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Interestingly, Qualcomm was shipping its ARM-based/Windows laptop chips prior to Apple's intro of the M1 Macbook. But they have failed to make a dent in the ma

Interestingly, Qualcomm was shipping its ARM-based/Windows laptop chips prior to Apple's intro of the M1 Macbook. But they have failed to make a dent in the market. I think having something that amounts to ~parity in performance is not good enough to help lure customers to a new ISA. Like the M1, you have to give customers a really great story about switching.

ComputerGuru 3y ago
ARM devices running Windows didn’t even focus on or reach performance parity before; it was mostly a winning-on-price strategy (but the savings were not quite worth it).
- greesil 3y ago
  These companies think in terms of evolution and BOM cost, not revolution.
bee_rider 3y ago
Apple is pretty unique there, right? They are the only ones selling macOS devices, so if you want macOS, you are eventually going to go to M-series. And they have enough control over the stack that, when they say it’ll go smoothly compatibility-wise, most people treat that as at least… plausible, for most use cases.
- kube-system 3y ago
  Not only does Apple move their existing users to the new chip eventually, but M series launches have usually resulted in upticks in market share.
Dalewyn 3y ago
>I think having something that amounts to ~parity in performance is not good enough to help lure customers to a new ISA. Most people use computers to Get Stuff Done(tm). Windows RT can't run Win32 and ARM can't run x86, at least not without significant caveats; people can't use Windows computers like that to Get Stuff Done(tm). M* Apple on the other hand can run most x86 era MacOS software; people who were using Intel Macs to Get Stuff Done(tm) can use newer M* Apple Macs to Get Stuff Done(tm). Computers are tools, their sole purpose is to enable their users to Get Stuff Done(tm). It is the natural order of the universe that Windows ARM computers, unable to Get Stuff Done(tm), completely and properly failed to capture market share.
- diffeomorphism 3y ago
  I thought that info is outdated by multiple years? Windows on ARM can run x86 (since windows 10) and also x64 (since windows 11) just fine. The problem is that the devices you can buy are somewhat underpowered for the price, e.g. a surface pro with ARM is more expensive and less performant than the intel-based one (and they still don't offer an amd-based one) https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/arm/apps-on-arm-x86-emulation https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/arm/apps-on-arm-x8... > M* Apple on the other hand can run most x86 era MacOS software; Except for dropping 32bit libraries and all that? > people who were using Intel Macs to Get Stuff Done(tm) can use newer M* Apple Macs to Get Stuff Done(tm). Nope. Quite a few of those people needed bootcamp to get some software to run. Bootcamp is dead now and you are encouraged to run virtualized windows on arm; does x86/x64 emulation work properly inside such a VM?
  - tuetuopay 3y ago
    I cannot say for windows, but apple provides rosetta 2 for linux, to be run in a vm [1]. However, some would argue that if you need windows software, then you should not buy a mac in the first place. And I would argue it's microsoft's job to get windows running on M*, not apple's. 1: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/virtualization/running_intel_binaries_in_linux_vms_with_rosetta https://developer.apple.com/documentation/virtualization/run...
  - nottorp 3y ago
    Rosetta has nothing to do with VMs. You run win 11 arm in an arm VM and it's the windows 11 inside that has its own x86 emulation :) Not that that helps in making everything work, but I just had to correct who's emulating what. > Except for dropping 32bit libraries and all that? 32 bit libraries were dropped by Apple years ago when they were still all x86. Still an ass move, but again had to correct.
    - diffeomorphism 3y ago
      > You run win 11 arm in an arm VM and it's the windows 11 inside that has its own x86 emulation :) That was the question. For instance, as far as I understand WSL generally does not work inside VMs (because WSL2 or 1 or whatever number transparently uses another VM itself). So I wasn't sure whether WoW64 does work inside VMs, glad to hear it does. The claim was that you have great backward compatibility due to Rosetta ... except that due to 32 bit libraries that is not actually as useful as claimed. Not sure what your correction is?

ComputerGuru 3y ago

ARM devices running Windows didn’t even focus on or reach performance parity before; it was mostly a winning-on-price strategy (but the savings were not quite worth it).

greesil 3y ago
These companies think in terms of evolution and BOM cost, not revolution.

bee_rider 3y ago

Apple is pretty unique there, right? They are the only ones selling macOS devices, so if you want macOS, you are eventually going to go to M-series. And they have enough control over the stack that, when they say it’ll go smoothly compatibility-wise, most people treat that as at least… plausible, for most use cases.

kube-system 3y ago
Not only does Apple move their existing users to the new chip eventually, but M series launches have usually resulted in upticks in market share.

Dalewyn 3y ago

>I think having something that amounts to ~parity in performance is not good enough to help lure customers to a new ISA. Most people use computers to Get Stuff Done(tm). Windows RT can't run Win32 and ARM can't run x86, at least not without significant caveats; people can't use Windows computers like that to Get Stuff Done(tm). M* Apple on the other hand can run most x86 era MacOS software; people who were using Intel Macs to Get Stuff Done(tm) can use newer M* Apple Macs to Get Stuff Done(tm). Computers are tools, their sole purpose is to enable their users to Get Stuff Done(tm). It is the natural order of the universe that Windows ARM computers, unable to Get Stuff Done(tm), completely and properly failed to capture market share.

diffeomorphism 3y ago
I thought that info is outdated by multiple years? Windows on ARM can run x86 (since windows 10) and also x64 (since windows 11) just fine. The problem is that the devices you can buy are somewhat underpowered for the price, e.g. a surface pro with ARM is more expensive and less performant than the intel-based one (and they still don't offer an amd-based one) https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/arm/apps-on-arm-x86-emulation https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/arm/apps-on-arm-x8... > M* Apple on the other hand can run most x86 era MacOS software; Except for dropping 32bit libraries and all that? > people who were using Intel Macs to Get Stuff Done(tm) can use newer M* Apple Macs to Get Stuff Done(tm). Nope. Quite a few of those people needed bootcamp to get some software to run. Bootcamp is dead now and you are encouraged to run virtualized windows on arm; does x86/x64 emulation work properly inside such a VM?
- tuetuopay 3y ago
  I cannot say for windows, but apple provides rosetta 2 for linux, to be run in a vm [1]. However, some would argue that if you need windows software, then you should not buy a mac in the first place. And I would argue it's microsoft's job to get windows running on M*, not apple's. 1: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/virtualization/running_intel_binaries_in_linux_vms_with_rosetta https://developer.apple.com/documentation/virtualization/run...
- nottorp 3y ago
  Rosetta has nothing to do with VMs. You run win 11 arm in an arm VM and it's the windows 11 inside that has its own x86 emulation :) Not that that helps in making everything work, but I just had to correct who's emulating what. > Except for dropping 32bit libraries and all that? 32 bit libraries were dropped by Apple years ago when they were still all x86. Still an ass move, but again had to correct.
  - diffeomorphism 3y ago
    > You run win 11 arm in an arm VM and it's the windows 11 inside that has its own x86 emulation :) That was the question. For instance, as far as I understand WSL generally does not work inside VMs (because WSL2 or 1 or whatever number transparently uses another VM itself). So I wasn't sure whether WoW64 does work inside VMs, glad to hear it does. The claim was that you have great backward compatibility due to Rosetta ... except that due to 32 bit libraries that is not actually as useful as claimed. Not sure what your correction is?