Hot Multi-OS Switching — Why Isn't It Everywhere? 239
First time accepted submitter recrudescence writes "Slashdot readers might remember the Touchbook announcement from Always Innovating stirring up a lot of excitement in the Slashdot community back in 2009 (almost a year before the iPad was announced and essentially killed this off, and way before the Asus Transformer, which is essentially the same idea). The company's new product seems to support Hot multi-OS switching, supposedly with a minimal performance penalty. What seems strange to me is, why haven't other developers jumped in on this already? Macs, for instance, made a huge campaign of their products' new ability to finally support Microsoft Windows, yet (disregarding emulation options) they're still limited to booting to a single working system at any time."
Re:Virtualization (Score:1, Insightful)
Do us all a favor and shut the fuck up, right now.
Re:MS Windows on Mac H/W is not new (Score:3, Insightful)
Macs, for instance, made a huge campaign of their products' new ability to finally support Microsoft Windows
New? Finally? Apple's Boot Camp utility has been installing MS Windows and Apple supplied drivers on Mac hardware since 2006.
made
In the past tense.
Re:Virtualization (Score:2, Insightful)
That's obviously an issue for people who run Linux as their primary OS. It's obviously not an issue for people that run Windows as their primary OS.
*sigh* (Score:4, Insightful)
Inconsistent design is generally considered a bad thing.
For non-techies, switching operating systems is akin to learning a foreign language. You're lucky to get a typical Windows user to even try Linux or OS X long enough to become minimally proficient. Software like VMWare utterly baffles most people, and expecting them switch between OSes with different file structures and interface paradigms every time they start an app is an accident waiting to happen.
"Why can't program X see my USB stick?" ...
"Why won't program Y print to my printer?"
"Where did all my files go? I can't even find the C drive!"
"Why isn't my headset working?"
"Why do I need Windows Updates on my Mac?"
No one NEEDS multi-OS (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's the thing - multi-OS is confusing for people. No one is clammering for it because no one is going to get a device and then figure out how to load another OS on it. Think about it - how many people do you know (outside of your circle of geeks) that has a clue you can even load another OS? No manufacturer is going to preload two OS's. And, the geek community really isn't large enough to support sales of consumer devices.
People seem to be perfectly content having multiple devices. I don't know anyone who really uses Bootcamp, but I know quite a few Mac users that also have a Windows laptop laying around in case they need to use it, or the occasional VM. (Most Mac users I know seem perfectly content telling their PC brethren "I can't open that" and making them resend it in another format rather than try to figure out why their overpriced, shiny toy can't do something.) In the tablet world, there's not a lot of interoperability needed because there always seems to be An App For That.