“For some time, Parallels Desktop for Mac has been the primary way I run Windows 7 on my Macintosh computers,” Dwight Silverman reports for The Houston Chronicle. “Version 6, released in 2010, outstripped its top competitor – VMware Fusion – in terms of both features and performance.”
“Now, Parallels has taken the wraps off a new version of its best-selling virtualization package, Parallels Desktop 7,” Silverman reports. “If you’re a current Parallels Desktop user, you can download the update today. For new users, will be available on Sept. 6.”
Advertisement: Limited Time: Students, Parents and Faculty save up to $200 on a new Mac.
Silverman reports, “I’ve been playing with it since last night and so far I like it a lot. Not only is it faster in general, but it fixes some of the irritants that have dogged Parallels for years… It speeds up the process of suspending and resuming the virtual machine… In addition, Parallels Desktop 7 is much better at sharing attached hardware.”
Read more in the full article here.
More info: Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac
Related articles:
New Parallels Mobile app for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch controls Macs, PCs, plays Flash and more – September 1, 2011
Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac makes Windows programs roar with Mac OS X Lion features – September 1, 2011
Lightweight review in my opinion.
This is more of a recitation of PR about faster, better hardware support, in app Win7 purchase (at full retail price) and complimentary iOS app.
Exactly. I stay with Parallels 5. That works on Lion. Really.
(the Parallels team said it’s impossible to run P5 on Lion, so we all have to upgrade to Parallels 6. However that was just to sell some copies – version 5 works with some easy scripting. They emulate also the way MS make business it seems…)
Nice! I can now use the Parallels iPhone app to view Flash on my iPhone. Oh wait – Apple tells me Flash is irrelevant. Nevermind, I guess I don’t need to view Flash on my iPhone (better save Flash viewing for my Android device).
As a former flash designer and programmer, if you’d paid attention at all to the market, they decided a long time ago the producers were switching to HTML 5…
Companies have been waiting a long time to replace .flv and .swf formats. HTML 5 will not produce everything that flash can do animation wise as of yet. But HTML 5.0 is open standard and wholly more secure than anything that has come from Adobe. Mobile flash is joke, Adobe yelled a lot about flash mobile, but that was just smoke and mirrors.
Flash will never run universally on mobile platforms. Flash maxes out even the best desktops and has a terrible performance lag even with hardware accelerators. The fact that is even needed to boost software performance, tells the discriminating person the whole story. Couple that with the fact that actionscript is just merely a repacked, modified open-source javascript language with an even worse complier.
Macromedia intended Flash to be a SVG animation program, then decided to try to shoehorn the functionality of Director into Flash. Well the digital landscape has shifted, and people want mobile ready devices and content. Adobe has many years to prepare for the mobile future while they rested on their laurels and pushed their bloatware with little advancements for steeper prices to designers and companies.
Adobe only fits in this landscape as a content producer and not the content format.
I don’t disagree with you in the least — I’m not a proponent of Flash. I’m simply poking fun at Apple’s attitude. Flash will eventually die a horrible death and the world will be better for it. But the fact of the matter is that much of the web today is still Flash. So by Apple excluding Flash, they may be doing us a favor in the long term by pushing Flash to extinction sooner. But they are also hurting us by keeping much of the web from us on our iPhones/iPads. When I had an iPhone, I was always hitting sites that I couldn’t access due to the inclusion of Flash content. With my Android phone, I don’t ever have that problem. Nearly all of the sites that I visit render Flash just fine on my dual-core Android phone. Now, like I said, I don’t particularly like Flash, and I don’t go looking for pages that have very complex, heavy Flash content. But for everyday surfing, it is very nice to be able to view all of the content that the web has to offer.
Apple also has a similar view of BlueRay on Macs. Will that technology eventually give way to digital distribution? Sure — that transition is already upon us. But it will take a few more years (or more) until the transition is complete. In the mean time, however, by not supporting BlueRay now, Apple is punishing those of us who own Macs today.
I was just amused that Parallels is trying to fill the gap left by Apple, when there is in fact some demand by iPhone/iPad users to be able to view Flash content. By the way, I also really like Parallels. Having used Fusion on my aging 8-core Mac Pro, I can say that it is painfully slow in comparison to Parallels. I’m not sure how Parallels does it, but I am very impressed with the speed at which Windows programs run under Parallels. Can’t wait to try the new version (although my company won’t be upgrading to Lion for another month or two).
Apple has given Flash a big push towards that “horrible death” you mention. For that we should all be grateful.
I tried Parallels 6.x but disliked the way all the different files got scattered all over my system (especially that folder in ~user/Windows Applications). Fusion may be slower but at least it has a more bundled/closed approach. BTW, doesn’t Fusion also have an overall smaller footprint? Has all this changed with v.7? Also, I just wish there would be something like a ready setup for people who just want a possibly small setup, running XP, and taking up max 2-3gigs on the hard drive.
I’ve found that if I hit a website that has flash that I cannot see on my iPhone or iPad, I just do not use that website, but look for alternatives. It is the site with flash that is the loser, not me. They most likely lost my business because of it. Not being able to have flash doesn’t bother me in the least.