Doubtful. Surface ARM options is a long-term strategy, and since it's provided by Qualcomm's Snapdragon.
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I predict Boot Camp & Windows 11 are coming to Apple Silicon.
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Doubtful. Surface ARM options is a long-term strategy, and since it's provided by Qualcomm's Snapdragon.
This will definitely never happen. Microsoft has said many times that ARM is the future of Windows. They have spent billions of dollars on writing windows for ARM including versions that you don’t even know that they have converted. They have spent billions more on developing their own processors for ARM and hiring as many processor engineers as Apple has. This is a long time investment and it is going to come to completion.
And Windows Phone was not a long-term strategy?
Microsoft spend $7 billion on buying Nokia.
Surface has always been successful because it's a Windows PC, regardless of ARM or x86. Snapdragon is going to be around forever, and it now adds Surface options with 5G. Making it more competitive to iPad Pro.
Windows Phone died a slow death under Steve Balmer, Nadella put it out of it's misery. Can't put that under the current leadership.
It's not catching up because of two reasons
- They won't release retail ARM ISOs (thanks Qualcomm)
- There's not much ARM hardware to use Windows with (outside of M$ and partner hardware)
Surface Pro 9 Intel i5 $999
Surface Pro 9 ARM SQ3 $1.299
Pricing the ARM model one third higher, can’t lead to a high adoption rate. 🤷
Surface Pro 9 ARM SQ3 $1.299
Pricing the ARM model one third higher, can’t lead to a high adoption rate. 🤷
I believe the ARM ISOs are more on MSFT and Qualcomm having an exclusive contract. Its not Qualcomm's fault I believe. Point #2 is because of point #1
There's a third point, as well. Horrible compatibility. I'm running arm windows on my MBP via parallels and while the promise of running x86 apps was there, its clearly not as good as what Apple has been doing. most of the apps I've tried won't run, hell, some of the installers for those apps won't even work
I don't understand why MSFT cannot produce an emulation layer that actually works, Apple did, and apps not running is the exception not the rule, like it is with Arm windows.
Part of it is Qualcomm. But also to upsell the Surface SQ3 line, allure of built-in 5G and more battery life than Intel for Microsoft 365.
We used to offer Surface if people needed Windows over Mac, but I wouldn't be surprised if procurement stocks some again with ARM now being available.
We used to offer Surface if people needed Windows over Mac, but I wouldn't be surprised if procurement stocks some again with ARM now being available.
There's just no incentive to use ARM for windows. Consumers are not going to buy a MSFT ARM laptop/tablet that does less for what could be more money then an X86 laptop. Especially when the compatibility of existing apps is horrible and when apps do run (a rarity), they run a lot slower. There's also MS' track record of not getting behind and sticking with different windows flavors. Remember Windows 10 X, and Windows 10 S.
Apple did it right, if you want a platform to succeed you need to offer incentives to the buyer, make it worthwhile for them choosing this product over someone else's.
Long story, short, all of this means is that Apple is not going spend any amount of money trying to bring what is considered a competitor's operating system to the Mac via bootcamp.
Apple is all about keeping its customers in the walled garden where they can keep buying or subscribing to apple services.
Apple did it right, if you want a platform to succeed you need to offer incentives to the buyer, make it worthwhile for them choosing this product over someone else's.
Long story, short, all of this means is that Apple is not going spend any amount of money trying to bring what is considered a competitor's operating system to the Mac via bootcamp.
Apple is all about keeping its customers in the walled garden where they can keep buying or subscribing to apple services.
The big thing Apple has that allows effective Rosetta 2 translation is TSO. x86 code runs rather poorly under an OoOM regime, which ARMv8 compilers are built for. If Apple has been able to patent TSO, Qualcomm is working with a hand tied betind their back trying to support the transition.
Nope. Microsoft did make it worthwhile, Windows 11 ARM includes x64 emulation, Windows 10 does not. Very popular apps like Photoshop already run natively on ARM, and Adobe is working on the rest. This sounds like the same talking lines used with competitors when Apple Silicon debuted.
This is where I disagree. I've been running windows 11 ARM via parallels, and my luck with various X86 apps can best be described as poor. I've had apps not want to install, or fail to install. Apps not run if installed. Yes, MS office apps work, but various other apps I use for work, do not. I've tried gaming on it, just for giggles, and that was also a disappointment as well.
I compare that to how Apple implemented their emulation and well its night and day.
Games is not a Windows 11 ARM problem. Parallels is just para-virtualization, where high-end games with DirectX Direct3D just translate calls to Metal to run on macOS. Which is terribly inefficient. Sometimes Crossover with Wine works better sometimes not. The issue is there is no Metal for Windows driver.
Like what was said some of it is Apple and the Qualcomm exclusivity that limits what both sides would be willing to do. Windows 11 ARM is perfectly fine and it has a great future whether Microsoft or even Apple likes it or not.
When those games ran on x86 with and without virtualization it is. I may not know a lot of details and I can be pretty black and white at times, but when I see a number of games able to run on PCs, x86 macs, natively, and under parallels but not ARM windows, then I place the blame squarely on ARM windows.
I'm not talking about new games either. I tried Fallout 76 which has a track record of playing in parallels before. I wasn't expecting Cyberpunk to run, but older less demanding games, many of which don't run
The details matter, because otherwise you come up with a reasoning that isn't correct or makes any sense.
Intel Macs either had built-in GPU like Intel Iris, or discrete graphics like AMD Radeon or NVIDIA GeForce, which all have native Windows drivers updated regularly for DirectX, except Mac GeForce (Apple spat and divorce). This was one advantage of Boot Camp and subsidizing a driver package. The discrete GPUs performed rather well on virtualization or Boot Camp.
The move to Apple Silicon meant Apple designed their own GPU to be fully Metal compliant. These completely different GPU APIs. Native macOS instructions are sent Medal to Apple hardware.
This layer does not exist for DirectX, Parallels does a rough conversion from DirectX to Medal to Hardware. There is no Parallels DirectX to Hardware. Almost all DirectX 9 games will convert to Metal on Parallels without much of an issue, it's pretty old. Games with DirectX 11 which is a substantial leap, it can be hit or miss but depending on their GPU requirements especially if they are high-end requirements.
But once again this is not an ARM issue. It just happens that the move to Apple Silicon move they went all-in on their own GPU. It's a good GPU and many games work very well on native Medal some even better that mid-level Windows hardware with a custom wrapper on Crossover.
What incentive does Apple have to make Windows run natively? They would get nothing from services/software and might even lose some money if a potential Mac customer bought a machine and only spent time in Windows.
They might (and I’m extremely doubtful of this) make up for that in incremental sales, but that’s not where recurring revenue resides so isn’t a priority.
Besides, from an encapsulation and maintenance perspective, virtualization is the way to go for Apple.
They might (and I’m extremely doubtful of this) make up for that in incremental sales, but that’s not where recurring revenue resides so isn’t a priority.
Besides, from an encapsulation and maintenance perspective, virtualization is the way to go for Apple.
One incentive would be stealing customers, and removing one last excuse not to get a mac.
As a hackintoshers, I desperately want Apple and Microsoft to make this happen. I'm at a point in my life where I'd happily dole out the money for a rock-solid mac studio given the major performance boost over the intel hardware, if it could run Windows and interface with a discrete GPU (if necessary).
I'm ready to repent and give up my hackintosh-ing ways because I don't have the time to keep up, but at the same time I don't want to manage two different computers—I can't use two at the same time, and I'd rather all the money I pour into one system for beefy specs to be reused for my semi-regular/sometimes-occasional gaming.
How many more of me exist? I don't know, so I don't know if that's a big enough slice of the pie that Apple is interested in claiming. I wonder how many other folks like me exist but who haven't been indoctrinated in the Apple Ecosystem and might convert over given the exposure/opportunity.
If ARM architecture really is as gangbusters and amazing as the frenzy surrounding it seems to be, it feels somewhat innevitable that consumer tech makes a full transition. That being said, folks earlier in the thread have made some good points about how long (and incomplete for that matter) other transitions have taken, like 32-bit to 64-bit, which really pales in comparison to a full architecture change.
¢2
They don't call me "the other Gurman" for nothing.
While I have an M2 Air, if I am traveling, my 2019 bootcamp'd Macbook Pro is what I am carrying. Forza Horizon 5 and Sea of Thieves are always with me.
I can run Windows 11 right now using Parallels, and I don't even have to choose between operating systems at boot to do so. Right now that is the only Microsoft-approved method of running WoA on a Mac. As far as "stealing" customers is concerned, there's probably an equilibrium in place where Windows-to-Mac switchers are almost entirely canceled out by Mac-to-Windows switchers.
The other consideration is that using the Game Porting Toolkit, it's already possible to run Windows-only games such as Cyberpunk 2077 on an AS Mac. Granted, that platform is more geared towards developers, but that hasn't stopped non-developers from using it to get AAA titles running on their Macs.