CrossOver Mac is coming
Run Windows applications natively on OS X, without having to install another OS! CrossOver Mac is currently in (closed) beta, but is expected to be released any time now, and I can’t wait as it sounds like the answer to my prayers.
The new Intel-based Mac computers have so many advantages over both the old, PPC powered machines, and Windows based PCs and here is yet another reason to retire your old PC and invest in one.
Amongst the benefits:
- they are far sexier to look at,
- the default operating system (OS X) is infinitely more stable and more intuitive to use,
- and the apps that come with it are much more useful.
That said, they are considerably more expensive - although the price differential is reducing with more reasonable varieties being procuded, such as the Mac Mini and the MacBook; the range of available professional applications is also far greater on the Windows platform.
This was all changed when ‘narf’ & ‘banka’ won the race to get Windows XP running on the Mac architecture. Apple jumped on crest of publicity and released BootCamp, which sets up a dual boot environment to install and run Windows. It is currently still a beta, but that is expected to change when Apple releases OS X, 10.5, codenamed Leopard, sometime this year.
Other solutions are being rushed to market, such as Parallels Desktop for Mac, that claims to allow you to ‘run any OS at the Same Time as Mac OS X’, including Windows 3.1 (why?), up to Windows 2003. This application has the advantage of not requiring rebooting or running emulators.
However, if this app is half as good as is promised, it will be well worth the $59.99 is will cost to completely do away with the need to have Windows installed anywhere or the delay of rebooting my machine - ‘just wait a minute while I change over to the other platform’.
Watch this space for more information on this potentially genius app.
Highly Recommended.
Crossover provides an easy way to test IE6 - great for a nascent web designer such as myself. Previously I was using screen shot web utilities which have (obvious) huge drawbacks.
As a mac-user and a very recent graduate, I didn’t want to have to buy spend the cash on Parallels and Windows just to test IE. Now I don’t have to.
I am definitely going to pay the reduced pre-release price of $40 (as opposed to the $200+ you would pay for other solutions).
The only negative is stability issue (IE sometimes freezes and flickers). The bugs should be ironed out by the time CrossOver comes out of beta.
Comment by Shaun Morrison — September 2, 2006 @ 6:23 pm