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Booting into Windows is one MAJOR advantage of the Mac. When will Windows 10 be Arm based so it can be ported over to the new Macs?

To actually answer your question...

There is already an ARM version of Windows 10 used on a very few ARM-based PCs like the MS Surface X.

There are a few technical question marks over whether it would work on Apple Silicon (which is Apple's customised version of ARM) - and if it did, whether its x86-32 emulator/translator would work on the strictly 64-bit Mac - but unless anybody here (a) works for Apple or Microsoft and (b) wants to get fired for leaking information, we just don't know.

Apple have clearly said that they won't be supporting direct booting of other OSs, so things like Linux will run under Parallels etc. (which they've shown working on Apple silicon) and since any official solution will require co-operation between MS and Apple you're unlikely to see any viable unofficial solution.

Remember that Bootcamp was only viable because once Macs switched to Intel they adopted the industry-standard x86 PC architecture (which goes beyond just having an x86 CPU) and mostlyu sed regular PC components from Intel, AMD, Broadcomm etc. for graphics, networking, audio etc. They were a gnats whisker away from being able to run a standard copy of Windows out-of-the-box (some Macs literally could, at least with Windows XP) and "hackers" had Windows up and running (by simply restoring a missing UFI firmware module that Apple left out of the first Intel Macs) before Apple even introduced Bootcamp - which was little more than a click'n'drool "wizard" to work around some Windows installer shenanigans and download a bunch of (mostly third-party) hardware drivers. The switch to T2 chips as disc controllers added a slight complication, but Intel Macs were still mostly PCs.

Apple Silicon Macs - although we don't know the details yet - are likely to be a completely proprietary architecture in which most of the components (graphics, disc controller, USB, sound, networking) are part of the Apple Silicon system-on-a-chip and designed to work with Mac OS subsystems like Metal, Core Audio etc. and even an OS built for ARM will need a number of Apple Silicon-specific drivers if they're going to direct boot, which won't happen without Apple support. In virtualisation (Parallels etc.) they can use "paravirtualised" drivers which connect with Parellels (or whatever) which in turn calls the MacOS drivers - which is helpful to Apple because they don't have to maintain a "standard" hardware interface between releases of Apple Silicon if the only drivers that matter are in MacOS.

I think it is quite likely that MS will work with Apple (and maybe a third party such as Parallels) to make a virtualised version of Win10 for ARM available - if MS are serious about their ARM support, they'll be aware that ASi Macs will outnumber Surface Xs pretty much overnight. However, that leaves the question of how much use Win10 on ARM will be to you if the Windows apps you rely on are old x86 apps which - at best - will only run under Win10's equivalent of Rosetta (which probably isn't as good) - and whereas we can be pretty confident that all the "going concern" Mac apps will be ARM native within a couple of years, the Windows world is still joined at the hip with x86, which isn't likely to change anytime soon.

I'm sure that there will also be an option to run x86 Windows under emulation - considering that a (non App-store friendly) solution already exists on iOS where it makes much less sense - but that isn't going to be very fast.
 
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microsoft is likely to keep the arm version of windows 10 to OEMs meaning that it can only be bought when people buy a new arm based computer for the time being at least

However, the OEM in question could be Apple or a third party hypervisor producer. If anybody remembers Softwindows for PPC, that came bundled with an OEM copy of Windows. The hypervisor will be needed to bridge the gap between the guest OS and MacOS's Apple Silicon drivers.

As I said earlier, it's highly likely that the ASi Mac will rapidly become the biggest selling ARM PC (unless you count the Raspberry Pi as a 'PC') so unless MS are only paying lip service to ARM support, they ought to want in.
 
@D.T.
You can get APFS drivers for Windows now. E.g. https://www.paragon-software.com/home/apfs-windows/

Thanks, sorry, I should've clarified, 1st party/Apple. I was aware of few 3rd party options when I briefly investigated a solution, but at the time, they sounded a little __sketchy__ (lots of issues reported in various product support forums). I'm sure they've decently matured since, but I still would've prefered support to be baked right into MacOS (past tense as it's no longer relevant to my usage model).

FWIW, I wound up just using cloud file sharing services (DropBox, G-drive) to provide a sort of shared file repo between MacOS and Windows, which actually didn't work too bad. :)
 
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Apparently you can activate Windows for ARM with a normal (& not previously used) Windows 10 license. Maybe not officially supported, but it does work. I would just run it in a VM and now it's gaining x64 emulation support so you should be able to run any Windows app.
 
This is probably the biggest dilemma I've ever had when purchasing a piece of tech.

I've been using MBA 2017 for 3,5 years and it's time to upgrade. I'm starting a new job this month where it's possible I'd have to use specific software available only for Windows. My idea was to get MBA 2020 (Intel) with 16 GB of RAM and install Windows on it, in case I need to use it (as from what I've heard so far it won't be possible to do that on Silicon Macs).

However, now with ARM Macs imminent, I'm tempted to get ARM MacBook Air/Pro, which would become my daily driver for 95% of the time (primarily for working on text files using Office - I'm a translator). And, in the case I ever need Windows, I'd install it on my MBA 2017.

Do you think my line of reasoning is, well, reasonable? What would you do in this scenario? Is MBA 2017 powerful enough to handle Windows (and only Windows) for the next 4-5 years?
 
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This is probably the biggest dilemma I've ever had when purchasing a piece of tech.

I've been using MBA 2017 for 3,5 years and it's time to upgrade. I'm starting a new job this month where it's possible I'd have to use specific software available only for Windows. My idea was to get MBA 2020 (Intel) with 16 GB of RAM and install Windows on it, in case I need to use it (as from what I've heard so far it won't be possible to do that on Silicon Macs).

However, now with ARM Macs imminent, I'm tempted to get ARM MacBook Air/Pro, which would become my daily driver for 95% of the time (primarily for working on text files using Office - I'm a translator). And, in the case I ever need Windows, I'd install it on my MBA 2017.

Do you think my line of reasoning is, well, reasonable? What would you do in this scenario? Is MBA 2017 powerful enough to handle Windows (and only Windows) for the next 4-5 years?

2017 was not that long ago. I'd use that machine for Windows.
 
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Do you think my line of reasoning is, well, reasonable? What would you do in this scenario? Is MBA 2017 powerful enough to handle Windows (and only Windows) for the next 4-5 years?
A 2017 Air will be probably be able to BootCamp Windows well enough for basic productivity software or some corporate database frontend, but it's going to struggle today with more demanding applications. If its got the base RAM then it might be sluggish running Windows virtually, if it's got a titchy 128GB SSD that's not ideal for Bootcamp if you want both MacOS and Windows to have a decent amount of disc space.

I'd guess your software falls into the "basic productivity" category so that's OK (...unless you're doing translations for high-end games or 3D modelling software :) ). Is it something you are only going to be using occasionally, or will you be continually making use of it? In the latter case, it's probably time to bite the bullet and switch to PC - continually flipping between Windows and MacOS, especially on different machines, will get old pretty quickly.

Forget 4-5 years: that's the far end of what I'd plan for a brand new system, let alone a 3-year-old one. Maybe it will still be good, but that's a bonus rather than something to plan for. Meanwhile, I think it is highly likely that some solution for running Windows virtually on ASi Macs will appear reasonably quickly. Even if it's only slow old "software emulation" that might be enough for your purposes, and more convenient than maintaining two machines. So if you do buy an ASi Mac, anticipate using it for virtualisation/emulation in the future - i.e. don't skimp on RAM and SSD size.

You also need to be really sure that all of the other software you use will work on ASi Macs. Do you use any specialist plug-ins apart from Office itself? Apple have shown a version of Office running on ASi Mac but they haven't said it will be available on day one (well, day one starts in about 5 hours, so we may know later). I seriously wouldn't advise anybody to rush out and buy an ASi Mac as their main/only/daily driver Mac until the dust has settled - any more than you should be the first to install the latest Mac OS on launch day. The early worm gets the bird.

That said - using your old Mac (once you're confident that the ASi Mac does everything else) as a Windows machine is a perfectly good idea. However, I always feel that the #1 value of a Mac is the ability to run MacOS, so do check what you could sell it or trade it in for (or how much karma you'd get from handing it down to a good home) vs. the cost of a cheap'n'cheerful PC - and remember to factor in the cost of the full Windows 10 license you'd need to Bootcamp your Mac.

Personally - if I go for an ASi Mac I'll probably pair it with a PC but, honestly, that's something I'm tempted to do even with an Intel Mac.
 
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