Apple Favoring Parallels Over Boot Camp?
June 18, 2006 by Juan Magdaraog
Filed under Computers
TUAW reports that in Apple’s Get A Mac page they mention Parallels instead of Boot Camp as the option for running Windows XP on your Mac. Does this mean that Apple is favoring virtualization over dual booting? Well.. in my opinion it’s still early to decide.
Of course virtualization on paper should be the better choice. Running two OSes side by side is way better than having to reboot everytime you need to use the other operating system. However the biggest obstacle of virtualization is the performance hit.
I haven’t personally tried running Parallels software but from what I read, it runs fairly decent. If Parallels or anyone can get virtualization to run to about 90% the speed of a native install then they have a winner. The only reason I’d see you choosing a dual boot solution over this is for doing gaming which is resource intensive.
So with Apple’s mentioning Parallels over Boot Camp are they leaning towards virtualization more? Well.. only time will tell.
I’m going to be watching this closely. I’ll be getting a Macbook in a few months and will have to decide betwene Boot Camp or Parallels. My instinct tells me to go with Boot Camp but the reality is that the emulation of Parrallels doesn’t have to emulate hardware too (both OSes are Intel based), so there’s enough question in my mind. Keep covering this stuff so I can make an informed decision…