{"id":135989,"date":"2010-01-04T13:24:35","date_gmt":"2010-01-04T18:24:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theappleblog.com\/?p=38540"},"modified":"2010-01-04T13:24:35","modified_gmt":"2010-01-04T18:24:35","slug":"apple-misses-windows-7-bootcamp-deadline-apparently-everyone-except-me-really-cares","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/135989","title":{"rendered":"Apple Misses Windows 7 Bootcamp Deadline, Apparently Everyone Except Me Really Cares"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I have a confession to make. I don’t dual boot. I don’t use Windows on my Mac. I don’t need<\/em> to. There’s not a single bit of software I need that is Windows-only. And even though I have Office:Mac 2008, I open Word and Excel documents in Pages and Numbers. (I don’t hate Office, I just find iWork to be a more rewarding experience!)<\/p>\n

But, apparently, I’m in a minority, and every<\/em> other Mac owner on Earth is simply aching<\/em> to run Windows 7 on their Apple hardware. Well, you’d be forgiven for thinking as much, given the articles doing<\/a> the rounds<\/a> on tech sites<\/a> this past weekend<\/a>, most of them tersely reporting how Apple has missed its own deadline for providing official Boot Camp driver support for Microsoft’s latest version of Windows.<\/p>\n

Here’s what Apple had to say in a (very short) support note published<\/a> in October last year:<\/p>\n

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Apple will support Microsoft Windows 7 (Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate) with Boot Camp in Mac OS X Snow Leopard before the end of the year. This support will require a software update to Boot Camp.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The rest of the note was just a list of the nine older models of iMac and MacBook that wouldn’t support the Boot Camp update. <\/span><\/p>\n

AppleInsider reached out to Apple for comment last week, as 2009 drew to a close. An Apple employee responsible for dealing with Bootcamp enquiries told them<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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…it was very unlikely that the update would surface in the next 24 hours, adding that a release sometime early next year would be a safer bet.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

MacWorld UK writes a little more dramatically<\/a> about the missed deadline:<\/p>\n

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On the same day in October that rival Microsoft launched Windows 7 , Apple promised that it would revise Boot Camp\u2026\u00a0Apple has still not released a Boot Camp revision to its Software Update service.<\/p>\n

Although Microsoft officially unveiled Windows 7 in late October, the company first provided developers with early builds a year before that, and began offering previews to the general public in February 2009.<\/p>\n

Apple did not elaborate on why they would not support Microsoft’s newest operating system.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I’m not sure a missed deadline is the same as Apple demonstrating they unequivocally ‘would not’ support Windows 7, but the drama doesn’t end there. Here’s Paul Thurrott’s take, from a blog post<\/a> entitled “Shame on Apple for not Providing Windows 7 Drivers by Now”:<\/p>\n

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Previously, Apple promised to provide Windows 7 drivers through its Boot Camp utility [\u2026] by the end of 2009. So they’re late. But these drivers can and should have been delivered to customers when Windows 7 shipped, in October. I guess the company was too busy fixing a widely-reported user data deletion issue in Snow Leopard to bother supporting a competing system that just works.<\/p>\n

So thanks for nothing Apple. We know you’re scared of Windows 7, but come on.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I might offer a less florid possibility; could it\u00a0possibly be just a delay?<\/em> Y’know, like Microsoft experienced when it delayed the release of Windows 95. And Windows 98. And Windows\u2026 oh, you get the point. Look, software delays happen<\/em> and they don’t have to mean<\/em> anything!<\/p>\n

Thurrott’s Apple-fan-baiting aside, I have a serious question; am I so completely out of touch that I’m the only<\/em> Mac user in the world who doesn’t dual boot? OK, I played with some virtualization tools a while back out of sheer curiosity, and the half-hearted belief that I really might\u00a0need<\/em> Microsoft Office (note: I didn’t<\/em>) but it wasn’t long before they were removed.<\/p>\n

A Tad Silly<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Mac OS X, iLife and iWork have most my bases covered for personal creativity and productivity. And while I do a lot<\/em> of online collaboration with a wide circle of colleagues and friends, most of whom are on Windows machines, I’m not exaggerating when I say — it’s simply not an issue<\/em>.\u00a0Honestly, there isn’t a single thing I’ve come across in 18 months that absolutely demanded I use Windows.<\/p>\n

But apparently, that’s unusual, and most Mac owners in the world not only use Windows, they need<\/em> Windows and, more than any other version, they absolutely must<\/em> have<\/em> Windows 7, so Apple’s missed deadline is nothing short of scandalous.<\/p>\n

True? Because if that’s not true, all of that breathless reporting over the weekend about missed deadlines and Apple’s ‘fears’ would prove a tad silly, wouldn’t it?<\/p>\n

Actually, I have had one issue since switching to the Mac; my friends don’t use iChat. They’re stuck with Skype or — horror of horrors –Windows Live Messenger for video conferencing and collaboration. I pity them. It’s the one thing I wish Apple would release for Windows. The world would be a better place then, I’m sure.<\/p>\n

So, tell me, Mac Majority, is Boot Camp’s (temporarily) absent Windows 7 support really<\/em> the Big Deal the tech press have made it out to be? Am I truly in some peculiar Mac Minority who don’t install Windows on their Apple hardware? Am I, in fact, missing a far bigger point? Please enlighten me.<\/p>\n

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I have a confession to make. I don’t dual boot. I don’t use Windows on my Mac. I don’t need to. There’s not a single bit of software I need that is Windows-only. And even though I have Office:Mac 2008, I open Word and Excel documents in Pages and Numbers. (I don’t hate Office, I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-135989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-software"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135989\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}