speed of a Ferrari. Furthermore, any journalist that writes Mac OS X version 10.5 'Leopard' personal computer, needs to stop writing. Leopard is an operating system, not a personal computer, OS X is an operating system, not a personal computer, and anyone who does not know the difference should not be writing for Reuters.

Then there are the Apple Doomsday manic street preachers, with a fine example from PC Magazine.

"Is this the beginning of the end of Apple? Perhaps, but as all this unfolds, I feel a little bit like Apple's being consumed, via its own choice, by the Borg," Lance Ulanoff writes for PC Magazine. "With today's Bootcamp [sic] announcement, we have Apple giving in to an obvious demand. But company reps also made it dead-clear that while they've built this utility and made it super-simple to use, Apple has no interest in selling or supporting Windows. Right. They do not want Mac Mini [sic] users calling them up saying, 'Windows isn't running very smoothly on my Mac Mini [sic].' That's understandable. Why should Apple's support techs get tied up in a Windows mess? So Apple is simply acting as an enabler, stopping end users from jury-rigging a dual-boot system. But they're not selling Windows. Until, well, they are. As the Borg were fond of saying, resistance is futile and, in truth, I think Apple has little interest in resisting. Two years from now, end users will probably have the option of buying OSX [sic] Macs or Windows Macs. This second official step in supporting the Windows OS (make no mistake, adopting the Intel CPU was the first) is a seeding phase," Ulanoff writes. "Bootcamp [sic] marks the beginning of the end for Apple as the renegade for the design set and the beginning of Apple as a dominant player in the global desktop PC game. It will become absorbed. Remember, you heard it here first."

Perhaps Mr. Ulanoff is not aware that Apple is primarily a hardware company. The architecture move away from IBM and towards Intel was because of reasons related to the processors, and the fact that IBM was and is more interested in making one chip to manufacture in huge quantities, rather than making many variations of chips that can be used in different types of computing devices. The move also closed the breach in hardware, and so, it was only natural for people to start looking for ways of getting Windows on Macs. If you need a Windows only application, why should you have to use a separate box when you can have a Mac that can do it all?

Apple is not being consumed as Ulanoff suggest, if anything, it is the other way around. Mac have been able to run Windows in some form or another for a very long time, and this has never eroded the Mac share, however, this will allow a lot of new users to be exposed to both OSes, side by side. If Ulanoff is suggesting that Apple will simply suddenly give up on OS X, or that people will be buying Macs to never boot into OS X, he needs to look again.

In many ways, the launch of Boot Camp is a non issue, as this was already possible using the fix made by 'narf' and 'blanka', the fact that Apple has not offered an easy way to do it is just a first step, and, as always with Apple, one needs to think ahead and look at the bigger picture.