A pc user has absolutely nothing to gain from a Mac, so I don't see the point.

If they paid me a few thousand a month just to to use a Mac, maybe I'd consider it.

If by some magic this thing could run everything just like a PC ( which it doesn't and will not anytime soon ), then I guess some people could justify buying it, if they really had to have the option of running FCP or something like that on the same machine ( if they were forced by their boss or whatever ), because nobody sane would favor FCP over Vegas. And there is no point in running vegas on a mac, when it runs just fine without it.

In the end, isn't the fact that Apple has converted to PC almost 100%, proof enough that they had crap for hardware ( and software for the most part ). They have every reason to come over to our side, I see none to even visit theirs.

it's all about preference - I like macs interface for some things, but I am used to PC - so I like mac for average stuff - browsing etc..., but need a PC when I'm working because that's what I'm used to. However I'm not going to spend an extra 1K to get a machine that will do both. If their hardware prices for their laptops come down enough I'll probably end up buying one. For now - I was looking at the mac mini's they're cheap enough that once they start holding the duo chipsets it's possibly the answer I've been looking for.

Dave

Buster, it will run fine as long as they provide a driver for the graphics card, which I assume they will.

> I wonder if DirectX and .Net and the other Windows bits will run without issues.

Yes. It’s dual boot. You are running Windows XP on the Intel Mac. OSX isn’t even in the picture. It’s 100% IBM PC Compatible at that point.

> A pc user has absolutely nothing to gain from a Mac, so I don't see the point.

A personal computer is just a hunk of useless hardware without software. If there is software that only runs on a Mac that you need to use (for whatever reason) then you have a LOT to gain because now you have one computer that runs it all.

So the point is, if someone wanted you to finish editing an FCP project for them (or hire you to start editing an FCP project that you will turn over to someone else) then you would only need one pc.

~jr

The next question is, will Apple ever officially endorse OSX running on a non-apple branded machine? It seems to me that Apple has been pretty smart staying alive all of these years. If they sold OSX (or whatever it is by then) to regular PC users, they could increase their market share very quickly as many people "like the apple interface" but don't like the extra cost associated with the Apple hardware. If apple was smart, they'd sell their OS for use on regular PCs, then as more people start getting familiar with the Mac OS, Apple would be in a much better position to sell more hardware. Then again, most profits come from software and not the hardware anyway.

Apple don't sell their OS period, the licence only permits you to run it on the harware that it came with. MS on the other hand does sell you a licence, you own the licence and you can run the code on whetever hardware.
Big problem for Apple is going to be during this transition phase. Although Rosetta is 100% reliable apps running under it are running slower than the native Windoz version, so until Adobe rewrite the code for PS it's quicker to run the PC version on Apples boxes.
Apple have always said the money is in the hardware for them, not the software, so they are taking a big risk as they simply cannot compete on the hardware front pricewise. I'd guess though Apple could afford to loose their PC business and not affect their bottom line much at all, all the money for them is in in appliances. FCP has gone from being the path finder to playing catchup and reluctantly at that. At the moment PPro is WAY ahead of FCP for high end work and Apple don't seem to be making any effort to catchup, admittedly until recently their hardware has been holding their software back, will this change, hard to say now that AMD have stolen the march from Intel. For Apple to switch processors again would require more than even their spin doctors could manage to explain away.

Bob.

I wonder. If you've got just the one system and you start a render in FCP, you won't be able to do anything on the PC side of things. I think if you had a Mac set up as a duel boot machine and actually needed both OS's it'd be minutes before you got online and bought another PC.

So dual-bootable Mac's may be a "gateway computer" leading to buying more PCs.

Rob Mack