Parallels Beta Adds Boot Camp, Desktop 244
Verunks writes "Parallels has released a new beta of its virtualization product for Mac OS X. This new release includes one major new feature, something Parallels calls Coherency: "Shows Windows applications as if they were Mac ones. Try it and enjoy best of both worlds truly at the same time. No more switching between Windows to Mac OS." Check out this Screenshot"
More interesting to me is the Boot Camp support so you can have a single partition to run IE7 in Parallels to test compatibility of a website but reboot to play video games that need a little more juice.
Parallels Desktop simply kicks ass (Score:4, Interesting)
If Parallels was publicly traded, I'd be buying up a lot of their stock. These features are too damned useful for Apple to not add to OS X at some point, and the best way would be for them to just whip out the checkbook and buy the company.
Re:Slowdowns? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Parallels Vs. VMWare (Score:4, Interesting)
Windows is the new Classic (Score:5, Interesting)
Apple really needs to buy Parallels or do something similar. It would make a huge difference to people moving from Windows to the Mac and eventually, Windows could go the same way as Classic MacOS has under OS X and just fade away. I don't think MS would be very pleased with this development though
Re:Slowdowns? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Parallels Vs. VMWare (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Parallels Vs. VMWare (Score:3, Interesting)
It's so small, it doesn't get in the way at all. I used the kind of adhesive that doesn't leave residue when you pull it off and you can keep sticking it on over and over. I don't know, works for me.
Windows activation? (Score:4, Interesting)
I upgraded from a previous install, which means I had a disk image of Windows installed rather than a real partition. What I'm wondering is how Windows would cope with being booted for real on MacBook Pro hardware one moment, then booted again in Parallels another moment. Surely that would kick Windows activation into life?
Cheers,
Ian
Really good for Parallels (Score:5, Interesting)
Obviously it is a big feature for users who might be interested in Boot Camp and Parallels. One license, keeping the same settings etc.
The thing that will bring the real benefits to Parallels though are related to development. Working with Boot Camp means that Parallels can access the Boot Camp drivers for Windows that Apple writes. Every time Apple updates their hardware they'll update Boot Camp with new drivers. This will make it much easier for Parallels to keep up with new hardware.
Boot Camp adds a driver for the touchpad that includes Apple's right click implementation. Suddenly it's in Parallels automagically. Apple ads a driver to operate the inbuilt iSight. Parallels can start using it too.
Shared documents are potentially great. Apple should work with Parallels to ensure things like the iTunes library (and iTS purchased music) is available in the Windows partition.
Apple have already said that they are not going to include virtualisation in Leopard because they are so happy with the performance of Parallels.
If necessary they'd buy Parallels to ensure that development keeps going on. They might do it anyway to reduce the costs.
Re:I Should Write Native Mac Apps...Why? (Score:3, Interesting)
Because Mac owners buy software (Score:3, Interesting)
I use parallels to run the things that Mac that I simply cannot any other way. When looking for software I look mac specific because it interacts better with other programs, and also makes use of many key underlying operating system features (like spell checking in text boxes)
It's this last argument that is really important - going forward more and more really nice system resources are availiable to the user of any Cocoa program (or even plain Mac app). If you distribute a Windows app to sell to Mac users under Leopard they are not geing to be able to take advanatge of Time Machine. You could get some of these features with Vista but now you are talking about hundreds of doallrs extra to run your app on a Mac - and that leaves the market wide open for competition.
I don't get it... (Score:2, Interesting)
Let me get this straight: First, I have to buy a copy of Windows, so that I can run Windows programs on my Mac?
Isn't this like paying Rosie O'Donell for sex when you're already dating Halle Berry?
Re:Parallels Vs. VMWare (Score:3, Interesting)
I never even use the single button below the trackpad on a Macbook. I tap with one finger for left click, tap with two fingers for right click, and drag with two fingers for scroll. This method doesn't strike me as awkward at all (whereas holding down option while clicking the button is indeed awkward.)
Re:Parallels Vs. VMWare (Score:3, Interesting)
I _love_ the two finger click on the MBP. It is an elegant solution to an inelegant problem.
I don't know why they haven't implemented it in the AlBooks that support two finger scrolling, since it is obvious that they would support this as well.
Re:I Should Write Native Mac Apps...Why? (Score:3, Interesting)
Finally, you will realize too late that your lack of actions allowed competitors to grow where they wouldn't had otherwise and jeopardize your business.
Re:I Should Write Native Mac Apps...Why? (Score:4, Interesting)
You may know more people who have VPC or Parallels than not (I do too), but how sure are you that those people will be representative to the entire Mac market? To the market you want to aim your product at? (Unless it's "technologically competent user who has ever heard of Slashdot", fat chance.)
There's also psychology in it. At its core, the people that are now switching to Macs are not switching *because you can run Windows on it*. They are switching *because you can run Mac OS X on it*; the ability to run Windows on it just pushed them over the edge because Mac OS X doesn't have a 90%+ market share. If they were indifferent to what software they preferred, they'd be using a different brand of computers, and run Windows, not Mac OS X.
Most Mac users, even the ones propped up with VPC or Parallels (I plead guilty), ultimately want to run Mac-native software rather than Windows software. Parallels is life-support for existing software that people need to run, and even if it was free and shipped with all Macs and took up half the memory and disk space that it does today, it doesn't make Windows software into Mac software.
You don't need to think that Mac software is superior to Windows software to concede that Mac software has an advantage over Windows software running in a Mac simply because it gets access to all system APIs to things like address books and keychains and hardware support and preferences, and because it looks like everything else you run. Windows software just think it's running on an isolated box and won't become aware of the Mac OS X side of your computer unless you as a user go to some length and the software itself supports it, at which point the developer will already need to make way in their timeplan and budget for Mac-specific testing.
Still not convinced?
1. Mac market share is currently surging. More people, not fewer, will arrive at the Mac platform in the next few years, and building a dedicated version (and almost no well-designed application will need to be rewritten entirely from scratch) is becoming more and more economically feasible.
2. Would you want to bet your entire Mac user base on a competitor not releasing a native Mac version? Unless it's a turd, people will switch to that in a heartbeat. You will lose out months of sales as you rush a native product to market, or need to pull out of a market completely.
Truly Amazing New Features (Score:3, Interesting)
There are four features I just love about this release (well, there are more, but these are my main favourites):
All in all an utterly amazing update. I found this screencast [michaelverdi.com] showing some of the features.
Re:I Should Write Native Mac Apps...Why? (Score:2, Interesting)
I've heard good things about QT as an alternative for VB styles apps.
I understand software like Sketchup is written in Ruby (maybe on rails) and the same code base is used for both Windows and Mac, just the GUI wrapper and compilling differ. Then again cocoa/ xcode can use a number languages, sure Obj-C is main one but that doesn't stop you using the majority of your existing C++ code base for the Mac version.
Hey once you have the Mac app nailed then Linux isn't far off either. or go the other way Linux then Mac.
To answer why write Mac native software have a look at software industry sales numbers.
Mac users by good software and in numbers that suggest an installed base much higher than expected.
Windows users buy Games, Office and highly specialised custom business databases.
A Better Windows Than Windows? (Score:3, Interesting)
After all, we know what happened to the last OS [wikipedia.org] which did this: by billing itself as "a better Windows than Windows", it signed its own death warrant. After all, who'd develop a native app when it runs Windows apps so well?
Re:fast enough for things like CAD though? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:fast enough for things like CAD though? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Incidentally... (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, and the moral - for those of us who make our $ writing software for Windows - is to crack that activation shit. I bought it, I own it, back off me.
Same damn installation too.
Re:Thank goodness for 3rd parties (Score:3, Interesting)
I find OS X to be the most perfect desktop o/s I've used, so for me its only failing is that it won't run Windows programs. I have customers that would love to run Macs - they'd have less hassles & spend less time & money on technical support issues. But they're bound inexorably to one or two bespoke or proprietary apps, only available on Windows. That's the facts of the matter for me - the deficiencies inherent in OS X are that it isn't Windows.
Personally, I find this to be a pretty minor deficiency, but that's me - in particular I have a spare Windows PC around the place if I absolutely need to do something in Windows.
The parent might be a troll (or he might not be), but he has given me food for thought.
Stroller.
Win-OS/2 nostalgia (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't want to
Compare some of those images to the Parallels desktop, and you'll get my drift. Welcome to the early 90s!
The comparison to OS/2 brings up another interesting question for the future of OS X. Ignoring the eerily similar name (OS 2, OS X, ha ha) how much incentive will there be for software publishers to write native OS X applications when emulation such as this exists? Back then you could get a copy of Lotus 123 for OS/2, but running Lotus 123 for Windows under win-OS/2 ran almost as well, with copy and paste support and object embedding, and etc. How many copys of 123 did Lotus sell for the OS/2 platform?
Apple has a long history of supporting compatibility products. Users have had choices ranging from Orange PC cards to SoftWindows. However, these came with somewhat of a price or performance cost. If Windows emulation on OS X becomes ubiquitous, where does that leave OS X as an application platform?
I like OS X a lot. There is an appeal for me to be able to run unix apps along side X11 apps along side OS X apps along side Windows apps. Does OS X not run the risk, however, of following OS/2, NextStep, and Be into obscurity by emulating itself out of existence? True, Apple is a hardware vendor, and they provide a vertical solution of hardware and software. Maybe OS X will survive where OS/2 did not.
Full disclosure, I am writing this from Gentoo on a Macbook Pro.
Re:I Should Write Native Mac Apps...Why? (Score:3, Interesting)
As a Mac user, I would not accept an app that had different keyboard shortcuts just because it is running under Windows virtualization. Any deviation from the consistent shortcuts across Mac apps is unacceptable. I don't like Windows-style toolbars. I don't like having to run a 'wizard' just to uninstall an app (and then trust it when it says it was removed). I don't like launching apps from the start menu or from desktop shortcuts. Believe it or not, I don't like apps that assume I have a 2-button mouse (even though I do, but I prefer to think of the right button as a quick way to get to frequently-used commands, but I don't like having options in that contextual menu that aren't available anywhere else). I don't like the look of the Windows GUI. I don't like Windows 'Save' dialog boxes that only let me save in tree view. I don't like browsing dialogs of any sort that default to 'list mode' (the one that has you scroll sideways).
If your app has any of the above Win-nonsense I won't use it. And if it has some capability that my Mac software doesn't have, I may hold on to it, but only to do that one task. And even then I certainly won't pay for it. (I pirate much less than most people, but I don't pay for crappy apps or Win apps).
That's why.