Instead of Rosetta 2, why Apple doesn't make a Windows x86 emulator?

[EdT]

Apple doesn’t do this because of many reasons. The biggest are: A) There is not significant demand for it, B) it existed for years and was only used by a niche few, C) Apple runs a streamlined business model and this is totally against that, and D) Native Apps on Desktops written in non-cross platform languages is a decreasing market.

A) I worked at a Fortune 30 company that has been moving most of its network engineers (5,000+ of them) to Macs. All good those users have the option to get VMWare Fusion to run Windows native apps, but 90% of the apps and systems used these days are web based on written for multiple platforms natively.

B) VMWare Fusion, & Parallels have existed with Coherence type mode for over 10 years. This makes Windows exe files run similar in style to native Mac apps. Probably less than 3% of Apple Users use this.

Boot Camp, Virtual box, WINE and Winebottler have existed as well that whole time for free, and has very low usage.

C) Apple is not about doing everything, Apple is about doing a handful of things well. That’s why Apple doesn’t build their own search engine, Social Network, Game Console, Etc. Apple stays to a few core business it excels at. And it only does this in areas it can do something special and better. Apple is not about making bad versions of things that already exist. Do you complain why doesn’t McDonalds make a Whopper? Apple is not about making knock off products. They are about making (whet they believe) is the best version of a product.

D) Outside of games, most apps are going away and moving to online services. Which do you think is growing more Online Word Processors like Google Docs, Zoho Suite, etc, or Microsoft Office as a desktop app. Even the growth area of Microsoft Office is its online usage. In a multi device world where fewer and fewer people are relying on just a desktop computer. Most Apps except very specific ones are moving to universal apps that run Windows/Mac/Linux/iPhone/android compliant or they are loving to browser based.

You’re right, but I don’t like it. Until very recently I lived in an internet challenged area, and web (or internet) based anything was not fast nor reliable. Physically this low population density probably still refers to 60% or more of the physical land area of the U.S. But most of the population here is in or very near a city or even a cluster of cities, and the people that live in the boonies are SOL because it’s not worth providing reliable and fast internet service to low density areas by ISP’s.

 

[bobcomer]

Something like that. With the caveat that Microsoft doesn’t even make that much money from selling Windows. The bulk of their revenue comes from MS office, MS cloud and corporate products. Which is why they give you native Mac versions for those products. These days, Microsoft cares much more about you using MS office and teams than they care about you running Windows. Their product portfolio is already diverse enough.

They actually still make a lot of money from Windows, both from consumer PC's OEM licenses, and from business licensing.

 

[bobcomer]

but having bootcamp/emu is important to you?

No, bootcamp is not important to me, I never used it, but VM's, yes, all the time.

You find the hardware unimpressive, but you'd rather run Windows on a Mac than on a PC?

Yes, I find Mac hardware unimpressive, it's adequate in most cases, but nothing special. I really wish they went something lighter than aluminum for laptops for instance. The Mac Studio Max is pretty impressive, though the fans need some work.

And I'm talking about home, yes I like Mac OS, but I also have a lot of Windows stuff I do. And no, I don't prefer running Windows on a Mac, I prefer being able to do what I need on whatever machine I'm using at the time, and that may be a Mac, it may not.

At work, no Macs.

 

[leman]

They actually still make a lot of money from Windows, both from consumer PC's OEM licenses, and from business licensing.

Windows was 15% of their income in 2020, the bulk of it most likely coming from OEM. Mac users who want to run Windows on their machine are a drop in the bucket. In comparison, office+enterprise+cloud are combined 55% of their revenue and this target Mac users as well.

Microsoft doesn't need to sell you Windows. They are more interested in selling you Office and MS Cloud, and they want to sell your company their entire Exchange/Teams infrastructure. And they are having a lot of success doing that.

Source: https://www.microsoft.com/investor/reports/ar20/index.html

 

[clevins]

"Hey guys! I know Apple has built a $3T company but I know what they should really do to be successfu!!" is never the smart look you think it is.

 

[Apple fan from Korea]

See title. Running Windows software in Mac OS would be a welcome feature.

Because Apple would LOVE to run a different company’s OS on their own computers, huh? /s

 

[AxiomaticRubric]

See title. Running Windows software in Mac OS would be a welcome feature.

Here! Have some crackers with your Wine.

 

[EdT]

The most plausible part of that article is that Microsoft might have an exclusive deal with Qualcomm. Mind, it's an exclusive deal and very far from any "OS licensing" or "selling rights". The rest of the article is a baseless speculation. Qualcomm deal or no Qualcomm deal, this does not change the includible technical — and political — hurdles of bringing Windows to Apple Silicon, nor does it change the economical reality os such an enterprise. That it would be expensive, difficulty and mostly of very little business interest to both Apple and Microsoft.

The only "real" effect of the Qualcomm exclusivity deal is that a private customer like you and me cannot buy an official Windows on ARM end license to run on their own hardware. Which is barely a problem since one can get these licenses for free via the Windows Insider program anyway.

The article I quoted is from this MacRumors website. I’m not the person who initially complained about there not being a Windows version for ARM chips. I did mention in one of my replies that people are saying that they CAN now install the ARM version of Windows onto their M1 series Macs, although Microsoft still says that Apple computers are unsupported. I am not a lawyer so I’m not going to tell people it’s ok to use. I’m not going to tell them not to either. I haven’t used any VM or the Parallel program ever on my Mac’s. I’ve looked into it over the years, but it wasn’t worth it to me personally.

I use VM’s at work (frequently) but that was to set up and test different Windows scenarios for industrial computers, that all ran Windows. If I absolutely need a Windows program I would probably buy a cheap Windows computer. If I need a powerful (expensive) Windows computer I would evaluate whether I would stay in the Apple ecosystem. That’s not a new situation, I prefer Apple but I don’t absolutely have to use it. So far Apple does everything that I need my home computer for, without me needing it to be a Windows machine as well.

 

[bobcomer]

Windows was 15% of their income in 2020, the bulk of it most likely coming from OEM. Mac users who want to run Windows on their machine are a drop in the bucket. In comparison, office+enterprise+cloud are combined 55% of their revenue and this target Mac users as well.

Microsoft doesn't need to sell you Windows. They are more interested in selling you Office and MS Cloud, and they want to sell your company their entire Exchange/Teams infrastructure. And they are having a lot of success doing that.

Source: https://www.microsoft.com/investor/reports/ar20/index.html

15% is still a heck of a lot of money...

 

[mansplains]

I prefer being able to do what I need on whatever machine I'm using at the time, and that may be a Mac, it may not.

I appreciate your clarification. I'd also prefer the acceleration of a Model S and capacity of a pickup truck in my Subaru.

 

[clevins]

Apparently some people don't understand that engineers have to use proprietary software that is ONLY written for Windows to develop products with certain components (example FPGA's)

This is a TINY market. All of the specialized needs like this combined are still a tiny market. Pointing this out is not 'hate' it's reality. The people who prefer Macs but who need to run Windows for some things are a very small market. The people who prefer to run some things under Windows, likewise. Most people who need Windows just buy a PC.

So why did Apple do Bootcamp back when they transitioned to Intel? Two main reasons. One, desktop apps were important and Macs were still not all that successful, so BC let Apple tell people that not only would they get a fast new Mac but they could also run Windows for their Windows needs. It removed a barrier, namely the "I'd like a mac but I need to run (insert Windows apps here) sometimes" objection. Two, it wasn't a large technical ask. They could get the advantages of letting people run Windows for little cost.

Finally, the transition to Intel was 2005. The world was VERY different 17 years ago. The iPhone was 2 years in the future. Apple's near-death experience was only 7-8 years in the past and things were far from assured, even if they were on a good path. Being able to say to prospective Mac buyers "look, if you need to run Windows sometimes, you can" was an advantage.

Now, Macs and Apple are huge and things are mostly online, so the need expressed above about people having to be able to run some Windows app is much less prevalent. As your post illustrates, that still exists but it's a small niche.

 

[leman]

The article I quoted is from this MacRumors website. I’m not the person who initially complained about there not being a Windows version for ARM chips. I did mention in one of my replies that people are saying that they CAN now install the ARM version of Windows onto their M1 series Macs, although Microsoft still says that Apple computers are unsupported. I am not a lawyer so I’m not going to tell people it’s ok to use. I’m not going to tell them not to either. I haven’t used any VM or the Parallel program ever on my Mac’s. I’ve looked into it over the years, but it wasn’t worth it to me personally.

I use VM’s at work (frequently) but that was to set up and test different Windows scenarios for industrial computers, that all ran Windows. If I absolutely need a Windows program I would probably buy a cheap Windows computer. If I need a powerful (expensive) Windows computer I would evaluate whether I would stay in the Apple ecosystem. That’s not a new situation, I prefer Apple but I don’t absolutely have to use it. So far Apple does everything that I need my home computer for, without me needing it to be a Windows machine as well.

Microsoft never officially supported Bootcamp either. For the Mac users, nothing has changed really. But again, talking about booting Windows natively on Apple Silicon is a much more complex story than having or not having a licence. Frankly, if it were straightforward someone would have already done it — Apple Silicon allows you to boot third-party OSes after all.

15% is still a heck of a lot of money...

It becomes much less when you consider the amount of Mac users who also use Windows. I mean, let's not get lost in irrelevant details here. The question is how Microsoft is getting revenue from Mac users. There was a claim that Microsoft wants to sell Mac users Windows licenses. My answer is that it is much more profitable for Microsoft — and a much better business overall — to sell them Office and cloud products, and to lock them in Microsoft enterprise ecosystem.

 

[BigMcGuire]

Here! Have some crackers with your Wine.

I absolutely LOVE crossover. So many old Windows applications work perfectly on this ( even gaming with Steam's remastered Age of Empires II works really well - even Starfleet Command I!). It's an old hobby of mine to take Crossover and try to get old windows apps/games working on it. And it's pretty successful. lol. Highly recommend Crossover.

 

[Pugly]

Running Windows on a Mac is dying, but it's not dead. Check back in 7 years when the intel Macs aren't supported. Even then you'll probably still be able to boot camp to old versions of Windows.

 

[ArkSingularity]

This is a more massive undertaking than it looks. Programs such as Wine and Crossover can do this, but not perfectly. And they accomplish this by quite literally re-implementing and rewriting the entire Windows API, which is no small undertaking. Windows APIs are massive, aren't documented perfectly, are difficult to reverse engineer, and aren't open source. It's a project that's taken them decades and it's still nowhere near perfect (albeit works well for what it is on many programs, but others still only work partially or not at all).

What Windows did to support Android apps was completely different from what another OS would have to do to support Windows Apps. Microsoft basically implemented a virtual machine/container running Android, and it works reliably because Microsoft implemented the real thing. Microsoft can do this because Android isn't closed source. Apple can't do this with Windows because their options would be to either try to rewrite all of the APIs manually (a monumental undertaking that would be buggy even if billions of dollars were spent), or to straight up include a Windows license and a VM with their Macs (which Apple won't do either, for obvious reasons). Either way, it's not really in the realm of possibility, and it's not something we will ever see on a Mac.

 

[Gerdi]

Of course there are. Just look at the patches Asahi team had to submit for Linux. Apple Silicon uses - among other things - custom interrupt handling, custom MMU, custom inter-CPU communication protocols, custom hardware configuration and discovery (no, they don’t use EFI), custom boot mechanism, custom security, even their NVMe protocol is not really NVME and needs a special driver… none of this is standard ARM system interface.

You make the mistake of applying Linux Kernel architecture to Windows. None of the patches the Asahi team is applying to Linux is applicable nor necessary for Windows - not a single one.

 

[clevins]

#Bootcamp

This was a major selling point for Apple. I know an IT company that uses MBP to run windows. They like the built quality of the Mac.

It was a major selling point *seventeen years ago*. See my comment above, but 2022 Apple isn't 2005 Apple.

 

[bobcomer]

I appreciate your clarification. I'd also prefer the acceleration of a Model S and capacity of a pickup truck in my Subaru.

What I want is possible, what you want, not so much if you stay with your subaru. (I have one too, it's plenty fast, an S would be overkill!)

 

[leman]

You make the mistake of applying Linux Kernel architecture to Windows. None of the patches the Asahi team is applying to Linux is applicable nor necessary for Windows - not a single one.

Are you saying that Windows delegates something as fundamental as CPU interrupt handling, memory mapping or device discovery to a *driver*?

I mean... how would that even work? How can they even load a driver if they don't know how to configure the CPU?

 

[Xiao_Xi]

None of the patches the Asahi team is applying to Linux is applicable nor necessary for Windows - not a single one.

Any link that explains that?

 

[Gerdi]

Are you saying that Windows delegates something as fundamental as CPU interrupt handling, memory mapping or device discovery to a *driver*?

I mean... how would that even work? How can they even load a driver if they don't know how to configure the CPU?

You do know, that UEFI and ACPI contain driver code? And its not like the CPU is booting OS code directly, it in almost all cases booting from ROM, which eventually boot into EFI at a later stage and then into OS.
That having said, all the fundamentals like described in the ARMv8 architecture specification need to be in place, all other things are abstracted in UEFI and ACPI.
And this is how it was possible to boot Windows on Raspberry devices - the community developed the according UEFI and ACPI implementations - which eventually enabled booting Windows.

Asahi Linux do not use UEFI and ACPI and hence they need to compile details of the HW implementation into the kernel. From Asahi Linux progress reports:
"On the other hand, the rest of the 64-bit ARM world has largely converged on two competing standards: UEFI + ACPI (largely used by servers running Windows or Linux), and the ARM64 Linux boot protocol + DeviceTree (used on smaller systems, and also supported by U-Boot and more). We need to choose one of these for Asahi Linux and figure out a way to “bridge” Apple’s world to our own."

 

[deconstruct60]

Back then, getting an x86 Windows license is trivial.
Right now, Microsoft made an exclusive agreement with Qualcomm that Windows on ARM will only be made available for devices with Qualcomm SoC.

Qualcomm chip ... no Windows license included. ;-).

Mini Windows on Arm Desktop PC Launches at $229

Windows-on-Snapdragon, to be more exact.

www.tomshardware.com

Yes, to some extent that is "save a buck" move by some 'fly-by=night' system vendor. However, I suspect this is not just entirely solely Qualcomm , but Microsoft has a finger in this also ( kind of avoiding letting the onslaught of 'race to bottom' system vendors in among other things. ).

Pretty good chance is that Microsoft wants system vendor Windows on Arm units to be shipping in volume before they let open up with the clearly , cleanly licensed option. The super discount special is a bit of a chicken-and-egg kind of thing ( need affordable systems to get volume , but few want to build if can't sell them. ). I suspect this rogue system is a precursor of what will be coming in the Q4 22 and Q1 23 that is much more 'regular' ( usual, more well known suspects offering systems. )

Apple is doing as little as possible. They provide bare-bone hypervisor/virtualization framework with no legacy boot support or necessary modern Windows compatibility. ( similar to putting minimal effort into bootcamp. So uptick on UEFI (and its long very term BIOS support track) ) Apple does a subset and then points the fingers at Microsoft and other as being 'at fault' for filling in the rest.

So maybe the question should be asked to Microsoft instead.

Microsoft doesn't need Apple to ship a high volume of Windows on Arm systems. Both Apple and Microsoft are ducking part of the work here. It is convenient 'finger pointing' for each to point at the other. Apple has a bunch of higher priority issues to work out to make the transition to M-series evolve well for Macs. (tons of unoptimized software , new SoCs in the pipeline that will also need optimizations , etc. ) and Microsoft has big issues too ( getting Windows 11 off the ground , keeping Intel , AMD , and the potential Arm CPU vendor(s) happy , etc. )

 

[deconstruct60]

They actually still make a lot of money from Windows, both from consumer PC's OEM licenses, and from business licensing.

How much of. "workstation" system virtualization is. "business licensing" and how much is retail "OEM"/"boxed-upgrade" licensing. In larger businesses it is likely the first. But for extremely small shops and non business contexts it probably is far more skewed toward the second. And the second really is top line revenue number of Microsoft.

Not really talking cluster/'data center' virtualization if talking about the Mac market.

A large issue is that there hasn't been a Arm bare-bones logicboard marketplace. Where tons of small scale "OEM" and tech tinker , "do it yourself" folks whip together Windows systems with their trusty screwdrivers and a tube of thermal paste.

Selling Windows directly to. medium-large OEMs is efficient and profitable for Microsoft. That "race to the bottom" segment; not so much.

 

[leman]

You do know, that UEFI and ACPI contain driver code?

Apple Silicon does not use UEFI or ACPI. And neither of these will tell the system how to handle basic low level interrupts or program the memory controller.

 

[deconstruct60]

....

So why did Apple do Bootcamp back when they transitioned to Intel? Two main reasons. ...

Finally, the transition to Intel was 2005. The world was VERY different 17 years ago. The iPhone was 2 years in the future. Apple's near-death experience was only 7-8 years in the past and things were far from assured, even if they were on a good path. Being able to say to prospective Mac buyers "look, if you need to run Windows sometimes, you can" was an advantage.

That third reason was a major contributing reason. Apple couldn't just sell into the Mac user base and really survive solidly into the future. Apple ran major advertising campaigns around "switching". Even to this day on Financial quarterly briefing Apple will trot out some stat about how many 'new' Mac buyers came into the ecosystem . Apple is at 10% ... as long as they can spin a story about has they can continuously bleed off part of the 90% into their 10% pond then nobody cares much about how many leave or how slow the upgrade cycle might be. Apple has a 'growth' pipeline.

So the whole 'switch' and if really, really, don't like it can just wipe macOS and run Windows was a "safety net" feature that Apple actively sold. "Mac vs PC" campaigns we necessarily because there were still often "Is Apple dead yet" rumbling.

Last 7-8 years there has been about zero proactive Mac advertising. ( they are doing some now to promote and speed up the transition to their own processors. ) . It isn't just the iPhone. The iPad , watch , etc. (rest of the non Mac , non iPhone) segments of Apple generate more revenue than Mac macOS/hardware directly do also.

Running iOS/iPadOS apps on a Mac matters more to Apple than running a Windows app.

The substantive change on this transition is that the macOS user base is much larger now. It is up close to 100M macs. Which if looking at a 20M/year run rate is about 5 years worth. Getting some Windows to switch isn't as deep a core issue now. Apple still needs 'some', but that won't be the core to growth at this point. They can pull folks on performance gaps ( especially in laptops running on battery) and Apple is now in the old school legacy "Nobody gets fired for buying IBM" (huge, financially stable company that isn't going to disappear anytime soon. ) Do you really need a "safety net" option for the "Apple collapses alternative future outcome" ? No.


The bootcamp was easy largely because Apple switched to the larger pond/ecosystem. This time the larger ecosystem they switched to is iPhone/iPad/etc. ( it is only partially Arm. ) .

In an alternative universe where Microsoft had spent the last 3-4 years not building up Windows On Arm to be 8-12% of the Windows market things would be different (would be same size or bigger). That would have different tensions.

Now, Macs and Apple are huge and things are mostly online, so the need expressed above about people having to be able to run some Windows app is much less prevalent. As your post illustrates, that still exists but it's a small niche.

It is not just online. There is a very large fraction that don't use macOS or Windows for their "personal computer". Their phone/tablet is their primary personal computer. Folks with a decent amount of wealth can have multiple "personal computers" , but that is a stretch for most of the world population.

Apple has their iPhone synergies . And Microsoft is putting lots of effort into doing Android integration features for Windows ( probably would do more on iOS/iPhone if Apple gave them better hooks/APIs. ). It isn't the other way around... where iOS/Android are bend over backwards to integrate with Windows because it is the top growth 'dog'.