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Running a VM with a Linux distribution compiled for Arm does work, so why wouldn‘t we be able to virtualize Windows for Arm?

We would. For official support I think it depends on whether Microsoft sells/licenses Windows for ARM this way. In the meantime, there will be x86 emulated Windows machines pretty early in the Apple Silicon Mac life cycle. Probably will launch with them as there are already methods that work as was mentioned- QEMU, etc (hell, you can run it now on an iPhone, even if it isn't particularly fast).
 
No, that means that Apple's future Macs with Apple-designed chips will not support using Rosetta to run software like VMWare or Parallels to run Windows within the virtualization software. You have no way of knowing whether VMWare, Parallels, or others will create Apple silicon-compatible software to virtualize Windows or other x86 platforms.

Edit: And I sure as hell am not taking any odds against them doing so. They'd have to be nuts to leave all that money on the table.
VMware won’t chase this. Too
much work for a tiny market. Kiss goodbye to Fusion. Parallels may do it if it is technically possible.
 
Wonder if Apple will pass on any cost savings, isn't that one reason they say for moving to Arm?
Market forces will dictate the price. Eventually the move will reduce costs for Apple, but they have obviously invested a lot of R&D over the past few years they will want to recoup. If the Intel transition is any indication, we will see a modest reduction in price over time. The “Apple Tax” is quite modest for base models. Where Apple boosts its margins is with the prices for RAM, CPU, and SSD upgrades. That will likely continue, though the CPU comparisons will be more difficult with Windows PCs because there won’t be a direct comparison.
 
I am wondering if Microsoft will continue to support Visual Studio for the Mac. They are working on the office suite.
 
But the world is a lot different from what it was 15 years ago. Back then, Windows support was critical to wooing “switchers” from Windows to the Mac. Now, there is a larger installed base, many of whom never even think of running a Windows program. And as long as XCode is the only tool for writing iOS/iPadOS apps, developers will likely continue buying Macs. Maybe they’ll just buy cheaper MacBook Airs instead of the 16” MacBook Pro, since their other coding will be on Intel-based PCs.

In any case, I’m guessing Microsoft is rooting for Apple to succeed. They’ve tried to wean themselves from Intel before. Windows NT was the first attempt back in the 1990s. It was supposed to run on PowerPC and SPARC chips.

But closing the door to interoperativity when you have a small market share is a myopic and deluded view of what a tenuous grip you have on a market you don't own. For the average person, macs don't exist. For the average mac user, Windows exists as a fuzz at the edge of their vision. You can only get by celebrating your minority status as long as the majority acknowledges you exist. Microsoft, aside form the drain on development time, wouldn't miss Apple if they pulled a Pixar, and totally dropped hardware. The macOS just isn't much competition to Windows. Even after the Vista, and Win8 debacles, masses of users did not flock to the macOS. I hope that virtualization does come back, and Bootcamp reappears. They need to support all users, and all the many ways people use their products. IMO...

Cheers...
 
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I think Apple realized that native Windows compatibility was a double-edged sword. Yes, it enabled the “switchers” back in 2006, but at the same time kept it less attractive to make native Mac apps even as iPhone and iPad transformed Apple and made their platforms more popular.

At the same time, the main. criticism of iPad is that while the hardware is fully capable, the OS is limited. With Macs with Apple Silicon that is no longer the case. Developers can write “real apps” for a “real OS” now. That has the potential not only to improve the quality of apps on the Mac, but potentially the iPad, as well, particularly if Apple eventually releases a “reverse Catalyst” or further merges the two platforms.

I (partly) disagree. Though high quality apps for IOS/iPadOS exist, the majority of IOS apps are meaningless toy apps. Flooding macOS with a bunch of (that) crap will not benefit macOS. Nor will it benefit macOS developers. Probably it will not even benefit IOS developers much (because they cannot differentiate on platform any more). It does not benefit the end user, who has to pay and pay for lots of tiny (often low quality) apps.

It will mostly benefit Apple, but (in my opinion) only in the short run. In the long run, Apple must make sure that their platforms remain attractive to develop for. Developers need to make a living too. If -like IOS- the tendency becomes "cheap or free" and there are millions of apps that prevent exposure, plus Apple taking a 30% cut on successful developers, then it may become very difficult to earn a proper living as a developer.

Maybe it works out well, but I think Apple needs to pay attention to who they are doing this for. Jobs focussed on quality. Cook focusses on quantity.

MacOS deserves high quality software for professionals, not low(er) quality apps for the masses.
 
They will probably lose certain pro customers, but gain others if they are able to provide better or cheaper Macs.

New apple hardware that's cheaper than what is currently available? It must be nice living in a dream.
 
Even in the Intel era, it was already a tough world for Mac users hoping beyond hope that game developers would make Mac versions of their games.... Now I bet we can kiss goodbye to gaming on Mac forever.
Not so sure. Now Apple has a unified platform among iPhones, iPads, Apple TV, and Macs. This may become an attractive enough market for game developers to bring it in to their development as a third platform: Xbox/Windows, PS, and now ARM-based Apple. The new Apple TV yet to be released may become a game console rivaling Xbox X and PS5, so games created for it may be able to run on all Apple devices.
 
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But closing the door to interoperativity when you have a small market share is a myopic and deluded view of what a tenuous grip you have on a market you don't own. For the average person, macs don't exist. For the average mac user, Windows exists as a fuzz at the edge of their vision. You can only get by celebrating your minority status as long as the majority acknowledges you exist. Microsoft, aside form the drain on development time, wouldn't miss Apple if they pulled a Pixar, and totally dropped hardware. The macOS just isn't much competition to Windows. Even after the Vista, and Win8 debacles, masses of users did not flock to the macOS. I hope that virtualization does come back, and Bootcamp reappears. They need to support all users, and all the many ways people use their products. IMO...

Cheers...
Except Windows isn’t the center of the universe anymore, not even for Microsoft. Apple is primarily a mobile device and services company now, and Microsoft’s present and future growth is in the Cloud. Windows is firmly in cash cow territory. Apple isn’t looking to “switchers” as a growth market anymore and hasn’t for several years now.

As it stands, even iPhone is becoming a cash cow rather than a growth driver for Apple. It makes sense for Apple to align the Mac with iPad and iPhone to streamline future maintenance as much as possible while they look for the next big thing.
 
I think Parallels and VM Ware are working very hard right now to make this possible anyhow (Rosetta like feature built into their products?). It's their core business.
It’s not VMware’s core business. Not by a long shot. It’s a tiny market for them, and they will surely abandon it. They almost did abandon the Mac once already.
 
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I no longer need to keep a windows VM on my Mac these days as our support tools are platform independent. What I do have though is a Windows 10 VM running on my server which I can access via OpenVPN then Remote Desktop. This is handy to have and I can get to it from my iPad Pro and MacBook Pro.
 
I hope all the major developers including VMware have ordered the mac mini developers kit and working ASAP. We cant have major software not working on launch day....
 
Except Windows isn’t the center of the universe anymore, not even for Microsoft. Apple is primarily a mobile device and services company now, and Microsoft’s present and future growth is in the Cloud. Windows is firmly in cash cow territory. Apple isn’t looking to “switchers” as a growth market anymore and hasn’t for several years now.

As it stands, even iPhone is becoming a cash cow rather than a growth driver for Apple. It makes sense for Apple to align the Mac with iPad and iPhone to streamline future maintenance as much as possible while they look for the next big thing.

Oh I wouldn't be so sure about that especially when you account for Windows Server Ed and Hypervisor. Yes Cloud is a large focus but Apple's "service" business is under assault from regulators right now and I don't see it lasting much longer. Intel and AMD are more than capable of producing ARM chips and AMD has on several occasions. Intel is moving to a big-little style ARM design with Amberlake and so I could see a situation where RISC will slowly become more the dominant type of processor leaving CISC to Xeons using chiplets. ie One large CISC and then multi-cored RISC chips in a single foveros style package.

But let's get real folks this is about money, full stop. BOM profits on their ARM devices is close to 100% or higher whereas Intel is below 20%. Rather than trying to build professional devices their obsession with thinness I'm sure is going to be their excuse but the reality is its about money.

Now the question becomes this: What happens to eGPUs? Thunderbolt? What about 10GE? What about the MacPro? I'm sure they can make something that will fill those roles but one would think they'd have a plan in place to do so and frankly I'm not seeing it. On one hand it'll be a good Chromebook like device for the masses doing office work and youtube but is the Apple Tax really going to be justified here? It didn't work 10 years ago and I doubt I'll work now. Macs are now expensive toys for the sheep and I'm sure the ridicule of Mac users will return like it did during the PPC days.

Already dumped my MBP 6 months ago when the rumors started to come, dumping my wife's MBP today and buying her an iPad Pro. It was a fun 10 years though but back to Windows I go. I strongly suspect the majority of IT professionals will do the same. The only way I can see things remaining status-quo is if Microsoft manages to pull a rabbit out of the hat with Windows on ARM. Even then now with the ARM consortium opening up chipset design to OEMs like Samsung, why would I go Apple?
 
Software support on arm macs will be the same. Hate to break it to you. I can barely justify buying a Mac now. In the future there’s simply no way. Apple is aiming at the folks who think iPad apps are amazing or something. Think fisher price type apps. We saw this reimagining already with Big Sur. Dumbed down for the typical ignorant mainstream user.
Disagree. Unless you rely on Windows, the move will be mostly painless. As macOS will be still be macOS (or you're fooled by aestethics), most Mac software will be ported, sooner or later.
In the '00s I wasted most of my spare time developing a pretty complex CAD, and it run on Mac Intel and PPC, Windows, Linux, iOS, and even more exotic platforms, and 90% of the code was the same. I expect the effort to add macOS/ARM to be minimal, in fact easier than iOS was.
 
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Maybe AMD or Intel will license their CPU code for a software emulation application to run under the new Mac ARM silicon.
If it costs $200 to buy a physical i7 processor then Intel could sell you a license for that specific ARM Mac hardware an i7 emulator for $200. You want an i9, then $400 for the software.
That way Intel is still getting paid for their proprietary code in their chips and the user has full access to all the SSE chipset.
 
I am guessing Parallels applied to the Quick Start Program and once they receive the DTK Mac Mini, they will be hard at work trying to get that Mac Mini to successfully boot a virtual copy of Windows 10 x64.

I suspect Parallels (and perhaps VMware) have known about this transition (under strict NDA) for a while. For sure the Intel to ARM transition impacts their products more than any other Mac app that I can think of...
 
Its the question many of us had in our minds as soon as Tim announced it - no boot camp or Parallels VMs will make life difficult for me. I’m more than sure solutions will come out and so I’m not panicking yet.

It does make me want to cling a little more tightly to my mid 2019 MBP!
 
I'm a bit dumbstruck, actually. The whole "Mac can run Windows but not the other way around" was a huge advantage, wasn't it? A machine that can NATIVELY run both OS. If an app comes out that will run Windows under emulation, what sort of performance hit would it take in comparison?
 
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