BBC NEWS | Technology | Hackers get Mac running Windows
Of course I couldn’t resist the temptation to comment on the fact that Windows can boot on the new Apple Intel boxes. There’s still a long way to go before this is a feasible possibility for the majority of users, and a lot of drivers has to be written. But it’s a remarkable success for the underground community of Apple fans, and congratulations to the hackers that just did, what some engineers said couldn’t be done.
It’s not really a surprise that it could be done, the Intel based Macs really aren’t that different from off-the-shelf PCs, and Windows being a half-decent operating system, of course “only” needed to have drivers and hardware abstraction layers rewritten.
So what do I think about this. Well I think that it’s great news. I’ve said this before, I believe that this only means that Apple potentially can run with the high-end market and the market for the design conscious, especially when the Intel PowerMac replacements launch.
I do however hope that people take the “Pepsi-challenge” with Mac OS X, I really doubt that Windows on Mac will run as smoothly as Mac OS X, I’d really prefer if Windows programs were running under some sort of software layer, like DARWINE.
Another, in my mind related, topic, is that I think that Apple now should introduce OS X as a commercial alternative to Windows. People are tired of waiting endlessly for Windows Vista, that will introduce a new lock-in style programming model. Apple has a huge opportunity right now.
Oh well, in the future we’ll all laugh about this discussion about GUIs, fat clients and application programming interfaces (API)s, when we run applications off the world wide grid on ultra thin clients, that is powered by an open and free system.