Why doesn't Apple try to make Windows as seamless as OS X?

[dotdotdot]

Though at first it seems obvious why Apple would not put all their effort into making Windows run as flawlessly as OS X on their hardware, after thinking about it Apple should try and make Windows on the Mac run as seamlessly as possible.

Yes, one would think that if someone puts Windows on a MacBook Pro and finds annoyances, they would switch to the Mac OS. But this is not usually the case - people will keep using Windows, even with its flaws which are mostly due to Apple's bad drivers, because many people are simply unable to leave that platform.

If I bought an Apple product, put Windows on it, and it ran just as well or better than an equivalent Windows-based laptop, it would surely reinforce the notion that Apple is synonymous with quality and care. But when a cheap $500 laptop can run Windows better than a $3000 MacBook Pro, it just negatively reflects on the company.

Why can't Apple try and optimize the battery life in Windows, allow 9400m graphics, monitor fan control, and turn off the backlight on the keyboard?

 

[TJRiver]

Have at him boys..................

 

[steveza]

It's a good question. Microsoft has to ensure that their software runs on every possible hardware configuration - Windows 7 will even 'run' on a Pentium 2 from 1997 - but Apple only has two platforms to worry about. With the release of SL that will reduce to one. I know that Microsoft tests the software patches it releases in boot camp to make sure there aren't an incompatibilities. The beta release of XP Service Pack 3 even mentioned boot camp in it's release notes.

I think the SL version of boot camp will play better with Windows so maybe Apple have actually tried to make some improvements in this area.

 

[Anuba]

Obviously they want it to make it look as crap as possible, but I found it fairly easy to bypass those obstacles and get a kickass Win7 x64 installation up and running.

Initially I was concerned about things I've heard about Boot Camp on unibody MBPs - overheating, bluescreens and poor battery life - but I'm not noticing any of that. The temperatures are fine, a couple degrees more than in OS X but lightyears from overheating. Battery life is great; obviously 9400M is a no-go but I get the same battery life in Win7 as I get with the 9600M in Leopard. All drivers are working perfectly, and for an RC, Win7 is in amazing shape.

I'll still be using OS X for music production -- Microsoft has a lot of work left to do in terms of native low-latency support, aggregate audio interfaces etc -- and I'm really looking forward to taking Snow Leopard for a spin... but I couldn't possibly find myself leaving Win7 for Leopard, the Vista of the OS X family. After god knows how many maintenance updates of Leopard, I'm still having more issues in this supposedly mature version of Leopard than I have in the Win7 RC. On a Mac. Annoying little crashes and freezing, occasional inability to shut down/reboot, third party stuff like Logitech drivers are awful -- not Apple's fault, but still a detriment to the user experience.

I wouldn't hold my breath for Apple improving Boot Camp support in any meaningful way, or implement full trackpad functionality with the Win7 multitouch API, but whatever... as long as they provide support for stuff like the pure Apple stuff like the keyboard and the backlight adjustment, the OEMs will take it from there.

 

[stainlessliquid]

I just wish the trackpad wasnt such a piece of crap in Windows. I cant stand not being able to tap to click, all PC laptops Ive ever tried have supported this.

 

[Anuba]

I just wish the trackpad wasnt such a piece of crap in Windows. I cant stand not being able to tap to click, all PC laptops Ive ever tried have supported this.

Huh? Tap to click works fine in Windows, you just have to enable it in the Boot Camp settings. Tap with one finger for left-click, two fingers for right-click.

The real bummer is that it doesn't disable the trackpad while you're typing, but I guess I can live with that.

 

[stainlessliquid]

Oh, it must be new, thank god

 

[Galley]

Install Windows on a Mac? That's crazy talk!

 

[Nohg]

What I wish they'd do is make their own built-in version of MacDrive.

Apple pioneered HFS, and if a third party can make the disks display (most of the time) Apple should be able to do it ten times better.


I mean, that would really make Windows on the Mac seamless.

 

[Stridder44]

If I bought an Apple product, put Windows on it, and it ran just as well or better than an equivalent Windows-based laptop, it would surely reinforce the notion that Apple is synonymous with quality and care. But when a cheap $500 laptop can run Windows better than a $3000 MacBook Pro, it just negatively reflects on the company.

This is just plain false. A $500 laptop cannot run Windows better than a MacBook Pro. Yes, the Boot Camp drivers are pretty old now (they're pretty terrible actually), but that will (hopefully) change with Snow Leopard. As long as you install Boot Camp 2.1 and the latest video card driver, a MBP would run circles around that crappy little $500 laptop. In fact, PCWorld rated the MacBook Pro as the fastest Windows Vista laptop in 2007. 2007, yes I know, but I'm just making a point.

What I wish they'd do is make their own built-in version of MacDrive.

Well, Apple is actually doing just that in Snow Leopard; HFS+ (read only) drivers for Windows. Now you can access you HFS formatted drive(s) from Windows just like you would any regular NTFS formatted drive.

 

[The Flashing Fi]

Huh? Tap to click works fine in Windows, you just have to enable it in the Boot Camp settings. Tap with one finger for left-click, two fingers for right-click.

The real bummer is that it doesn't disable the trackpad while you're typing, but I guess I can live with that.

Only works on the unibody Macbooks and Macbook Pros. Older models are just SOL.

Have at him boys..................

You act as if he's not bringing up valid points. His points are all very valid.

Apple's Boot Camp drivers are absolute crap. Why doesn't the web cam on my Macbook Pro work in Vista or Windows 7 (it does in XP though). Why no tap to click on older Macbook Pros? Why do we not see regular driver updates for Windows from Apple?

To my knowledge, there has been one driver package update from Apple for older Macbook Pros. For people with Macbook Pros from 2007, before Apple supplied 64-bit drivers with newer Macbook Pros, we have to hunt down 64-bit drivers for our Macs, even though our laptops are fully 64-bit capable and fully capable of using 4 gigs of RAM.

Our trackpads are capable of tap to click in Mac OS X, so what's stopping Apple from releasing drivers that include tap to click for older Macbook Pros? Not a damn thing. Every other manufacturer has offered tap to click since Windows 95 on their laptops, yet I don't get it because Apple can't be arsed to support their bloody product?

 

[Nohg]

Well, Apple is actually doing just that in Snow Leopard; HFS+ (read only)

So, the Mac Drives will be read only? Read/write would be more useful IMO, as a simple app like HFS explorer can handle the reading.

But, it's good to know Apple's gonna take a crack at that, thanks!

 

[Stridder44]

So, the Mac Drives will be read only? Read/write would be more useful IMO, as a simple app like HFS explorer can handle the reading.

But, it's good to know Apple's gonna take a crack at that, thanks!

Yes. When you open My Computer, you'll see your NTFS formatted partition (the Windows drives) and the HFS+ partitions (the OS X drives), but you'll only be able to read them. Which honestly is a good thing.

 

[Nohg]

Oh well, I suppose it's rather like having to choose between one eye and being totally blind, I'll take the one eye.

Thanks for the infos.

 

[jaw04005]

So, the Mac Drives will be read only? Read/write would be more useful IMO, as a simple app like HFS explorer can handle the reading.

Apple's HFS+ read support likely ignores file permissions just like Apple's NTFS read support in Leopard. Therefore, the chances of critical system files or data being accidentally modified within Boot Camp would be significant.

I've corrupted my Mac partition using MediaFour's MacDrive before. It's fairly easy to do, and I would consider myself an advanced user.

You could always create a small FAT partition to share and modify files between the two partitions.

 

[NovemberWhiskey]

I totally agree with you, OP.

I love OS X, I love Apple, but at this point in time, I cannot live without windows.

Gates and Msft just made the right business plays early on, and currently Windows is the dominant force in the software/OS market. I wish it were different, but nothing can change the fact that they are and that many people still need to be able to run windows for work.

As long as they are, and as long as Apple promotes bootcamp as a way to run windows on an Apple, I think they should put out the best support for Bootcamp.

I keep hearing that Win7 works very well in bootcamp, and I really hope this is the case. I will def be running win 7 via bootcamp or Vmware.

 

[blackhand1001]

This is just plain false. A $500 laptop cannot run Windows better than a MacBook Pro. Yes, the Boot Camp drivers are pretty old now (they're pretty terrible actually), but that will (hopefully) change with Snow Leopard. As long as you install Boot Camp 2.1 and the latest video card driver, a MBP would run circles around that crappy little $500 laptop. In fact, PCWorld rated the MacBook Pro as the fastest Windows Vista laptop in 2007. 2007, yes I know, but I'm just making a point.



Well, Apple is actually doing just that in Snow Leopard; HFS+ (read only) drivers for Windows. Now you can access you HFS formatted drive(s) from Windows just like you would any regular NTFS formatted drive.

The whole macbook pro being the fastest windows vista laptop was a bunch of bull**** anyway. There were far faster laptops out at the time with REAL graphics cards (quadro/firegl or gaming cards) and core 2 extreme processors.

 

[Stridder44]

The whole macbook pro being the fastest windows vista laptop was a bunch of bull**** anyway. There were far faster laptops out at the time with REAL graphics cards (quadro/firegl or gaming cards) and core 2 extreme processors.

You mean like that Alienware crap that weighs 20 pounds and has a 10 minute battery life and cost 4 grand? Yeah, totally mobile. But I'm glad to read your in-depth explanation of why it was "a bunch of bull****".

 

[Anuba]

Apple's Boot Camp drivers are absolute crap. Why doesn't the web cam on my Macbook Pro work in Vista or Windows 7 (it does in XP though). Why no tap to click on older Macbook Pros? Why do we not see regular driver updates for Windows from Apple?

iSight also works fine on unibody MBPs, but anyway -- this has nothing to do with Apple's reluctance to support Windows properly, this is about Apple pooping on customers who haven't given them more money in the last 10 minutes. You mean nothing to them after you've made a purchase. They only have their eyes on the present and the future and never gave a rat's ass about legacy compatibility and support.

The other day I installed a music app called ReBirth on a Windows 7 machine. It's a great little program, but the final version was released in 1998. In that time, Apple has...

1) Ditched their OS and built a new one from scratch
2) Made a half-assed attempt at legacy support through Classic mode (ReBirth never worked in Classic... nothing that relied on low latency audio did), only to scrap it shortly thereafter
3) Switched from PPC to Intel
4) (soon) ditched PPC support in the upcoming version of OS X

So there's not only one but four brick walls between OS X and ReBirth. Mac users can still enjoy ReBirth, though... in Windows. To run a native Mac app from 1998 you basically need a Mac from 1998 with whatever OS version it shipped with. I fully expect every little third party thingamabob like DivX, Logitech Control Center etc to stop working when Snow Leopard is released (and/or wreak havoc on the system, causing perpetual blue screens or whatever) because Apple just can't be arsed to worry about support for anything except their own software. Meanwhile, Microsoft are bending over backwards to make everything old and new work with Win7, and they'll release compatibility updates for stuff that won't work, and if that's not doing the trick you can try running the apps in compatibility mode for any earlier Windows version of your choice, and if that doesn't work you can try the virtual XP mode that's included with all high-end version of Win7. A lot can be said of the boys in Redmond, but you certainly can't excuse them of jamming their heads in the sand when it comes to legacy support.

 

[nbnbcar]

Though at first it seems obvious why Apple would not

 

[FCzenit]

Though at first it seems obvious why Apple would not put all their effort into making Windows run as flawlessly as OS X on their hardware, after thinking about it Apple should try and make Windows on the Mac run as seamlessly as possible.

Yes, one would think that if someone puts Windows on a MacBook Pro and finds annoyances, they would switch to the Mac OS. But this is not usually the case - people will keep using Windows, even with its flaws which are mostly due to Apple's bad drivers, because many people are simply unable to leave that platform.

If I bought an Apple product, put Windows on it, and it ran just as well or better than an equivalent Windows-based laptop, it would surely reinforce the notion that Apple is synonymous with quality and care. But when a cheap $500 laptop can run Windows better than a $3000 MacBook Pro, it just negatively reflects on the company.

Why can't Apple try and optimize the battery life in Windows, allow 9400m graphics, monitor fan control, and turn off the backlight on the keyboard?

What does he mean by the part that I highlighted??

 

[Anuba]

What does he mean by the part that I highlighted??

You can't use the integrated 9400M GPU in Windows, it defaults to the faster but more energy consuming 9600M. Windows would detect it on a normal PC, but not a unibody MBP...

 

[palane]

Why can't Apple try and optimize the battery life in Windows, allow 9400m graphics, monitor fan control, and turn off the backlight on the keyboard?

That would be the job of VM/Ware etc.

BB

 

[Mackan]

Battery life is great; obviously 9400M is a no-go but I get the same battery life in Win7 as I get with the 9600M in Leopard. All drivers are working perfectly, and for an RC, Win7 is in amazing shape.

I am surprised. Running XP, Vista or 7 on my Unibody Macbook with the 9400M gives at best half the battery life of what I get in Leopard. I've checked the power consumption in Watts as well. Suddenly both Leopard and Windows are equal in battery life with the 9600M?

Particulary the lack of power management drivers for Boot Camp, and terrible trackpad support make my MacBook almost unusable as a portable machine when running Windows. It makes me angry how Apple don't give a **** about me, their customer, if I run Windows, which they advertise support for via Boot Camp.

Obviously, I have doubts of buying any more Apple hardware even if I like their design and products.

 

[Consultant]

Thanks for the laugh.

Windows is windows. It's buggy, poorly designed, and inefficient. Apple hardware is not going to make windows, a poorly put together knockoff, run like OSX.

I just wish the trackpad wasnt such a piece of crap in Windows. I cant stand not being able to tap to click, all PC laptops Ive ever tried have supported this.

Tab to click on pc is there because
- pc use very tiny trackpads which won't be hit accidentially by user's hand, but also means it lacks accuracy due to small size
- very tiny trackpads = very tiny buttons, hard to use, thus need to use the trackpad to tab

Macs have
- Large trackpads that ignores accidental input
- Much larger button
so there is no need for the pc tiny trackpad workaround, but it's there if you want it.

I am surprised. Running XP, Vista or 7 on my Unibody Macbook with the 9400M gives at best half the battery life of what I get in Leopard. I've checked the power consumption in Watts as well. Suddenly both Leopard and Windows are equal in battery life with the 9600M?

Particulary the lack of power management drivers for Boot Camp, and terrible trackpad support make my MacBook almost unusable as a portable machine when running Windows. It makes me angry how Apple don't give a **** about me, their customer, if I run Windows, which they advertise support for via Boot Camp.

Ever use a pc laptop? Same behavior as any laptops running windows. Apple does not advertise boot camp will equal to osx at all.

You need to update the nvidia drivers. Just because you don't know how to update video drivers (defaults to the more power hungry discreet card) you shouldn't blame it on apple. Nvidia does the GPU drivers in windows. Apple has nothing to do with it.