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Craig Federighi: Native Windows on M1 Macs is 'Really up to Microsoft'
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Forgive my ignorance but how well do Windows app made for the intel version of Windows run on the ARM Windows machines? I've heard that there are a number of limitations or at least there used to be. Those limitations will affect Windows on Apple Silicon Macs if and when it will become possible to run Windows on them, right?
I address that in my post here:
Craig Federighi: Native Windows on M1 Macs is 'Really up to Microsoft'
Let's suppose MS were willing to license an ARM version of Windows, and it ran well on an AS Mac. It's still (at least for a while) not going to be as clean as running Windows on an Intel Mac, because most who need to run Windows-only applications are running legacy x86 applications for work...
forums.macrumors.com
Microsoft is pivoting alway from selling software and like most 'big tech' companies, pivoting to an enterprise cloud services and subscription model.
Just throw Windows ARM into the Office 365 package for a $5/month (or whatever) up, call it a day, and rake in the $$$$.
Just throw Windows ARM into the Office 365 package for a $5/month (or whatever) up, call it a day, and rake in the $$$$.
Today, Windows on ARM64 can only run 32-bit Intel applications. The performance degradation can be non-trivial, although in some cases it doesn't matter. If the application in mostly doing disk I/O or is mostly waiting for you to type, you may not notice much difference. The biggest issue currently is you can't run 64-bit Windows Intel applications at all, which Microsoft says is being worked on to enhance the Intel emulation to support 64-bit applications.
Ideally, applications are compiled by the developer as native 64-bit ARM64 programs, which can take a developer anywhere from 5 minutes to change the build script to allow an ARM64 build, to a lot of work if you have a lot of code that uses Intel intrinsics or does dynamic code generation. Native 64-bit Windows 64-bit applications run quite nice.
I would not recommend a current Windows on ARM64 laptop for most users, as the benefits like longer battery life and built in cellular modem are not worth the Intel compatibility issues. For something like an insurance company, running custom applications that can be easily recompiled to arm64 native, I could see Windows ARM64 laptops might be a appropriate thing to get for 5000 field agents. I own a Windows ARM64 laptop because I'm a software developer doing development on ARM64 servers.
A thing yet to be determined is does the Apple M1 have some special processor support to help emulate Intel code, allowing the Apple emulator to give better performance than the Microsoft emulator. It could also be that Apple put 100 man-years or work into the Intel emulator, and Microsoft only put 10 man-years of work into theirs. We will also have to see the Apple M1 performance running real Intel applications, not just benchmarks. I could easily imagine Apple spent a billion(s) dollars developing the M1, so spending $25M on a speedy emulator might be justified. Having the emulator (with some measurement enhancements) might be a really useful OS test/validation tool internally at Apple, even if they didn't ship it to customers.
Well unless they‘re buying 15 for each employee every quarter I think you’re a little off with you’re claim
It’s good to know that operating system can run on different architecture if they are made specifically for them?
He he, some time ago on this forum I predicted that either they (Apple/MS) sit and do it, or some crazy developers will anyway do it later. Most people thought it's totally impossible, so my response was even offending to them...
Well, I created some of the x64 Boot Camp drivers (Trackpad++ for example), so I'm now more than curious to get Windows running on these M1..Mx Macs, and have these drivers ported of course. Very exciting time is ahead, folks.
Well, I created some of the x64 Boot Camp drivers (Trackpad++ for example), so I'm now more than curious to get Windows running on these M1..Mx Macs, and have these drivers ported of course. Very exciting time is ahead, folks.
Maybe....but Microsoft have dozens of OEM customers (Dell, HP, Lenovo, Samsung etc) they would be supporting in the first instance and whilst the M1 is changing the game now, it won’t always be the case. Intel, AMD, Qualcomm and the likes will not just standstill and just accept their predicament
Intel will definitely hit back, AMD will too. My only fear is that, what if Apple won't be able to scale up their processors and loses to their competition , then are we for another transitioning . Mind you, Intel and AMD are solely big processors company, unlike apple.
Rosetta 2 explicitly isn’t designed for VMs; Apple has made this clear.
WWDC did not show dual-boot. It showed virtualization.
If it were easy for them to “hit back”, they would’ve done so years ago when they saw iOS CPUs make impressive gains.
I’d also be more worried about AMD and Qualcomm here than Intel. Intel’s improving on single-threaded perf (though still years behind Apple); AMD and Qualcomm aren’t even in the ballpark.
Agreed. The x86/64 ISA is intrinsically less efficient than ARM arch64. Intel & AMD have demonstrated zero willingness to move away from this legacy ISA, in my view because :-
a) it is a lot of work
b) there has been very little demand from most of their OEM customers
c) there is very little demand for this in the enterprise/server/datacenter space, which is consolidating anyway due to IaaS & public cloud taking off
d) there is a huge amount of x86/64 software out there
It will be fascinating to see whether Apple adoption of ARM on Macs results in any wider shifts in the industry. In the short term I think it's very unlikely that Intel or AMD will begin to develop ARM based CPUs.
The main benefit of ARM is better efficiency & performance on laptops.
The laptop market has been declining for years since the growth of smartphones and tablets. The vast majority sold run Windows. The ultraportable notebook segment ($1000+) is an even smaller part of this market. The MacBook market is a subset of that.
Most Intel CPUs are sold to business customers running Windows and business software written for Windows x86/64 This huge market is going nowhere, and there is no demand for an ARM transition there, and no demand from businesses to rewrite apps for ARM. There are tens of thousands of x86 Windows apps used in various industries that no-one has ever heard of on which business depend.
x86 CPUs will remain the predominant processors for Windows devices for many many years to come. Even if MS licenses Windows ARM to apple for use in hypervisors, it will still remain a very tiny % of Windows usage.
Apple's use of ARM ISA in Mac is not going to result in a huge market shift causing Windows laptop consumers changing over to Apple in significant numbers. Vast majority of laptops sold are cheaper, £400-700 Windows devices running Intel/AMD chips. These will continue to sell in enough numbers to justify ongoing use of x86 chips.
??...AMD and Qualcomm are already closer than you think. Others are already at 5nm. Remember as it stands M1 can’t support more than 16GB, multiple screens, or use discrete GPU’s or run high-level Windows apps...every other X86 CPU now does so....Remember, outside mobile, no one cares about battery life....it’s not by chance that Apple picked low end laptops to launch with.
When was the last time a company was offering a PC completely build by themselves, from CPU to OS to application ?
If this 2 years old article is any indication....
Windows on ARM Benchmarked
x86 Emulation Performance. Microsoft has come up with strange ideas over the years. Their latest one is running Windows on ARM (again), with the help of Qualcomm and some daring...
www.techspot.com
Don’t expect to play game in it, which I think is the main use case for bootcamp.
Well I got that one of last Mac last year the 2019 MacBook Pro 16, use a Thunderbolt 3 with a Razer EGPU and run a Nvidia 3080 card and bootcamp windows. And it runs great. I just got a Microsoft Xbox series X to back up this system for gaming. I consider Mac gaming is dead except for some simple iOS mobile games. I will still use the Mac and Big Sur for business purposes. The Xbox series X is a more than capable gaming system and it specializes in this purpose. Goodbye 1977 Apple II breakout game you started it all!
Terribly. Part of the skepticism of ARM Macs was due to the absolutely horrible experience WoA was.
It wouldn't decimate the Surface line of products. The Surface line is predominantly x86-64 Windows PCs. It wouldn't even decimate the Surface Pro X. If anything, it'd help Microsoft popularize Windows 10 for ARM64 such that developers either made fat binaries or released ARM64 versions of software alongside x86/x64 versions.
You'd need the right device drivers and the right bootloader to interface with the Apple Silicon firmware. It wouldn't be too dissimilar to how it was running PowerPC versions of Linux on PowerPC Macs. The only element that would make things difficult is that Apple's SoC isn't your average ARM64 SoC. It's highly customized to Apple's exact specifications. An ARM Linux would have to be able to address that properly in order to boot and run well. No small feat. I think, at least as far as Linux is concerned, VMs and Docker will be the way Apple has you run Linux on Apple Silicon Macs.
Likely poorly. Microsoft's translation from 32-bit x86 to ARM64 isn't the fastest. Unless they went about it in a substantially faster fashion with 64-bit x86 apps, it likely won't be much better. It's certainly no Rosetta 2. You'd likely have a better time trying to get your Windows only games to run via CrossOver and translated via Rosetta 2.
Again, CrossOver is the way here. Otherwise, yeah, unless Microsoft beefs up its translation technology the way Apple has, it will be pretty slow.
M1 Macs have even more flexible Secure Boot settings than T2 Macs do. You can have one installed OS with full security dual-booting with another that has none. The issue is driver support and a bootloader that works with Apple's firmware. Otherwise, virtualization is the only way to go.
As for HP and Dell, Microsoft needs to sell them on the idea that there's a point to putting out ARM-based PCs running Windows 10 for ARM64. Right now, they've not done the best job of that. If Microsoft is able to work with Apple to get Windows 10 for ARM64 running in some fashion, be it via a post-Boot-Camp dual-boot option or via virtualization or both, that will allow Microsoft to tap into Apple Silicon Mac users as a means of evangelizing ARM64 as a target achitecture for developers. Microsoft clearly wants Windows 10 to thrive on ARM64 the way it is on x86-64. Apple is a huge opportunity for them.
It's nice that you are able to live without Windows. The sad fact of the matter is that the Mac still can only run a fraction of the amount of software that a Windows PC can. Therefore, getting Windows to work on an Apple Silicon Mac will reenable users to be able to run every application.
Parallels is able to virtualize standard ARM Linux distros on M1 Macs because they leverage the hypervisor built into Big Sur for Apple Silicon. Not for any other reason. Booting Windows 10 for ARM64 in a VM on an Apple Silicon Mac would only require Microsoft and/or Apple and/or Parallels and/or VMware to write Windows 10 for ARM64 drivers for Apple's hypervisor. Native booting Windows 10 for ARM64 on Apple Silicon Macs is a different story. That would require Apple to write Windows 10 for ARM64 drivers for its SoC as well as a modified bootloader to work with Apple's firmware. Not impossible, but no small feat either.
Microsoft does have a native ARM64 version of the Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365) apps for Windows. I think Teams might've been missing up until recently. But I think that's there now too. No need to run x86/x64 versions.
Microsoft won't turn down running Windows 10 for ARM64 on a VM running on an Apple Silicon Mac. I'm sure they wouldn't turn down coordinating with Apple on a native post-Boot-Camp dual-boot solution either. But it's not a simple matter of "hey, let's enable CSM support in the firmware and put out drivers for our third party components". Apple would need to write drivers for M1 for Windows 10 for ARM64 as well as a custom bootloader. If they went that route, it likely wouldn't be "Boot Camp" as we know it on Intel Macs. Not by a long shot. Though, it could be simpler. Buy Windows 10 from the Apple Silicon version of the Mac App Store with love from Microsoft and blessings by Apple.
You're not going to see the same treatment given for Linux, most likely, given the lack of support for Linux with T2 Macs.
Nothing's locked down. But nothing is open either. PowerPC Linux distros at least could leverage drivers from ATI and NVIDIA as well as from Freescale/Motorola and IBM. Apple holds exclusive keys to the castle here.
It's not a documentation issue. The T2 needs drivers as the SSD controller is a part of it. Apple only made drivers for the T2 for Windows. And getting at them isn't straightforward even then. Apple needs to create a Linux driver (more like a series of drivers) - or someone else needs to - in order to get native Linux booting. Considering we don't have that for T2 Macs, I wouldn't hold my breath for it for M1 Macs.
You say this as though Apple hasn't reversed course on not allowing Windows to be directly booted on Macs before. I saw the same Daring Fireball interview with Federighi that you did. But I've also lived through the advent of Boot Camp and vividly remember feeling like hell froze over. I'm not saying that it wouldn't be a ton of work for both Apple and Microsoft, nor am I saying that Apple WILL FOR SURE reverse course on direct booting Windows. But it's entirely possible that Federighi's statements over the summer were based on the fact that Microsoft's licensing made it a moot point. It would benefit both companies immensely to have a native boot scenario for Windows 10 for ARM64.
For Windows, no. They just need to produce them and integrate them into whatever solution is used.
For Linux, also no. If anything, they'd need to publish the SDK for creating drivers as each Linux distro will be different. Unless they decide that Debian is their Linux of choice. But, I'd imagine that'd be very limiting...
Apple will still need drivers for Windows to run on THEIR hypervisor. Apple making the hypervisor sort of removes responsibility from VMware and Parallels to have to do that. Microsoft won't be able to just rely on built-in drivers.
That doesn't help sway MS to play nice with Apple if M1 laptops decimate Surface Pro X.
M1 laptops won't decimate the Surface Pro X. Nor are M1 Macs a reason for Microsoft to not want to play nice with Apple Silicon Macs, regardless of how the Surface Pro X is doing. If anything, Windows 10 for ARM64 on M1 Macs can be used by Microsoft to encourage developers to start making ARM64 Windows versions of their software. That's the end-goal for Microsoft here. Get people to build software for Windows 10 for ARM64. That's it.
No. That's not how it will work or is even currently working. ARM64 is clearly the future of personal computing. x86-64 isn't going to die, nor stop being a key architecture for Windows, but Microsoft has a huge interest in bringing Windows 10 to as many different types of devices as is possible and ARM64 is crucial to that. Up until now, there haven't been many significantly fast systems on which to run Windows 10 for ARM64. Or rather, there haven't been that many apps that support it. Microsoft wants to change that. And an install base of 3 million or so Apple Silicon Mac users will be the perfect reason to encourage such development as Apple Silicon hardware isn't lackluster in performance in the ways that some of these Qualcomm based Windows systems have been lately.
Nope. First off, you now have two generations of Surface Pro X. But even before that, you had Samsung and Lenovo and even HP making other Qualcomm powered Windows 10 for ARM64 devices. They weren't great nor did they sell particularly well, but they were definitely there and there will continue to be more of them as Microsoft is investing heavily in ARM64, just like Apple is.
The "entire Windows family" isn't on ARM. You don't have Windows Server 2019 or 2016 on ARM. They are also done with Office for ARM64, so your timing on these is a bit off.
He's being honest, if not a little vague. If Apple sticks to their "Apple Silicon Macs won't direct boot other operating systems" stance, then he's talking about Windows 10 (presumably the ARM64 variant) running on a VM. If Apple reverses course on that, then he might be referring to both methods of getting Windows on an Apple Silicon Mac. Either way, Microsoft needs to open up licensing for Windows 10 for ARM64 to allow it since it is currently only licensed to OEMs. Microsoft has to make the first move.
That said, if direct booting Windows 10 for ARM64 is going to be on the table, it's because it's Windows. I doubt we'll see such niceties for Linux, given that we still don't have that for T2 Macs. I think Apple would rather we just use Docker and VMs for our Linux needs.
Right now, not great. You can only run 32-bit x86 (Windows) apps, but they run really slow. We're going to soon get the ability to run 64-bit x86 Windows apps and who knows how fast they'll run. It's also possible that Microsoft is hard at work trying to remedy these speed deficiencies, knowing that their whole Windows 10 for ARM64 initiative depends on it.
Has anyone else tried Shadow for their windows needs? It's a Remote Desktop service built for gaming, haven't noticed any big difference compared to native performance. Could be a useful stopgap in the meantime alongside CrossOver