Why BootCamp is Great for Mac Indies

Everyone has seen Apple's new BootCamp beta announcement, and it's left some people wondering what the effect on the Mac software market is. Maybe we're just totally blinded by our love for this platform, but we think it's great news for Mac OS X in general, and for indie developers especially.

BootCamp really widens the appeal of Apple hardware. The message becomes "You bought iPods for your kids (and for you). Try out our excellent, well-designed hardware too -- if it turns out you don't like our spyware-free and virus-free operating system, you can always install Windows."

As families plan to replace an aging (Windows) machine at home, now they can think about getting a Mac. If they're thinking about adding a second computer, a Mac makes sense now.

I won't even go into the number of education sysadmins who would love to be able to buy a single type of hardware for a lab or for faculty that could run both OS's. If the architects need Autocad from 10-11am, the machines can boot into Windows for that. If the film students need Final Cut Pro at 2pm, no problem...just boot into Mac OS.

So, back to the title of this post -- why is this great for indies? More people using hardware that by default runs Mac OS. If you believe that Mac OS X provides a better experience for the home user (we do), then you have to believe that of the people who come over to the platform through this announcement, a huge percentage will end up sticking with OS X. And those people are ripe to be delighted by the great work indies do.