Video: Testing Windows on an M1 Mac With Parallels 16

[Nicole1980]

ARM windows? Until they can run X86 application on M1 I will pass.

Exactly! And I would add ... run them well. That second part is as critical as the first IMO.

A lot of people on here who seemed to be jacked up about Windows on ARM Macs seem to be missing this very critical point: Their regular Windows games and programs will NOT work on those systems!

 

[radus]

Exactly! And I would add ... run them well. That second part is as critical as the first IMO.

A lot of people on here who seemed to be jacked up about Windows on ARM Macs seem to be missing this very critical point: Their regular Windows games and programs will NOT work on those systems!

in my short time experience:
MS Office 32bit X86 - runs very well
Dragon Naturally speaking professional X86 - runs very well
our 32bit X86 accounting app client - runs very well

thats not in theory - it simply works

I thought about buying a 16" i9 to replace my 2018 i9 32gb - but now I will never ever do that.

 

[edubfromktown]

Hard pass for now... just bought my kid an early 2020 10th gen.

She has one app that may be tolerable in Parallels, if not it will require BootCamp. She had been running Mojave on a 2017 13" MBP and now on Catalina (like me) which has been quite stable for both of us.

No need to go bleeding edge- the OS and hardware will only improve over time.

 

[Yebubbleman]

You can't put an NTFS disk in an APFS container, so no.

No, but you can put a FAT32 volume in an APFS container and then convert that to NTFS, thereby producing an NTFS volume in an APFS container (as is how Boot Camp has been operating on Macs since High Sierra first graced SSD-based Macs in 2017). Not sure what your counter-point even is.

As a only MacOS user, I often get limited on my software options mainly because the ability to run windows on Mac and the fact that Apple did a poor job in promoting Metal vs CUDA implementation by nvidia, has allowed and even incentives developers not to offer Mac versions of their apps.
The ARM macs performance and the lack of bootcamp could make Mac versions more appealing... Though I’m no expert, on the other hand, as I understand Microsoft is the only company that could offer a real competitive product to Apple’s silicon, assuming Intel or more likely AMD are able to quickly provide the customized SoC for it, as it has the capability and is the only company which already provides a OS coupled hardware solution (surface) and this is a prerequisite for manage and take full advantage of the unified architecture responsible for the amazing performance of the ARM Mac silicon..so maybe Microsoft might have reasons not to get Windows running on Macs right now, as they can render themselves as the only real contenders to ARM Macs. I’m afraid other PC makers will be left with the upgradability argument as the solely reason to opt for them.
I’m conflicted by my desire of Apple not supporting Bootcamp, as this will limit options for customers, but right now with head lead on performance, this could be incentive enough for developers to adopt Metal.

I see the point you're making, about how Windows on a Mac supposedly de-incentivizes native Mac app development. I can assure you, that was never the actual trend. If, anything, native Mac app development was EASIER (not harder) and there was a much greater influx on Mac apps for Intel than there ever was for PowerPC.

There are developers that are loyal to Apple (e.g. Adobe, Microsoft, etc.) that will always produce apps for whatever architecture Apple has the Mac on, but you're likely going to see, for instance, less AAA PC titles crossing over to the Mac. Hell, the jury is still out on whether Steam will ever make the jump to Apple Silicon.

As for Microsoft having no incentive for getting Windows 10 for ARM64 running on Apple Silicon, that's ridiculous. They have every incentive. They're a software company, first and foremost. The hardware that they've put Windows 10 for ARM64 on thus far have been lackluster compared to a VM running on Apple Silicon. Microsoft wants it to succeed but, so far, no one is really biting. Suddenly, you have a pool of new Mac users and the ARM64 version of Windows 10 becomes the ONLY version that can run on their new M1 Macs (and, realistically, likely will be the only version of Windows 10 that will run on Apple Silicon going forward). Apple Silicon has the potential to increase the Windows 10 for ARM64 userbase like never before. Certainly moreso than the Surface Pro X (either generation) or the myriad of minor HP, Lenovo, and Samsung 2-in-1 PCs with underpowered Qualcomm SoCs under the hood.

That was my initial gut reaction too, but thinking about it... what is in that for either Microsoft or Apple, especially if you're talking about direct booting rather than virtualisation?

Native hardware performance. The benchmarks, at best, show a ~200 point speed hit on single-core and a ~2000 point hit on multi-core over native hardware performance. Just as you have people that prefer running Boot Camp (on Intel Macs) over just virtualizing x64 Windows, that preference will surely extend for those that need to do heavy tasks in Windows, but are otherwise Mac users who don't want to own two machines).

A lot of people who exclusively use MacOS also buy/subscribe to MS Office and use email services that are ultimately provided by Microsoft... and I suspect that services, rather than OS sales, are increasingly the mainstay of MS's business.

Windows Excel is still leaps and bounds better than macOS Excel. For many users, it doesn't matter. But for those that really go hardcore with Excel, it's not even close. Same goes for Outlook, albeit, it's less pronounced for 98% of users.

Services are the mainstay of Microsoft's business. But that doesn't preclude the effort they're placing into there being an ARM64 version of Windows 10. Windows is still important to Microsoft.

As for OS sales, they really don't want to tick off their huge army of OEM PC makers by collaborating with Apple to make Mac the "best Windows system". They are already walking the tightrope with their Surface range (which I'd say, as a consequence, are designed and priced specifically to compete with Apple rather than other PC makers).

Apple doesn't tick off PC manufacturers by making things available to other PC manufacturers. There are several OEMs licensing Windows on their boxes. It's up to the OEM to produce hardware that they want to slap Windows on.

The Surface range isn't pissing off other OEMs no more than Google Pixel (and Nexus before it) was pissing off Samsung, Motorola, HTC, or LG. The Surface range consists of reference design products. They also only compete with the likes of Dell, Asus, HP, Lenovo, Acer, and the like on the consumer side of things. When it comes to business class systems, they're barely competing.

At worst, a native boot solution involving Windows 10 for ARM64 on Apple Silicon convinces the other OEMs that they ought to try to attain those levels of performance with their own ARM64 PCs. The only party that ought to be concerned by such a development is Qualcomm, whose SoCs are woefully inadequate next to M1.

What Microsoft really needs is "Microsoft Silicon" (or maybe NVIDIA Silicon, or even 'Intel Silicon') - optimised for Windows/DirectX the way that M1 is optimised for MacOS/Metal - that can be sold to PC OEMs - in which case they'll want it to be competing with Intel Core (which is an easy win) rather than Apple M1.

Again, Microsoft is a software company first and foremost. They do not share Apple's business model and likely won't ever. The Surface products don't change that as, again, they are reference devices first and foremost.

The reality is, died-in-the-wool Wintel users are not going to be switching en masse to Apple Silicon just because it may be "better" - if the best hardware/software always won the market everybody would be using Apples, Amigas or Acorns today, and the PC would have been laughed off stage on day one.

Just because Apple Silicon is handily beating Intel, doesn't mean that Wintel (let alone Intel Macs) weren't and aren't still good by the vast majority of today's standards. Try managing a fleet of Macs in an enterprise without something like JAMF in place; you'll YEARN for Windows.

Meanwhile, Apple, likewise, is increasingly focussed on (a) services and (b) seamless integration between Mac/iPhone/iPad/Watch/Homekit - and the best way to sell people Apple services is to have them either using MacOS exclusively or - if they really have to have Windows compatibility - using virtualisation to run their must-have Windows Apps alongside a mostly MacOS workflow. If people spend significant time booted into Windows then they're going to look to cross-platform services and mobile devices etc. that work well with Windows (Spotify instead of Music, Dropbox/OneDrive/Google instead of iCloud, Steam instead of Arcade etc...)

Apple's services division is lackluster and has pretty much always been as such. Spotify still dwarfs Apple Music, TV+ is still not picking up the kinds of numbers that literally every other service has, no one is subscribing to News+. You put way too much stock in their services, which, again, aren't pulling the kind of weight you imply they do here. I know that's Apple's agenda, but that doesn't mean it's actually working.

Virtualization doesn't work for every Mac-centric workflow. You're right that it will suffice for many. But it won't for all or even most. Plus, if you're buying a Mac, you're already giving Apple the money they wanted out of that Mac purchase.

They don't care if you want to run Windows 10 for ARM64 on your Apple Silicon Mac. They've already outright stated that there's nothing stopping Microsoft from getting Windows 10 for ARM64 on Apple Silicon Macs. They said they're not supporting direct booting (but it's not like they didn't say the same thing at the same point in the Intel switch).

Frankly, the work to get direct booting of ARM64-based Windows 10 to run on Apple Silicon is much greater than what was needed to get Windows XP to run on those early Intel Macs (literally flipping a switch and using commodity drivers by comparison). This time, they'd actually needs to write drivers FOR THEIR OWN HARDWARE (compared to them doing so for Marvell, Intel, Atheros, Broadcom, Realtek, etc.). Even on the virtualization route, Apple still needs to write drivers for the Hypervisor (which, regardless of whether it's Parallels Desktop, VMware Fusion, or qemu, it's still their Hypervisor framework that everyone is using). Microsoft also needs to update their built-in apps to be ARM64 as many of them are currently ARM32 and won't launch on an Apple Silicon Mac (as Apple Silicon hasn't had 32-bit instruction sets since A10/X Fusion) For the direct booting route, Apple and Microsoft would need to also collaborate on a bootloader.

So while I'm pretty sure that Win10 for ARM virtualisation is going to happen (and it looks like its 90% working already) I'm not sure that anybody has an incentive to work on direct booting.

Virtualization won't cover every workflow. The only outright downside to an Apple Silicon Mac compared to an Intel one is the ability to run Windows. Apple benefits by closing this gap as much as possible. Microsoft benefits by having a hardware platform on which people are going to be running the ARM64 Windows 10 (by virtue of having no other choice), thereby incentivizing Windows app developers to consider adding an ARM64 version for the increasing audience size.

Does that even work with NTFS on the Windows side? Does it make re-arranging your partitions as easy as dragging the virtual disk file off onto an external drive? Cut & Paste between Windows and MacOS Apps? Snapshots (of NTFS, not APFS)?

Nothing changes with APFS and NTFS between Intel and Apple Silicon Macs as far as direct booting is concerned. If Apple and Microsoft made Windows 10 for ARM64 bootable on an Apple Silicon Mac in a similar enough fashion to Windows 10 for x64 on Intel Macs, then the same exact drive trickery that occurs on APFS-based Intel Macs would also apply to Apple Silicon Macs as well.

I said best "for a large proportion of users" and stand by that - unless you really need native performance (for serious creative/scientific apps, serious gaming etc.) virtualisation is far more convenient and flexible. Often, it is just one annoying bit of productivity or business/accounting/tax software, or that one obscure tool that runs fine on anything better than a 486, that means people need access to Windows. Legacy software is usually fine with legacy performance - and it's looking like M!-based virtualisation is way better than that.

That's a sweeping and inaccurate representation of Windows apps that there aren't viable Mac equivalents for. Similarly, that's also an inaccurate representation of Mac users that use Boot Camp (especially over something like VMware Fusion or Parallels Desktop). The amount of Windows apps for which there are no Mac equivalent for is staggering. I'll agree that for the casual user who is mostly fine with the Mac, but needs to run one program, your statement is correct. But I disagree with the notion that it's a large "proportion" of users. Maybe a large amount of "casual" users. But tell someone who uses the Intel 16" MacBook Pro today to do video editing in macOS and gaming or specific CAD apps (for which there are no Mac equivalents for) on Windows 10 via Boot Camp that their needs will be sufficiently served by Windows 10 for ARM64 running in a VM. They will rightfully laugh at you and tell you to get lost.

 

[chucker23n1]

No, but you can put a FAT32 volume in an APFS container and then convert that to NTFS, thereby producing an NTFS volume in an APFS container (as is how Boot Camp has been operating on Macs since High Sierra first graced SSD-based Macs in 2017). Not sure what your counter-point even is.

Here’s what they said: “avoid having to physically partition the disc (wasteful - with a VM you can have a virtual disc file that starts small and grows on demand)”.

Here’s what you said: “APFS and dynamic disk partitioning renders your concerns here moot.”

No, it doesn’t. That feature isn’t going to work with Windows. Bringing up FAT32 doesn’t change that.

 

[Mr.PT]

No, but you can put a FAT32 volume in an APFS container and then convert that to NTFS, thereby producing an NTFS volume in an APFS container (as is how Boot Camp has been operating on Macs since High Sierra first graced SSD-based Macs in 2017). Not sure what your counter-point even is.

I see the point you're making, about how Windows on a Mac supposedly de-incentivizes native Mac app development. I can assure you, that was never the actual trend. If, anything, native Mac app development was EASIER (not harder) and there was a much greater influx on Mac apps for Intel than there ever was for PowerPC.

There are developers that are loyal to Apple (e.g. Adobe, Microsoft, etc.) that will always produce apps for whatever architecture Apple has the Mac on, but you're likely going to see, for instance, less AAA PC titles crossing over to the Mac. Hell, the jury is still out on whether Steam will ever make the jump to Apple Silicon.

As for Microsoft having no incentive for getting Windows 10 for ARM64 running on Apple Silicon, that's ridiculous. They have every incentive. They're a software company, first and foremost. The hardware that they've put Windows 10 for ARM64 on thus far have been lackluster compared to a VM running on Apple Silicon. Microsoft wants it to succeed but, so far, no one is really biting. Suddenly, you have a pool of new Mac users and the ARM64 version of Windows 10 becomes the ONLY version that can run on their new M1 Macs (and, realistically, likely will be the only version of Windows 10 that will run on Apple Silicon going forward). Apple Silicon has the potential to increase the Windows 10 for ARM64 userbase like never before. Certainly moreso than the Surface Pro X (either generation) or the myriad of minor HP, Lenovo, and Samsung 2-in-1 PCs with underpowered Qualcomm SoCs under the hood.


Native hardware performance. The benchmarks, at best, show a ~200 point speed hit on single-core and a ~2000 point hit on multi-core over native hardware performance. Just as you have people that prefer running Boot Camp (on Intel Macs) over just virtualizing x64 Windows, that preference will surely extend for those that need to do heavy tasks in Windows, but are otherwise Mac users who don't want to own two machines).




Windows Excel is still leaps and bounds better than macOS Excel. For many users, it doesn't matter. But for those that really go hardcore with Excel, it's not even close. Same goes for Outlook, albeit, it's less pronounced for 98% of users.

Services are the mainstay of Microsoft's business. But that doesn't preclude the effort they're placing into there being an ARM64 version of Windows 10. Windows is still important to Microsoft.




Apple doesn't tick off PC manufacturers by making things available to other PC manufacturers. There are several OEMs licensing Windows on their boxes. It's up to the OEM to produce hardware that they want to slap Windows on.

The Surface range isn't pissing off other OEMs no more than Google Pixel (and Nexus before it) was pissing off Samsung, Motorola, HTC, or LG. The Surface range consists of reference design products. They also only compete with the likes of Dell, Asus, HP, Lenovo, Acer, and the like on the consumer side of things. When it comes to business class systems, they're barely competing.

At worst, a native boot solution involving Windows 10 for ARM64 on Apple Silicon convinces the other OEMs that they ought to try to attain those levels of performance with their own ARM64 PCs. The only party that ought to be concerned by such a development is Qualcomm, whose SoCs are woefully inadequate next to M1.




Again, Microsoft is a software company first and foremost. They do not share Apple's business model and likely won't ever. The Surface products don't change that as, again, they are reference devices first and foremost.



Just because Apple Silicon is handily beating Intel, doesn't mean that Wintel (let alone Intel Macs) weren't and aren't still good by the vast majority of today's standards. Try managing a fleet of Macs in an enterprise without something like JAMF in place; you'll YEARN for Windows.



Apple's services division is lackluster and has pretty much always been as such. Spotify still dwarfs Apple Music, TV+ is still not picking up the kinds of numbers that literally every other service has, no one is subscribing to News+. You put way too much stock in their services, which, again, aren't pulling the kind of weight you imply they do here. I know that's Apple's agenda, but that doesn't mean it's actually working.

Virtualization doesn't work for every Mac-centric workflow. You're right that it will suffice for many. But it won't for all or even most. Plus, if you're buying a Mac, you're already giving Apple the money they wanted out of that Mac purchase.

They don't care if you want to run Windows 10 for ARM64 on your Apple Silicon Mac. They've already outright stated that there's nothing stopping Microsoft from getting Windows 10 for ARM64 on Apple Silicon Macs. They said they're not supporting direct booting (but it's not like they didn't say the same thing at the same point in the Intel switch).

Frankly, the work to get direct booting of ARM64-based Windows 10 to run on Apple Silicon is much greater than what was needed to get Windows XP to run on those early Intel Macs (literally flipping a switch and using commodity drivers by comparison). This time, they'd actually needs to write drivers FOR THEIR OWN HARDWARE (compared to them doing so for Marvell, Intel, Atheros, Broadcom, Realtek, etc.). Even on the virtualization route, Apple still needs to write drivers for the Hypervisor (which, regardless of whether it's Parallels Desktop, VMware Fusion, or qemu, it's still their Hypervisor framework that everyone is using). Microsoft also needs to update their built-in apps to be ARM64 as many of them are currently ARM32 and won't launch on an Apple Silicon Mac (as Apple Silicon hasn't had 32-bit instruction sets since A10/X Fusion) For the direct booting route, Apple and Microsoft would need to also collaborate on a bootloader.




Virtualization won't cover every workflow. The only outright downside to an Apple Silicon Mac compared to an Intel one is the ability to run Windows. Apple benefits by closing this gap as much as possible. Microsoft benefits by having a hardware platform on which people are going to be running the ARM64 Windows 10 (by virtue of having no other choice), thereby incentivizing Windows app developers to consider adding an ARM64 version for the increasing audience size.




Nothing changes with APFS and NTFS between Intel and Apple Silicon Macs as far as direct booting is concerned. If Apple and Microsoft made Windows 10 for ARM64 bootable on an Apple Silicon Mac in a similar enough fashion to Windows 10 for x64 on Intel Macs, then the same exact drive trickery that occurs on APFS-based Intel Macs would also apply to Apple Silicon Macs as well.


That's a sweeping and inaccurate representation of Windows apps that there aren't viable Mac equivalents for. Similarly, that's also an inaccurate representation of Mac users that use Boot Camp (especially over something like VMware Fusion or Parallels Desktop). The amount of Windows apps for which there are no Mac equivalent for is staggering. I'll agree that for the casual user who is mostly fine with the Mac, but needs to run one program, your statement is correct. But I disagree with the notion that it's a large "proportion" of users. Maybe a large amount of "casual" users. But tell someone who uses the Intel 16" MacBook Pro today to do video editing in macOS and gaming or specific CAD apps (for which there are no Mac equivalents for) on Windows 10 via Boot Camp that their needs will be sufficiently served by Windows 10 for ARM64 running in a VM. They will rightfully laugh at you and tell you to get lost.

Firstly couldn’t agree more with last paragraph: I’m one of the ones who laugh at running Windows on VM, as I used it just to run CAD and 3D apps unsupported by MacOS, so Bootcamp was the only viable way to go, and that is a fact.
As I see it, Microsoft developing a ARM64 Windows will be great to Apple, as it will get back to the “only” machine to “officially” run two OS.
Personally I don’t wish to sustain two OS, specially the payed Windows, so I really hope the performance of Apple silicon, as I understand, mostly due to the SoC unified architecture managed by imbedded OS, makes CAD an 3D developers to make MacOS versions.
I suspect the unified architecture which presumes the loss of future upgrades, will be Key issue for PC makers who rely on Intel/AMD bounded to Microsoft to be offered alternatives. Microsoft holding the key, as the only company that can provide a “bonded” Hardware/Software solution similar to Apple’s offer, assuming Intel and AMD (more likely) provide the need SoC, is in very interesting and powerful position to determine the future of PC. I suspect, like you I believe, that they will opt to not directly compete with Apple, and rather go the “mainly software” company route, after all the “office suite” is surely their best selling product and surely already generates interesting share of their revenues.
On the other hand can’t foresee surface evolution if it doesn’t go head to head with Apple performance, which implies IMHO ARM based SoC architecture...

 

[Manzanito]

Errors, freezing, bad performance... sounds like typical windows to me.

As much as I like macos and dislike windows, I have to disagree.

I have been using a windows pc at work for the last seven years. A low end lenovo tower that transitioned from windows 7 to windows 10. It’s as fast ( or faster) than it was the first day. I’ve yet to experience a freeze or a major bug.

It’s time to realize that choosing an os over the other comes down to personal preference or software availability, not performance or stability.

 

[wood1208]

Microsoft has put team of chip designers to come up with it's own ARM chip like Apple M1. It would have been better that Microsoft simply ported Windows natively on M1 and call off the headache,failure of past examples.

 

[chucker23n1]

Microsoft has put team of chip designers to come up with it's own ARM chip like Apple M1. It would have been better that Microsoft simply ported Windows natively on M1 and call off the headache,failure of past examples.

There’s nothing to port; Windows already runs on ARM.

 

[wood1208]

There’s nothing to port; Windows already runs on ARM.

I don't think natively on M1.

 

[chucker23n1]

I don't think natively on M1.

Sure; the drivers aren’t there, the installer doesn’t know Apple’s boot loader, etc.

Those would be rather small efforts compared to porting to a new ISA, though.

 

[SigEp265]

Excuse my ignorance on this. OK we can run an arm based windows ... but doesn’t all the 3rd party windows software need to be configured for an ARM based windows as well ? Or am I wrong ? Won’t legacy 3rd party windows applications not work ?

 

[chucker23n1]

Excuse my ignorance on this. OK we can run an arm based windows ... but doesn’t all the 3rd party windows software need to be configured for an ARM based windows as well ? Or am I wrong ? Won’t legacy 3rd party windows applications not work ?

Most apps will run in the emulator. So those don’t run fast, but almost all stuff will run.

 

[Macbookprodude]

Sounds like M1 macs suffer the same with PowerPC macs running windows.. Mutually understandable. M1 ARM can't handle Windows it seems.

 

[Tech198]

So, nothing more than a proof of concept ? Still looks good, but after not really doing ideas on Beta/tech previews on getting anything Mac to work, i am kinda surprised they did one here..

Guess the M1 performance was too much huh?

 

[theluggage]

No, but you can put a FAT32 volume in an APFS container and then convert that to NTFS, thereby producing an NTFS volume in an APFS container (as is how Boot Camp has been operating on Macs since High Sierra first graced SSD-based Macs in 2017).

...which gives you a fixed-size NTFS partition that can only be changed by faffing about with disc utilities and so has to include enough free space for everything you're likely to do in Windows, from day one. That's hugely space inefficient - especially if you want to keep it on super-expensive Mac internal SSD. Whereas a hypervisor will use a sparse virtual disc image that starts tiny, grows only as space is actually used, has a point-and-drool utility to recover unused space and shrink the image, and can moved between drives just like a regular file. Not quite as fast but vastly more convenient.

Virtualization doesn't work for every Mac-centric workflow. You're right that it will suffice for many.

I never claimed it did work for everybody. The point is that not only will virtualization suffice for many, it will be the best tool for the job for many. The question is whether the remaining users are sufficient to justify the work of supporting Bootcamp.

I know that's Apple's agenda, but that doesn't mean it's actually working.

We were discussing Apple's incentives to support Windows so Apple's agenda is kinda what it is all about.

Also, Apple has always been more worried about profitability than market share - e.g. Spotify may have a huge number of users but it still makes a loss most quarters (...all those free, ad-supported users where all the ads are for Spotify...).

They've already outright stated that there's nothing stopping Microsoft from getting Windows 10 for ARM64 on Apple Silicon Macs.

I think they were talking about virtualisation.

They said they're not supporting direct booting (but it's not like they didn't say the same thing at the same point in the Intel switch).

Except (as you then went on to point out) it was a far easier job on Intel (...so much so that hackers solved the problem before Bootcamp appeared).

Microsoft benefits by having a hardware platform on which people are going to be running the ARM64 Windows 10 (by virtue of having no other choice), thereby incentivizing Windows app developers to consider adding an ARM64 version for the increasing audience size.

...and a lot of that will also be achieved by virtualization. Plus, never under-estimate the inertia of the Windows world, which is anchored by huge, conservative industrial and corporate customers - Mac users running Windows are a tiny, tiny drop in the ocean. Plus, Apple simply don't offer a wide enough range of hardware to compete with generic PC components. There have been a string of attempts to launch Windows-on-not-Intel (alpha/mips/PPC/Itanium and the first stab at Windows-on-ARM) so Windows on ARM64 succeeding is still a very, very long shot.

Windows Excel is still leaps and bounds better than macOS Excel. For many users, it doesn't matter. But for those that really go hardcore with Excel, it's not even close. Same goes for Outlook, albeit, it's less pronounced for 98% of users.

...and I can wake a Parallels Windows VM from sleep in seconds, run Excel-for-Windows perfectly, have it share the desktop with MacOS apps, access the same files on the same drive as MacOS apps and even cut a region from Excel-for-Windows and paste it into Word-for-MacOS as a table.

...or, with BootCamp, I can save and close down everything I'm doing on Mac, make sure everything I need is on the FAT32 partition/NAS/cloud drive/whatever that I can actually read from Windows (unless I've installed something like Paragon NTFS and trust it...), reboot into Windows/BootCamp, do stuff in Excel, save it, reboot....

Seriously, if CAD users will laugh at the idea of using Parallels, users of Excel, Outlook etc. (or, basically, anything that isn't 3D graphics or video editing) will absolutely have kittens at the idea of using BootCamp. Reboot to check email? Yeah....

That's the point. Virtualization isn't a toy - it can run serious software (I've even played 3D games in Parallels in the past). It's only a small niche of software that actually needs bare-metal performance - and even then many people would probably still be better off getting a PC with a decent discrete GPU and lashings of cheap RAM and fast SSD. Or a console.

Apple doesn't tick off PC manufacturers by making things available to other PC manufacturers.

This was the story when MS first started selling the Surface range:

Microsoft acknowledges Surface may trigger OEM hostility | Channel Daily News

Microsoft yesterday confirmed what most analysts and company watchers had concluded last month when the firm unveiled its own tablet, that it risks alienating the computer makers which account for the bulk of Windows sales.In a document submitted Thursday to the U.S. Securities and Exchange...

channeldailynews.com

...and that's a situation where the OEMs were free to build competing hardware using the same generic components. MS actively supporting Apple Silicon technology that only Apple can use? Not gonna play well.

Even on the virtualization route, Apple still needs to write drivers for the Hypervisor (which, regardless of whether it's Parallels Desktop, VMware Fusion, or qemu, it's still their Hypervisor framework that everyone is using).

AFAIK the Apple Hypervisor kit just provides the barebones, CPU virtualisation "engine" - headless VMs with basic networking. Great for Docker etc. but the Hypervisor software (Parallels etc.) provides all the trimmings such as video drivers. The "guest" OS Parallels/VMWare/whatever tools installs paravirtualised drivers that know zip about MacOS or Metal and just call the hypervisor. The hypervisor then calls the standard MacOS drivers. Obviously that's a gross simplification, but "Apple drivers for the hypervisor" aren't involved - none of that mechanism has substantially changed from Intel - it's all there in Parallels/VMWare etc. - which is why we have an almost-working Parallels preview a month or so after M1 launched. That's a far cry from the bare metal Apple Silicon drivers that would be needed for Bootcamp.

Firstly couldn’t agree more with last paragraph: I’m one of the ones who laugh at running Windows on VM, as I used it just to run CAD and 3D apps unsupported by MacOS, so Bootcamp was the only viable way to go, and that is a fact.

Unfortunately, that ship has sailed with Apple Silicon. Making Intel Macs boot Windows was low-hanging-fruit. Making ASi Macs boot Windows, especially "legacy" software that may not get an ARM64 port, is nothing like so straightforward. Virtualisation is far easier and will meet a lot of people's needs - but the Mac as a high-performance Windows x86 box for CAD, 3D etc. is probably over.

First, most of that software will be running under Windows-for-ARM's x86 emulation (which by all accounts isn't as impressive as Rosetta2) unless the makers of those CAD and 3D apps produce native ARM64 versions... and they've got a captive market of x86 users who will give up their NVIDIA Quadros when they are pried from their cold, dead fingers. We'll see what Apple's "pro" Apple Silicon looks like later... but I suspect that it is going to be highly optimised for MacOS software, Metal and Apple codecs.

Then, I believe that one of the reasons for using Bootcamp for CAD, 3D etc. is that the video drivers are better, support things like CUDA, external eGPUs etc. If BootCamp-for-AppleSilicon happens, then you'll be dependent on Apple drivers for Apple Silicon graphics (or MS drivers written with minimal info from Apple). Maybe eGPUs can be supported on Windows but it seems like they're dead for MacOS which makes them something of a kludge when, for a bit more than the cost of the PCIe enclosure, you could buy the rest of the PC.

We've yet to see how well ASi in general, and specifically with graphics, under Windows/DirectX rather than MacOS.

Personally, I think the best thing that Apple could do to support Windows users, gamers etc. is to include a HDMI input in the new iMac so people can use the nice display on their PC/console...

 

[chucker23n1]

First, most of that software will be running under Windows-for-ARM's x86 emulation (which by all accounts isn't as impressive as Rosetta2) unless the makers of those CAD and 3D apps produce native ARM64 versions...

This will get better over time, mind you. Not only because Microsoft might make the emulator more efficient, but also because they’re finally starting to improve the tooling to make ARM binaries.

 

[Mr.PT]

...which gives you a fixed-size NTFS partition that can only be changed by faffing about with disc utilities and so has to include enough free space for everything you're likely to do in Windows, from day one. That's hugely space inefficient - especially if you want to keep it on super-expensive Mac internal SSD. Whereas a hypervisor will use a sparse virtual disc image that starts tiny, grows only as space is actually used, has a point-and-drool utility to recover unused space and shrink the image, and can moved between drives just like a regular file. Not quite as fast but vastly more convenient.



I never claimed it did work for everybody. The point is that not only will virtualization suffice for many, it will be the best tool for the job for many. The question is whether the remaining users are sufficient to justify the work of supporting Bootcamp.



We were discussing Apple's incentives to support Windows so Apple's agenda is kinda what it is all about.

Also, Apple has always been more worried about profitability than market share - e.g. Spotify may have a huge number of users but it still makes a loss most quarters (...all those free, ad-supported users where all the ads are for Spotify...).


I think they were talking about virtualisation.

Except (as you then went on to point out) it was a far easier job on Intel (...so much so that hackers solved the problem before Bootcamp appeared).



...and a lot of that will also be achieved by virtualization. Plus, never under-estimate the inertia of the Windows world, which is anchored by huge, conservative industrial and corporate customers - Mac users running Windows are a tiny, tiny drop in the ocean. Plus, Apple simply don't offer a wide enough range of hardware to compete with generic PC components. There have been a string of attempts to launch Windows-on-not-Intel (alpha/mips/PPC/Itanium and the first stab at Windows-on-ARM) so Windows on ARM64 succeeding is still a very, very long shot.



...and I can wake a Parallels Windows VM from sleep in seconds, run Excel-for-Windows perfectly, have it share the desktop with MacOS apps, access the same files on the same drive as MacOS apps and even cut a region from Excel-for-Windows and paste it into Word-for-MacOS as a table.

...or, with BootCamp, I can save and close down everything I'm doing on Mac, make sure everything I need is on the FAT32 partition/NAS/cloud drive/whatever that I can actually read from Windows (unless I've installed something like Paragon NTFS and trust it...), reboot into Windows/BootCamp, do stuff in Excel, save it, reboot....

Seriously, if CAD users will laugh at the idea of using Parallels, users of Excel, Outlook etc. (or, basically, anything that isn't 3D graphics or video editing) will absolutely have kittens at the idea of using BootCamp. Reboot to check email? Yeah....

That's the point. Virtualization isn't a toy - it can run serious software (I've even played 3D games in Parallels in the past). It's only a small niche of software that actually needs bare-metal performance - and even then many people would probably still be better off getting a PC with a decent discrete GPU and lashings of cheap RAM and fast SSD. Or a console.



This was the story when MS first started selling the Surface range:

Microsoft acknowledges Surface may trigger OEM hostility | Channel Daily News

Microsoft yesterday confirmed what most analysts and company watchers had concluded last month when the firm unveiled its own tablet, that it risks alienating the computer makers which account for the bulk of Windows sales.In a document submitted Thursday to the U.S. Securities and Exchange...

channeldailynews.com

...and that's a situation where the OEMs were free to build competing hardware using the same generic components. MS actively supporting Apple Silicon technology that only Apple can use? Not gonna play well.


AFAIK the Apple Hypervisor kit just provides the barebones, CPU virtualisation "engine" - headless VMs with basic networking. Great for Docker etc. but the Hypervisor software (Parallels etc.) provides all the trimmings such as video drivers. The "guest" OS Parallels/VMWare/whatever tools installs paravirtualised drivers that know zip about MacOS or Metal and just call the hypervisor. The hypervisor then calls the standard MacOS drivers. Obviously that's a gross simplification, but "Apple drivers for the hypervisor" aren't involved - none of that mechanism has substantially changed from Intel - it's all there in Parallels/VMWare etc. - which is why we have an almost-working Parallels preview a month or so after M1 launched. That's a far cry from the bare metal Apple Silicon drivers that would be needed for Bootcamp.



Unfortunately, that ship has sailed with Apple Silicon. Making Intel Macs boot Windows was low-hanging-fruit. Making ASi Macs boot Windows, especially "legacy" software that may not get an ARM64 port, is nothing like so straightforward. Virtualisation is far easier and will meet a lot of people's needs - but the Mac as a high-performance Windows x86 box for CAD, 3D etc. is probably over.

First, most of that software will be running under Windows-for-ARM's x86 emulation (which by all accounts isn't as impressive as Rosetta2) unless the makers of those CAD and 3D apps produce native ARM64 versions... and they've got a captive market of x86 users who will give up their NVIDIA Quadros when they are pried from their cold, dead fingers. We'll see what Apple's "pro" Apple Silicon looks like later... but I suspect that it is going to be highly optimised for MacOS software, Metal and Apple codecs.

Then, I believe that one of the reasons for using Bootcamp for CAD, 3D etc. is that the video drivers are better, support things like CUDA, external eGPUs etc. If BootCamp-for-AppleSilicon happens, then you'll be dependent on Apple drivers for Apple Silicon graphics (or MS drivers written with minimal info from Apple). Maybe eGPUs can be supported on Windows but it seems like they're dead for MacOS which makes them something of a kludge when, for a bit more than the cost of the PCIe enclosure, you could buy the rest of the PC.

We've yet to see how well ASi in general, and specifically with graphics, under Windows/DirectX rather than MacOS.

Personally, I think the best thing that Apple could do to support Windows users, gamers etc. is to include a HDMI input in the new iMac so people can use the nice display on their PC/console...

For me it would be enough if I could use it as my MBP extended display. Don’t believe we’ll ever see a HDMI port on a Mac, hell we’re now pledging to keep the existing Thunderbolt/ USB-C on MBP...
As I agree on your take of Bootcamp needs, I believe this is why Apple is still offering Intel Macs...for the time being, at least...

 

[Ultra Golden Software]

As a software developer for businesses, school systems and not-for-profits I need to be able to develop, test and maintain software on a variety of operating systems. I prefer to develop using Mac OS, but some application software like Microsoft Office and even Claris FileMaker Pro isn't 100% compatable between Mac OS and Windows 10. In particular Visual Basic developed under Windows has features not available in the Mac version. Likewise remote access to remote SQL data sources is quite limited on a Mac using native Excel. And, obviously, the directory and file structures of the two OS's are different. So I need to be able to switch back and forth between platforms. I've been able to do this for years using Parallels on Intel based Macs using fully supported versions of Windows. I also have legacy systems for clients who are still on Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 (sorry about that!). It sounds like that isn't likely to work on M1 Macs going forward. Disappointing indeed.

 

[chucker23n1]

As a software developer for businesses, school systems and not-for-profits I need to be able to develop, test and maintain software on a variety of operating systems. I prefer to develop using Mac OS, but some application software like Microsoft Office and even Claris FileMaker Pro isn't 100% compatable between Mac OS and Windows 10. In particular Visual Basic developed under Windows has features not available in the Mac version. Likewise remote access to remote SQL data sources is quite limited on a Mac using native Excel. And, obviously, the directory and file structures of the two OS's are different. So I need to be able to switch back and forth between platforms. I've been able to do this for years using Parallels on Intel based Macs using fully supported versions of Windows. I also have legacy systems for clients who are still on Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 (sorry about that!). It sounds like that isn't likely to work on M1 Macs going forward. Disappointing indeed.

Your use cases might work OK on an M1 Mac, as they likely aren’t very performance-taxing.

 

[jdb8167]

For me it would be enough if I could use it as my MBP extended display. Don’t believe we’ll ever see a HDMI port on a Mac, hell we’re now pledging to keep the existing Thunderbolt/ USB-C on MBP...
As I agree on your take of Bootcamp needs, I believe this is why Apple is still offering Intel Macs...for the time being, at least...

The M1 Mac mini has an HDMI port. Not sure what you are trying to say here. What would you replace the Thunderbolt/USB4 port on a MBP with?

 

[KevinN206]

Errors, freezing, bad performance... sounds like typical windows to me.

A hacked version of Windows 10 on arm running on a technical preview of a virtualization software - has errors, freezing, bad performance. I mean water is also wet. Windows is a mess but come on use some common sense.

 

[IG88]

I suspect the current windows ARM using hardware OEM’s have some sort of exclusivity deal that is preventing Microsoft from licensing it separately,

Seriously doubt it. No way Microsoft would do that to themselves.

 

[Mr.PT]

The M1 Mac mini has an HDMI port. Not sure what you are trying to say here. What would you replace the Thunderbolt/USB4 port on a MBP with?

Sorry I wasn’t specific. I wouldn’t replace anything, I was referring to new M1 13”MBP having less ports (supposedly because of current chip restrictions). Just hope this won’t be the case on upcoming releases, namely iMac and 14/16” MBP (where I don’t expect to see HDMI ports). I’m OK with the dongle/docking for portable machines: i.e. you mostly need the extra ports in a “desktop” cenario anyway, so I appreciate if extra space is use to enhance overall performance.

 

[jdb8167]

Sorry I wasn’t specific. I wouldn’t replace anything, I was referring to new M1 13”MBP having less ports (supposedly because of current chip restrictions). Just hope this won’t be the case on upcoming releases, namely iMac and 14/16” MBP (where I don’t expect to see HDMI ports). I’m OK with the dongle/docking for portable machines: i.e. you mostly need the extra ports in a “desktop” cenario anyway, so I appreciate if extra space is use to enhance overall performance.

It is highly unlikely that Apple would replace 4 port MacBook Pros with anything less than 4 ports in Apple Silicon. The M1 13" MBP and MBA are lower end computers that replaced notebooks with 2 ports. The mini is kind of a special case and I would expect any SoC used in a 4 port MBP to also make its way into a high end mini.