I don’t know how long ago you responded, but I was just browsing when I saw this. I thought I’d add some color. I’m not sure if it’s in this thread, or in another but I’ve heard repeatedly about abandoning the Mac because they need to use an application that is no longer being supported, and will never run 64 bit on Windows.
With that said, I’ve been following Microsoft closely for years. In fact I’m actually in the middle of setting up a new Surface as a longer term device to help be do one off tasks.
Bro, I think your knowledge of Windows is pretty dated. Microsoft IS pushing things forward in big ways with Windows 10 they're just baking in this thing called "backwards compatibility" that is required when 85% of the PCs in the world run your platform. Apple can afford to cut off support for things on the Mac because, relative to Windows, there aren't that many people using it. Plus, home users are less change averse than business users (many of whom need to use niche software that will never make it to any Mac - Intel Apple Silicon or otherwise). But make no mistake, they're pushing that platform forward in some sizable ways.
The version of Windows 10 on ARM64 that you're referencing is an IoT specific version that is not intended to be used for general computing. It's intended to run a single app and be operated as an appliance not as a personal computer. That is not an accurate benchmark for anything, especially given that the SoC present in the Surface Pro X is more capable than that of a Raspberry Pi and the former still runs like crap. I also expect Windows 10 for ARM64 will make its way to Apple Silicon Macs in some form or another, but the hurdles to get it there are not insubstantial.
Microsoft is pushing things forward with Windows 10, no doubt. I’ve actually enjoyed seeing their development of Fluent UI, though it isn’t my favorite UI. It’s good to see them continue to iterate on it, and I look forward to seeing it someday being available to everything.
You’re right, Apple can afford to cut off support for things on the Mac. The longer term problem that I see, especially with businesses, is that while Microsoft is developing new features, for business they aren’t really using them on the end point side. Most end point applications that are run, from what I’ve seen are usually legacy applications, that many hope won’t break by the next build of Windows. Any modern applications, for most companies, are web apps not all, but most. There is of course Microsoft Office, Autodesk, Adobe, and many many other management applications the data center, and users. But most line of modern business applications, being ran by most of the people in a company.
I know Microsoft is focusing in on unifying everything from frameworks to UI, but that is yet another attempt that they have, and honestly, many developers that I’ve talked to have Windows Roadmap Change Fatigue. It was heartbreaking being on at the Microsoft Redmond campus, and seeing so many people that ramped up on Silverlight because they were told a couple of years before that was their new direction for apps, that there was no roadmap to go from Silverlight to Win RT. Then Win RT kinda stopped and started a couple of times, and now we are at this unification. It was frustrating.
Microsoft is a brilliant company. I don’t mean this as any kind of a dig, but they have a hard time sticking to one direction for more than a year and a half or so.
On Windows 10 running on Raspberry Pi, it isn’t running the Windows IOT. I know which version you’re speaking of, and that is absolutely not it.
It appears that some enterprising individuals have gotten the build intended for the Surface Pro X to run on Raspberry Pi. It does look like it was a painful process to get it to where it is today. Originally on the Raspberry Pi 4 with 4GB of memory only 3 was accessible. Now they have it running with 8GB available can be used (obviously on the 8GB Raspberry Pi). Lets be clear, it isn’t running as good as it would on a Surface Pro X, but from what I’ve seen it’s very serviceable, and usable especially on the inexpensive Raspberry Pi 4. I’m not claiming it will cure cancer, but it does show what can happen with a few people determined to make it happen. If that team can do it, I’m curious what an officially sanction build, developed by Microsofts own engineers could do on that hardware, let alone on AS using Apples Hypervisor. Not saying it’s going to happen, just saying I’m hopeful.
All Microsoft did was bake in support that made it so that people who can't move to new versions of things don't have to. They did nothing to inhibit progress. Software developers are the ones at fault here. But even then, Apple has, in the last fifteen years, forced developers to move from 32-bit PowerPC to 32-bit Intel, to 64-bit Intel, and now to 64-bit ARM. And that doesn't even include the host of other changes to the operating system that it has made during those periods of time. Apple is not a friendly platform for developers. They will force you to change your code regularly in the name of progress, forcing a kind of Darwinian survival-of-the-fittest kind of development market, which ultimately limits software choice for the user of a Mac. There are several more apps available for Windows than there ever will be for Mac and that's why. Again, not sure how you can spin that as being a good thing for the platform.
I'm not saying that Apple shouldn't be allowed to advance the platform, but when you're in a constant state of flux, it's not exactly inviting developers to play along. I've always wanted to develop for the iPad because I believe it to be a very important and influential computing device. Apple is almost discouraging me to hop on board.
I’m in agreement with you. I don’t think Apple would be able to move to AS if Apple didn’t make these changes. I don’t have a crystal ball to say for certain, but I do think the pros and cons of these forced transitions were heavily considered. I won’t pretend to know how difficult any of these said changes were on the developers, but I do know that at least on the consumer side of the house developers are far more engaged with their Apple consumers. I won’t pretend to completely understand why things are so different on the Microsoft side. I don’t think it’s one single thing, just more of many weighted things that left developers uninterested. I’ve got a lot of thoughts on that alone, but for brevity, I’ll leave it at that.
They're not putting an x86-64/x64 translator into Windows 10 for ARM64. They already have a 32-bit x86 translator built-in for 32-bit Windows apps. It runs slowly, but that's because Windows 10 for ARM64 also runs slowly because the hardware it runs on is also slow hardware. Apple Silicon may make that kind of emulation sluggishness a thing of the past. But they've stated nothing about working on getting x86-64 native apps to be translated. If anything, they should spend their energy trying to get their version of universal binaries out there.
Then within Windows, you could run x86/x64 apps as they currently exist (no need to rewrite or recompile). There may be a performance hit, which may or may not be an issue, depending on how fast the AS SoCs actually are.
32-bit , Win32 apps run fine on Windows ARM. There should be Cortex-X1 ( semi-customized A78 )
Read this introduction to the Arm Cortex-X Custom Program, outlining what the new program entails and providing details about the new Arm Cortex-X1 CPU which is part of the program.
community.arm.com
coming in the next round of Windows ARM systems.
[/QUOTE]
I know you’ve said it repeatedly that x64 to ARM isn’t going to happen, but I have seen things that seem to imply otherwise. There have been a couple of people reporting this
Thurrott.
With all of that said, we have nothing to say if it will happen or when. It could be something that is being tested I don’t know, no one officially knows.
I would expect that IF it happens, it will probably not support Surface Pro X. I say that because if they are able to do it, it may be a result of something Qualcomm is doing for them in a new revision of their SOCs.
Anyway brother, hope you hear me with the heart I’m saying all of this with. I do think you and I are largely in agreement, but did want to clarify things a bit.
Microsoft isn’t going away. Under Satya Microsoft has turned into this beautiful company with so much potential. I eagerly wait to see what they’ll pull out next. I’m going to stick to my Apple hardware, but they really have come along way. There Surface line is actually pretty nice, but some of the rough edges of Windows are still poking out. With Panos at the head of things I am happily excited to see them challenge everyone.
