..... is now officially Windows Firefox, using Parallels Beta in Concurrence mode.

The new Parallels Beta release has some kick ass new features, one of the best being "Concurrence mode", which allows you to run single Windows applications in windows directly in OS X, instead of being stuck inside a large Windows window when you want to run a PC app.
You have to run Parallels first, but then in Concurrence mode, everything from the Windows window dissapears except for the TaskBar - it stays at the bottom of the screen, or side or where ever you had it set up in Windows. Then you start an application from the TaskBar and the application opens up in a window of its own right on the OS X desktop.
So if you want to keep Parallels running in the background the whole time, you can basically have your OS X Dock and your Windows TaskBar available at all times on on the same desktop. The auto-hide feature of the Taskbar still works too, so you can hide it at the bottom or side of your screen and have it popout when you mouse over it.

Running Firefox2 in Parallels is faster and more responsive than any of the native Mac browsers, I think - Safari, Camino and Firefox(Mac).

check out the screenshot - Windows Firefox side-by-side with OS X Camino, Dock on the left, TaskBar on the bottom (on my wife's computer).


other updates are speed improvements, auto-adjusting Windows resolution when you resize the parallels window (in regular mode), booting a previously installed Boot Camp partition into Parallels, and drag/drop files between Windows and Mac windows
http://download.parallels.com/beta/Parallels%20Desktop%203036%20Mac%20en.dmg

I think there is virtually no reason to by a PC anymore......


[Edited on December 3, 2006 at 11:45 AM. Reason : ,]

12/3/2006 11:43:41 AM

In between your organisms, you forgot to post a working image

[Edited on December 3, 2006 at 12:26 PM. Reason : If they figure out a better way to handle the task bar, this is a powerful "switcher" tool.]

12/3/2006 12:24:31 PM

Quote :

"I think there is virtually no reason to by a PC anymore...... "

$$

12/3/2006 12:26:56 PM

and I agree there is still work to be done, but this is a huge step forward. I would like to see one-click launching of Windows programs from inside OS X or on the Dock. i.e. a shortcut on the Dock to directly open Windows programs in their own windows. As the beta is now, you have to start Parallels (or keep it running in the background), then use the TaskBar or start menu to open Windows programs.

[Edited on December 3, 2006 at 12:48 PM. Reason : picture below...]

12/3/2006 12:31:53 PM

Is the windows hard drive/partition mounted on the mac?

[Edited on December 3, 2006 at 12:34 PM. Reason : dsfs]

12/3/2006 12:33:54 PM

Forbidden
Your client does not have permission to get URL / from this server.

12/3/2006 12:41:10 PM

ah bloody hell. I guess it has to do with Google/Picasa permissions and crap.

.... back to the old trusty Gallery2 then

Quote :

"Is the windows hard drive/partition mounted on the mac?"

No. The Windows drive is a virtual drive, stores in a file/database on the Mac file system. When inside Parallels, you have full access to the Windows drive and all the Mac drives, but not the other way around. Without starting Parallels, you can't, for example, drop a file from OS X into the Windows drive.

12/3/2006 12:48:05 PM

You forgot Opera 9. Fast as hell. Also, you're only talking about free browsers. Omni Web is faster than all of the freebies. I couldn't find an updated benchmark test, but this one's not too far off:
http://www.tuaw.com/2006/07/11/os-x-browser-test-fourth-edition/

12/3/2006 12:55:54 PM

yeah, i heard about the parallels update. pretty sweet.

12/3/2006 1:03:52 PM

They make opera for mac

12/3/2006 2:09:31 PM

whoops.
btw, the name of the feature is Coherence, not Concurrence

12/3/2006 4:10:49 PM

i think its funny how the best feature on the news macs is the ability to run windows and windows based programs

12/3/2006 5:34:56 PM

It's not really all that funny at all, IMO. It removes the final stumbling block for anyone who has considered switching.


5^ I've never found Omniweb to be as fast as that benchmark claims. It's a great app, as are all of the OmniGroup's apps, but I really never noticed any improvement over Safari or Camino in my experience. Opera is pretty solid speedwise, but I've always found it feels just a little clunky and incomplete. Good browser, though.

12/3/2006 6:10:03 PM

the thing that bothers me about all these benchmarks is that they are almost soley focused on rendering times - HTML rendering, JPG/PNG rendering, JS processing. But the don't take into account actual usability and the speed of the interface. Safari might render fast as hell from the time the content reaches Safari to the time I can see it, but the interface it self is slow and non-responsive a lot of the time. One of the main critisims against Macs for years and years is its lack of "teh snappy". i.e. it may do actual processing very quickly, like video and audio editing, but the interface itself is still noticibly less responsive than on Windows machines. I think this lack of responsiveness (talking 10s of ms's here, in most cases, or up to 1/4-1/2 a second response time) is very noticable in the browsers Safari, Camino, and most of all Mac Firefox. This is gone in Windows Firefox and in Parallels Firefox too.

12/3/2006 6:34:38 PM

^ so the question remains - is firefox 2 in parallels faster than on native windows? if so, then you may have a point about PC's being obsolete. but my main reason against purchasing a new mac is exactly what you stated above. I absolutely go crazy with UI lag, of any kind. something as simple as pulling down a fucking text menu should happen before i can even think, not while I blink. you may think i'm being picky, but when you want to work fast shit like that adds up to some mind-numbing lag

i am open to getting a mac, but i just don't want to end up using parallels all the time because i can't stand the "native" programs (not to mention half the shit out there still doesn't work with OSX)

[Edited on December 3, 2006 at 9:01 PM. Reason : ]

12/3/2006 8:59:52 PM

I have a 1.5 GHz G4 Powerbook, and I really don't have any lag. My computer is even more snappy that most Windows computers I use, but I also have 1.5GB of RAM.

And, Safari is laggy in some areas, but faster in others. The main advantage IE has over Safari (or any Mac browsers) is that it scrolls more smoothly. Other than that, it's pretty much the same.

12/3/2006 9:46:44 PM

Safari crashes like crazy for me, anytime I load a webpage on TWW that has a video or music embedded.

12/3/2006 10:35:10 PM

you meant to say "best browser on an intelMac...." since parallels doesn't work with the powerpc g4's :-(

12/3/2006 11:55:43 PM

^^ Something's wrong then.

Make sure your Flash and Quicktime are updated.

[Edited on December 4, 2006 at 12:08 AM. Reason : ]

12/4/2006 12:08:11 AM

My Safari is very stable. ESPN.com brings it to a screeching halt, but that's about the only site.
There are a surprising number of people who do seem to have lots of problems with it, though.

12/4/2006 12:29:27 AM

another note -
With Parallels in general, and now especially with Coherence mode, Mac is now easily the best platform for developing and debugging websites. By using multiple Parallels virtual machines, or Virtual PC inside a virtual Windows machine in parallels ( http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2006/11/30/ie6-and-ie7-running-on-a-single-machine.aspx ) you can cover all major browsers on the same machine at the same time:
Windows IE6, IE7, Firefox 1.5, Firefox 2, Opera x
Mac Firefox, Camino, Safari

12/4/2006 10:02:04 AM

whats wrong with just using the mac version of firefox

12/6/2006 3:40:14 AM

are you asking that because you use FF on a Mac or because you never have?

12/6/2006 8:15:30 AM

I use FF on a mac

12/6/2006 8:28:00 AM

well mostly because Mac Firefox could be a case-study for UI lag. The interface has a terribly slow response time. Not to mention, the interface in general looks like crap. They took the Windows interface, which is nice and polished, and did a half-assed job of porting it to a Mac look-and-feel.
i've heard they are going to do native Cocoa builds for FireFox 3, but who knows.

if you're not bothered by the problems with FF on Mac, you can at least run a Mac optimized version which makes it a little better
http://www.beatnikpad.com/archives/2006/10/26/firefox-20

12/6/2006 9:50:12 AM