As a new Mac user I have barely found myself using Windows despite Boot Camp.

[nylon]

April 7th was the day that I purchased my MBP. This was the day of the boot camp release from what I remember. There was no longer any reason not for me to switch as I finally had a safety net with Windows. I sold my 3 year old Dell Desktop and my 2 year old Thinkpad T40 on ebay netting myself C$1850 towards the purchase of a C$2800 MPB. Not a bad return. But I digress.

Despite my woes with the MBP hardware, I have increasingly found myself booting into Windows less and less. Yes the learning curve has been steep and OSX had a few annoying aspects such as having to press two keys to delete a file (not a huge issue) and not being able to resize a window from any one of its boundries except the bottom right hand corner (what gives with that anyway!). Despite this it was been a fairly painless transition.

The main thing I am missing are native support for .wmv files, streaming media and not having a single media player for all types of media files. I wish Quicktime would support multiple codecs as Windows Media player does even if it requires the installation of plugins (and yes I know that the flip4mac plugin is on its way). Still, the alternative, VLC, is buggy as hell.

Despite the hardware issues of my MBP, OSX is a pleasure to use and I honestly think that before long I will be removing Windows completely from my system. Yes I use my computer for work and entertainment purposes but if my expereinces are the norm for new switchers I believe Apple has considerable growth ahead of them in the consumer market.

The boot camp strategy is ingenious and will go a long way in easing the imediments for people to switch. There were rants and raves when boot camp was released that developers no longer had the incentive to code for OSX. My experiences seem to indicate quite the opposite. Not only will developers now be able to code for both platforms on a single machine they will find themselves increasingly drawn to code for OSX.

 

[janey]

The boot camp strategy is ingenious and will go a long way in easing the imediments for people to switch. There were rants and raves when boot camp was released that developers no longer had the incentive to code for OSX. My experiences seem to indicate quite the opposite. Not only will developers now be able to code for both platforms on a single machine they will find themselves increasingly drawn to code for OSX.

Well, I remember the arguments I got into about what you're saying were specifically about game devs not porting their games to OSX. Sure, you may find your situation to be as such, but let's not forget that it costs money, time and experienced mac developers for a new OSX port to come out. Why do that if it's already working perfectly on Windows? I suppose my logic makes less sense depending on what the app is, but from a game standpoint:
1. millions of dollars and hours have already been spent on the Windows version of the game.
2. if you're a hardcore gamer who doens't do anything else but game, you're prolly going to build your own or buy a gaming rig.
3. people can boot into Windows in a matter of like one minute to go play a game for an hour or two and then boot out again to go back to OSX.

If it's that simple to play HL2, why would Valve waste valuable money on developing HL2 for Mac when they can spend the money on something else, like Team Fortress 2 (ha...ha) or HL2: Episode One, while people who want to play HL2 on their Macs only need to spend a couple minutes booting into Windows? Which, obviously they have, while us OSX users don't even have a port of the original Half-Life.


Curiously enough, the PC Magazine editor in chief wrote about this: http://apple.slashdot.org/apple/06/05/04/1944243.shtml

 

[Demoman]

April 7th was the day that I purchased my MBP. This was the day of the boot camp release from what I remember. There was no longer any reason not for me to switch as I finally had a safety net with Windows. I sold my 3 year old Dell Desktop and my 2 year old Thinkpad T40 on ebay netting myself C$1850 towards the purchase of a C$2800 MPB. Not a bad return. But I digress.

Despite my woes with the MBP hardware, I have increasingly found myself booting into Windows less and less. Yes the learning curve has been steep and OSX had a few annoying aspects such as having to press two keys to delete a file (not a huge issue) and not being able to resize a window from any one of its boundries except the bottom right hand corner (what gives with that anyway!). Despite this it was been a fairly painless transition.

The main thing I am missing are native support for .wmv files, streaming media and not having a single media player for all types of media files. I wish Quicktime would support multiple codecs as Windows Media player does even if it requires the installation of plugins (and yes I know that the flip4mac plugin is on its way). Still, the alternative, VLC, is buggy as hell.

Despite the hardware issues of my MBP, OSX is a pleasure to use and I honestly think that before long I will be removing Windows completely from my system. Yes I use my computer for work and entertainment purposes but if my expereinces are the norm for new switchers I believe Apple has considerable growth ahead of them in the consumer market.

The boot camp strategy is ingenious and will go a long way in easing the imediments for people to switch. There were rants and raves when boot camp was released that developers no longer had the incentive to code for OSX. My experiences seem to indicate quite the opposite. Not only will developers now be able to code for both platforms on a single machine they will find themselves increasingly drawn to code for OSX.

In 2004, my boss gave me a $10K bonus to buy any technology I wanted. A couple weeks earlier I had been to Frye's and looked at the incredible dual Power Mac with a 23" monitor. I also liked the Powerbook 17". I was also learning video production. Ring the cash register! I spent every penny on Mac's and Apple Pro Software. I also purchase the Adobe Creative Suite, the Macromedia Suite and Office:Mac. I also bought 2 23" Apple monitors and 2 LaCie 500G external drives. I also had to go through the learning curve. But, after a few months, I dreaded having to use Wintel.

Last December I was fortunate enough to receive this same deal....I have a very nice system. I still make most of my income developing SW on Wintel. But, I use Citrix on my Mac to do this. I am not a gamer anymore, so Bootcamp is irrelevant to me.

 

[gekko513]

and not being able to resize a window from any one of its boundries except the bottom right hand corner (what gives with that anyway!).

It allows for borderless windows, but mostly I think it's just because that's the way it's always been on a Mac. It's just one of those things that you have to accept and get used to.