Apple does Windows

Apple® today introduced Boot Camp, public beta software that enables Intel-based Macs to run Windows XP. Available as a download beginning today, Boot Camp allows users with a Microsoft Windows XP installation disc to install Windows XP on an Intel-based Mac®, and once installation is complete, users can restart their computer to run either Mac OS® X or Windows XP. Boot Camp will be a feature in "Leopard," Apple's next major release of Mac OS X, that will be previewed at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference in August.

Apple press release, well worth reading if you're even vaguely interested

So your new Macintosh computer can run either Mac OS 10 or Windows XP, at your command (i.e. you choose each time you start: today Windows, tomorrow Mac, on Tuesday Windows again). Easy.

Of course, the Windows XP that runs on your Mac will still be the same old Microsoft product, with all the spyware, malware, viruses, rootkits, Trojan horses, pop-up ads etc. that you now loathe and despise.

As a longtime Mac user I welcome the announcement because it will make switching away from the Dark Side even easier, however I personally would not dream of putting such a cruddy operating system onto my clean new computer. I find it bad (insecure) enough to have a Windows machine in my home network, without having their OS loading its malicious junk onto my Mac's hard disk. Yuck.

(It seems not to be an April Fools joke, the press release is dated April 5, 2006 and there has been speculation about this for weeks.)

[Updated April 7] John Gruber has written a thoughtful article about this. Apple has posted a FAQ about Boot Camp.

In other news after nearly a week of warmth the weather has turned cold again, it actually snowed last night. Pah.