4 ms·

I think what's next for Windows is competitive x86-64 emulation to enable a new generation of ARM devices with strong battery life, and forcing Intel and AMD to

by dannyw 5y ago

I think what's next for Windows is competitive x86-64 emulation to enable a new generation of ARM devices with strong battery life, and forcing Intel and AMD to drop prices to compete. Windows can be the Android to iOS. Ultimately, most desktops and laptops run Windows, and if Microsoft is able to make it competitive on pricing (#1!), battery life, and performance, it's hard to imagine Chrome OS or the single user iPad seriously eroding Windows. Most people in the world aren't affluent like the average HN reader. Their biggest consideration when buying a computing device is value, and Windows PC + ARM can win here. Imagine a $499 laptop with a solid M1-level processor, a nice IPS display, good keyboard, 10+ hours battery life, and Windows 10. That's serious competitor to both Chrome OS devices and Mac devices.

Negitivefrags 5y ago
I wonder to what degree battery life is specifically an issue with x64. If Apple ported iOS to x64, I wonder what the battery life on a device would be like compared to ARM?
- dannyw 5y ago
  We should see with Alder Lake. Intel is adopting the same BIG.little approach, with a mix of high efficiency and high performance cores. Of course, one thing Intel and AMD can't catch up on is pure transitor size. Apple has TSMC 5nm, Intel is on the equivalent of TSMC 7nm (Intel 10nm), and so is AMD.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- eyelidlessness 5y ago
  This seems like a a weird thing to speculate about. Of course iOS isn’t exactly macOS, but it’s essentially the same OS with a few different feature flags and a different set of preferred UI frameworks, which are increasingly not so different. That almost exactly same OS is now running on exactly the same processor in an iPad. You can more or less compare that device to anything with similar thermals in an x64 machine.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
numpad0 5y ago
Isn’t it interesting that Windows(and macOS for iOS) remains to be THE platform for creation and Android/Chrome OS/iOS to be consumption-only platforms? Combined with the fact that Intel and AMD each owns Altera and Xilinx...
toast0 5y ago
> Imagine a $499 laptop with a solid M1-level processor, a nice IPS display, good keyboard, 10+ hours battery life, and Windows 10. > That's serious competitor to both Chrome OS devices and Mac devices. $500 is a tough sell vs a $200 Chromebook if Chrome OS does what you need.
- EvilEy3 5y ago
  $200 is a tough sell vs $100 Android phone if Android does what you need.
iforgotpassword 5y ago
This seems unlikely. I could see this make a bit more sense if Microsoft wouldn't have screwed up their mobile platform so badly, but if you just serve desktop/laptop, a switch to arm doesn't make sense. I expect x86 to catch up enough to not justify the performance impact of even really good emulation on arm. Usually if you go Windows it's because of its huge software library and backwards compat, so I wouldn't bank on having all the important apps be native arm after a year or two. Everyone else is already on a different platform.
rmrfchik 5y ago
I see people still use Windows only for old business apps (like bookkeeping and such). Almost all of their other work moved to web. I successfully moved my wife's notebook to Linux as she don't need legacy apps. Photos, Movies, Music all works fine in Linux and web. Desktop apps she used are cross-platform. Since using Linux all rant she had "aaaaarrrgh, Windows again updating and requires restart!" disappeared. And performance just rocket up agains Windows. I think, importance of native desktop apps will fade away and Windows can lose this advantage.
- ativzzz 5y ago
  Which distro did you move her to?
  - rmrfchik 5y ago
    Debian/KDE. I used to use it since 1997. KDE looks well for Windows user. But this week I bought new Dell Vostro with Ubuntu 20.04 preinstalled. Although Ubuntu gave me some unpleasant impressions (controversial UI decisions, buggy as hell (can't imagine they call it LTS)) I gave it 2nd chance with fresh install of 21.04.
- kingkongjaffa 5y ago
  Windows is still the undisputed king in enterprise computers for workers. Anywhere in the world you will find business laptops running windows and the primary work will be done in outlook, excel, word, and PowerPoint.
tored 5y ago
Don’t the already have x86_64 emulation? Pretty sure I have seen them demonstrating downloading a x86_64 binary from the internet and running it unchanged on Windows 10 ARM laptop.
- ZuLuuuuuu 5y ago
  I think that feature is still in beta phase, so Windows ARM users need to opt-in and install the "insider" version of Windows to try it out.
0-_-0 5y ago
I wonder why there hasn't been a Raspberry Pi with Windows on ARM yet, or at least something similar. This could kickstart the Windows on ARM ecosystem, so more SW would be available when the laptops/tablets come out. It would probably increase the sales of Rpi by a lot as well.

by dannyw 5y ago

Negitivefrags 5y ago

I wonder to what degree battery life is specifically an issue with x64. If Apple ported iOS to x64, I wonder what the battery life on a device would be like compared to ARM?

dannyw 5y ago
We should see with Alder Lake. Intel is adopting the same BIG.little approach, with a mix of high efficiency and high performance cores. Of course, one thing Intel and AMD can't catch up on is pure transitor size. Apple has TSMC 5nm, Intel is on the equivalent of TSMC 7nm (Intel 10nm), and so is AMD.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
eyelidlessness 5y ago
This seems like a a weird thing to speculate about. Of course iOS isn’t exactly macOS, but it’s essentially the same OS with a few different feature flags and a different set of preferred UI frameworks, which are increasingly not so different. That almost exactly same OS is now running on exactly the same processor in an iPad. You can more or less compare that device to anything with similar thermals in an x64 machine.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

numpad0 5y ago

Isn’t it interesting that Windows(and macOS for iOS) remains to be THE platform for creation and Android/Chrome OS/iOS to be consumption-only platforms? Combined with the fact that Intel and AMD each owns Altera and Xilinx...

toast0 5y ago

> Imagine a $499 laptop with a solid M1-level processor, a nice IPS display, good keyboard, 10+ hours battery life, and Windows 10. > That's serious competitor to both Chrome OS devices and Mac devices. $500 is a tough sell vs a $200 Chromebook if Chrome OS does what you need.

EvilEy3 5y ago
$200 is a tough sell vs $100 Android phone if Android does what you need.

iforgotpassword 5y ago

This seems unlikely. I could see this make a bit more sense if Microsoft wouldn't have screwed up their mobile platform so badly, but if you just serve desktop/laptop, a switch to arm doesn't make sense. I expect x86 to catch up enough to not justify the performance impact of even really good emulation on arm. Usually if you go Windows it's because of its huge software library and backwards compat, so I wouldn't bank on having all the important apps be native arm after a year or two. Everyone else is already on a different platform.

rmrfchik 5y ago

I see people still use Windows only for old business apps (like bookkeeping and such). Almost all of their other work moved to web. I successfully moved my wife's notebook to Linux as she don't need legacy apps. Photos, Movies, Music all works fine in Linux and web. Desktop apps she used are cross-platform. Since using Linux all rant she had "aaaaarrrgh, Windows again updating and requires restart!" disappeared. And performance just rocket up agains Windows. I think, importance of native desktop apps will fade away and Windows can lose this advantage.

ativzzz 5y ago
Which distro did you move her to?
- rmrfchik 5y ago
  Debian/KDE. I used to use it since 1997. KDE looks well for Windows user. But this week I bought new Dell Vostro with Ubuntu 20.04 preinstalled. Although Ubuntu gave me some unpleasant impressions (controversial UI decisions, buggy as hell (can't imagine they call it LTS)) I gave it 2nd chance with fresh install of 21.04.
kingkongjaffa 5y ago
Windows is still the undisputed king in enterprise computers for workers. Anywhere in the world you will find business laptops running windows and the primary work will be done in outlook, excel, word, and PowerPoint.

tored 5y ago

Don’t the already have x86_64 emulation? Pretty sure I have seen them demonstrating downloading a x86_64 binary from the internet and running it unchanged on Windows 10 ARM laptop.

ZuLuuuuuu 5y ago
I think that feature is still in beta phase, so Windows ARM users need to opt-in and install the "insider" version of Windows to try it out.

0-_-0 5y ago

I wonder why there hasn't been a Raspberry Pi with Windows on ARM yet, or at least something similar. This could kickstart the Windows on ARM ecosystem, so more SW would be available when the laptops/tablets come out. It would probably increase the sales of Rpi by a lot as well.