ONLY a week ago, Apple released what seemed like an astonishing piece of software called Boot Camp. This program radically rewrote the rules of Macintosh-Windows warfare — by letting you run Windows XP on a Macintosh at full speed.
A Mac screen shows Parallels Workstation as it runs Windows and Mac software with no rebooting needed.
Now, some in the Cult of Macintosh were baffled by the whole thing. Who on earth, they asked, wants to pollute the magnificence of the Mac with a headache like Windows XP?
Back in the real world, though, there was plenty of interest. Lots of people are tempted by the Mac's sleek looks and essentially virus-free operating system — but worry about leaving Windows behind entirely. Others would find happiness with Apple's superb music, photo and movie-making programs — but have jobs that rely on Microsoft Access, Outlook or some other piece of Windows corporate-ware.
Even many current Mac fans occasionally steal covert glances over the fence at some of the Windows-only niceties they thought they'd never have, like QuickBooks Online, AutoCad for architects, high-end 3-D Windows games, or the occasional bullheaded Web site that requires Internet Explorer for Windows.
Few could have guessed that only days later, Boot Camp would be eclipsed by something even better.
Boot Camp remains a free download from Apple.com. It's a public beta, meaning it's not technically finished. It's available only for Mac models containing an Intel chip. (So far that's the 2006 Mac Mini, iMac and MacBook Pro laptop.)
The uncomplicated installation process takes about an hour, and entails burning a CD, inserting a Windows XP installation CD (not included), and waiting around a lot.
Then you designate either Mac OS X or Windows as your "most of the time" operating system. You can also choose an operating system each time you start up the computer.
If you choose Windows, then by golly, you're in Windows. You can install and run your favorite Windows programs — speech recognition, business software, even games — and, incredibly, they run as fast and well as they ever did.
Correction: they run faster than they ever did. Most people comment that an Intel Mac runs Windows faster than any PC they've ever owned. And if the Windows side ever gets bogged down with viruses and spyware, you can flip into Mac OS X and keep right on being productive.
Boot Camp's problem, though, is right there in its name: You have to reboot (restart) the computer every time you switch systems. As a result, you can't copy and paste between Mac and Windows programs. And when you want to run a Windows program, you have to close everything you were working on, shut down the Mac, and restart it in Windows — and then reverse the process when you're done. You lose two or three minutes each way.
NO wonder, then, that last week, the corridors of cyberspace echoed with the sounds of high-fiving when a superior solution came to light. A little company called Parallels has found a way to eliminate all of those drawbacks — and to run Windows XP and Mac OS X simultaneously.
The software is called Parallels Workstation for Mac OS X, although a better name might be No Reboot Camp. It, too, is a free public beta, available for download from parallels.com. You can pre-order the final version for $40, or pay $50 after its release (in a few weeks, says the company).
Parallels, like Boot Camp, requires that you supply your own copy of Windows. But here's the cool part: with Parallels, unlike Boot Camp, it doesn't have to be XP. It can be any version, all the way back to Windows 3.1 — or even Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, OS/2 or MS-DOS. All of this is made possible by a feature of Intel's Core Duo chips (called virtualization) that's expressly designed for running multiple operating systems simultaneously.
In the finished version, the company says, you'll be able to work in several operating systems at once. What the heck — install Windows XP three times. If one becomes virus-ridden, you can just delete it and smile.
But before your head explodes, consider the most popular case: running one copy of Windows XP on your Mac.
Suppose you're finishing a brochure on your Mac, and you need a phone number from your company's Microsoft Access database. You double-click the Parallels icon, and 15 seconds later — yes, 15 seconds — Windows XP is running in a window of its own, just as you left it. You open Access, look up and copy the contact information, click back into your Mac design program, and paste. Sweet.
Using Boot Camp, you'd restart the computer in Windows, look up the number — but then what? Without the ability to copy and paste, what would you do with the phone number once you found it? Write it on an envelope?
Parallels is very fast — perhaps 95 percent as fast as Boot Camp. (It's definitely not a software-based emulator like Microsoft's old, dog-slow Virtual PC program.) It's even fast enough for video games, although not the 3-D variety; for now, those are still better played in Boot Camp.
