This caught me off guard – a story at MacGenealogy.org about Apple releasing a utility that would allow people who buy the new Macs (that have Intel CPUs) to boot both Windows and Apple’s Mac OS X. Not at the same time, mind you, and not like VirtualPC where you have Windows running slugishly under Mac OS X in its own environment.
I’ve been a Mac user for a while. Genealogy is the one area that I never fully “switched”. I had too much data in Windows-based genealogy programs, and at the time there wasn’t much in the way of Mac genealogy software (there was kind of a low-point a few years back where only a few companies/individuals kept things going on the Mac genealogy front). My solution was to both keep a PC around, as well as VirtualPC (which, in my mind is basically a Windows emulator, it allows you to run Windows, and thus Windows applications, under Mac OS).
Things have changed big-time in the Mac community, especially the Mac genealogy community. There appear to be ten or eleven active Mac genealogy applications, both from companies and individuals, including several free ones. Last year, Steve Jobs announced that Macs are moving to Intel, and that Mac OS X was available for Intel Macs (or MacIntels or whatever you want to call them).
Now I could buy one Mac, install Windows XP, run my Windows genealogy applications under Windows at full speed, and then switch over to boot up Mac OS X (while being able to see and manipulate the data I collected/generated inside of Windows) and have everything else that I like about Macs.
This caught me off guard, because saturday, April Fool’s day, MacGenealogy.org ran a story, Apple to Launch iRoots, iRoots Pro Genealogy Applications in 2007? and parts of it were very believable, enough so that I almost posted about it, I hate to admit (I would have looked more foolish than normal!). They poked a little fun at everybody, and kind of let everybody in on the joke when they started talking about iDNA test kits that you could do right there on the spot.
I thought maybe this story (about the dual-boot “Boot Camp” thing) was leftover from April 1st, and was accidently posted today. Nope, it’s all over the place, and analysts are trying to be analysts.
The one thing this has made me think about, is that I should check out the current crop of Mac genealogy software. But first, somebody, anybody, make a copy of Gensmarts for Mac OS X, and you will make a ton of money. Most of the Mac genealogy software has stuck to the GEDCOM format, so just run it off of GEDCOM files (the integration wtih Windows genealogy software is great, but in a pinch I could do without that).
I will be your first customer, I will start using one of the Mac genealogy programs, and I will sing your praises here.