GadgetFreak

I agree that having both would be nice and I will take advantage of that. However, that said, I think the Apple OS is vastly superior to Windows. I would only want windows for a few apps like Active Sycn and Palm sync and possibly voice recognition. I realize there are Mac versions out there but having the Win versions running I dont want to mess with changing them.

kanebear

I bought the macbook simply to run windows on it. I don't use AppleOS and doubt I ever will. I simply love Apple's industrial design and don't mind paying more for something I can't get on the PC side of things.

ScottC

People pay $4500 for an Alienware machine, and I know that not everyone does that because of its "power", people want a nice looking machine. There are plenty of people that think that a Dell Dimension or XPS looks like crap, and these people are perfectly willing to pay an additional $500 for a machine that does not look like crap.

For serious; I have a feeling we'll see a pretty active market in XP/Vista running Apple machines in not too long. Why else do you think the community was able to cough up $14000 to get someone to figure out how to install XP? Not all of them wanted dual boot. I for one am going to order a couple of mac mintels, simply because they are the smallest dualcore machine I can find with BT and WiFi. They will make perfect little servers. Heck, if it works like I want, then I might start selling them myself on Ebay with an XP license...

USAFAN

You might be correct, good business idea. I guess you have to 'cooperate' with one of Apple's tier 1 customers in order to get a sufficient Gross Profit Margin (>=24%) ... I looked at Apple's Mac mini. The 'box' design and the technology could easily be 'reproduced'. Why don't talk to Medion. They are (still) in the US and need some real good 'ideas'.
BTW, what is BT?

ScottC

There are already a few that stole the design (Asus comes to mind), but none of them have the build quality and features of the Mac. As for the discount, I've been dealing with Apple long enough to get the discounts I need

skofarrell

Out of curiosity, aside from using an external mouse, how does one right click using an XP macbook?

murphy

Hold down control and click.

CrazyOne

Is that likely to work in XP though? (That is how the Mac OS deals with it, but I gather that is software based.)

The thing about running XP only on the Macs is that there's not going to be an Apple warranty or support that way. This to me seems to limit the idea only to those with the technical knowhow to handle this anyway. The average user isn't going to go for a solution that has no manufacturer support. So I don't really see a huge market for Macs with only XP.

Now dual boot I can see, perhaps, as long as again it doesn't void warranties. Still, so far the bar of entry is still pretty high, a lot of technical work to get it going. What I do expect will happen with commercial developer resources behind it, though, is the ability to run Windows concurrently with Mac OS, a la Virtual PC. That's not really anything new, but Virtual PC has always been a slowish performer. Since this is now Intel hardware, though, it should be possible to have a Virtual PC-like dual use setup with little to no performance hit. That is the solution that will sell to the average user. Those who need no support or warranty will still be able to make XP boot if they want.

murphy

Good points. I guess ctrl-click won't work for xp. You'd need an external mouse.

As far as dual booting goes, I've got zero interest. Once upon a time I used to dual boot Linux and Windows. It's a big pain. What I really want is virtualization. The new Intel chips support hardware virtualization. Once someone relases an emulator that runs Windows apps at near native speeds, I can get rid of my last Windows machine, and go Mac at the office as well. This wouldn't be a good solution for video gamers, but for those of us still tied to a Windows app it'll be great.

Honestly, though, I think the vast majority of Mac users don't care one way or another. Most Mac users are looking to get away from Windows, not run it on a Mac. The OS and bundled apps are the biggest selling point for a Mac - it's an actual system, as opposed to a bunch of parts cobbled together by a bunch of different companies. The availability of software for Macs really isn't a problem. With few exceptions, there are Mac apps as good or better than the Windows apps in just about every segment. The giant hole is vertical apps, but lots of those are moving to web apps anyway. The big one for me is Visual Studio. I love to use it, and I don't guess MS will build me a Mac version.

kanebear

XP is installing as we speak. Took me half the freakin' night to get it done. Turns out the 'automated' .EXE someone put together doesn't work. So after burning 3 cds of that crap I finally went and rolled my own and voila, she eeez booting. Overall it's a bit of a pain to get it done but I have NO doubt the process will be greatly improved and streamlined as we go forward.

kanebear

I'm now posting from it. The video is slooow, unfortunately they haven't worked out the issue of video drivers yet. Otherwise, it works just like any other XP machine. A few keyboard workarounds but nothing big. As for right clicking the mouse, there's a small shareware utility, you hold down the ctrl key and it acts like a right click. Works a treat. I'll post the link shortly.

LIH Prem

Why don't you just buy the damn 3 button mouse?

It's just a usb mouse. They work with MacOS also.

-David

CrazyOne

Most people like to be able to use a laptop without an external mouse.

murphy

For those that are still running OS X on their Macs, and are unhappy about the one button trackpad, Sidetrack is pretty nifty.

LIH Prem

Good point.

Defintily a drawback in this case. A travel mouse might be a decent option. Still hard to use on an airplane though.

-David