Apple's Boot Camp to cost $29?
Apple could be planning to charge $29 to run the final version of its Boot Camp software on older versions of Mac OS X once Leopard arrives, according to a report Monday.
The report, from MacScoop, said it will cost $29 to run Boot Camp on Tiger, the current version of Mac OS X, when the final version of Boot Camp ships later this year. A beta version of Boot Camp can be downloaded for free from Apple's Web site and used to run Microsoft's Windows operating system on an Intel-based Mac.
The report also said that with the debut of Boot Camp, Apple will support Vista when that arrives next week. Last year, Apple explicitly said it would not support Windows running on Macs via the beta version of Boot Camp.
Apple has long said that Boot Camp will become part of Leopard when the new operating system arrives sometime this spring. The report does not appear to indicate that Apple will be charging an extra $29 for Boot Camp even for Leopard users, coming off news of Apple's plan to charge $1.99 to light up the 802.11n chip shipping in most new MacBooks and MacBook Pros.
An Apple representative did not immediately return a call seeking comment on Boot Camp.
Tom Krazit writes about the ever-expanding world of Internet search, including Google, Yahoo, online advertising, and portals, as well as the evolution of mobile computing. He has written about traditional PC companies, chip manufacturers, and mobile computers, spending the last three years covering Apple. E-mail Tom.
