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Why has it taken so long to get the Windows ecosystem fully on ARM? Apple’s transition only took a year or two.
by joshmarinacci 1y ago
Why has it taken so long to get the Windows ecosystem fully on ARM? Apple’s transition only took a year or two.
- cultofmetatron 1y ago1.apple controls the hardware. they only need to focus on supporting a handful of skus. windows needs to support way more which they don't directly control 2. The software development toolchain is highly focussed 3. they committed. there are no more intel cpus so developers can either adapt or die. windows by contrast has x86 and arm builds going forward. that means a larger surface area for developers to target and they will avoid that kind of pain if they can. 4. microsoft management is all over the place and lacks the focus that apple has. Apple doesn't do everything right but when they want to do something well. it shows. even their failures are polished.
- GeekyBear 1y agoApple had ARM versions of it's own software ready to go on day one. Apple's developer IDE was ready to go on day one. Apple's Rosetta translation layer was much more widely compatible with legacy x86 software than Microsoft's Prism.
- duped 1y agoApple stopped selling Intel Macs and the ARM Macs were the better machines when they did
- kimixa 1y agoIn addition to the other reasons listed below, Apple employee's provided the initial ARM porting patches in the first place. It sounds like Microsoft was involved in this project (though the text seems to imply Qualcomm might have been the primary contributor), it remains that they didn't do it however many years ago when Windows on ARM was first released.
- TylerE 1y agoAlso Apple had done it before - twice, really. 68k -> PPC ('member FAT binaries?) -> Intel -> ARM
- dkiebd 1y agoMicrosoft has already made several attempts at ARM. It's not clear that this attempt will be the last one, in fact, it's quite probable that it will be abandoned. So why invest in it.
- p_ing 1y agoThat's not the correct question to ask. There's no reason to fully transition the ecosystem to any one singular architecture, Microsoft has always been happy since the origin of NT 3.1 to run some flavor of Windows on non-x86 architectures, but they were never dominate because x86 is dominate, and rightfully so.
- motoboi 1y agoRosetta and universal binaries is the answer. Things just worked and gave people a working scaffold to do incremental improvement. Much easier than a big bang replacement.
- SlowTao 1y agoIt feels like the internal interest in Windows ARM comes in waves, that they keep letting it slide backwards. I mean they have been trying since Windows RT on the original surface tablet 13 years ago.
- imiric 1y agoTo be fair, the Surface Pro 11 ARM is really good. It's the best actual computer in a tablet form factor I've ever used. iPads and Android tablets are crippled by their OS, and x86 tablets are bulky, hot, underperform, and/or have poor battery life. Performance of every day tasks on the Surface is excellent, it sips power, and Microsoft has done a great job with their x86 emulation layer (Prism). Most x86 apps (including games!) work without any involvement from the user. In the few cases I ran into issues, tweaking the emulation settings for the app fixed the issue, and I think there was only one app that refused to run, though I don't remember what it was right now. Performance even with emulation is pretty good. This experience is light years ahead of Windows RT, and even Windows on ARM from a few years ago. So I don't think Microsoft's interest in ARM is waning anytime soon. They're clearly heavily invested in it, and the hard work has been paying off.
- sunshowers 1y agoAgreed, I got the Surface Pro 11 to have a Windows on ARM device to test on, and it's quickly become my favorite portable device. It's really nice to have a tablet that lasts days on battery, that you can draw on and then flip around and write code on. The last thing I was waiting on was Zed, which now works on Windows ARM as of a couple weeks ago (though there aren't official builds yet so I build it from source). Hate to hand it to Microsoft but it's just a really versatile and powerful device.
- pjmlp 1y agoHave you also tried Visual Studio on it? This is something that would hold me back, only getting half backed experience, expecially as many plugins are still COM based.
- thewebguyd 1y ago> Why has it taken so long to get the Windows ecosystem fully on ARM? Apple’s transition only took a year or two. No incentive for third parties. Apple dictates the hardware, and can say "no more x86" and devs either have to jump on board or abandon Apple. No such thing with Windows. x86 is still the default on windows laptops, and will likely be for the foreseeable future. The X elite still seems to have no successor in the pipeline, and the few laptops that have it don't outsell x86 so why bother.
- snvzz 1y ago>and will likely be for the foreseeable future. Nah, high performance RISC-V (on RVA23 profile) is just around the corner. Might come as early as by year end. Early next year at worst. We've known about Windows for RISC-V since 2021, NA's RISC-V Summit. Like Google with Android, Microsoft has set RVA23 as baseline. Once the hardware and Windows are there, expect the open platform to take over.
- pjmlp 1y agoRISC-V outpacing ARM and x86 is the silicon version of The Year of Linux Desktop. How much market share are we now on?
- p_l 1y agoFive users and a pet hamster? ; - )
- whatever1 1y agoIt has the entire nation of China behind it with all the incentives to make it work. So it will become a big thing if the tensions with the US continue
- pjmlp 1y agoIt will hardly matter to me or anyone else in Europe, if we cannot get a RISC V laptop down at Media Markt, FNAC, Publico, Vorbis, Carrefour, Cool Blue,....
- acchow 1y agoApple also stopped selling new x86 machines. You had no choice but to port to Arm
- bangaladore 1y agoSimple answer: the Windows ecosystem is vastly larger than Apple's in hardware, software, and use cases.
- jayd16 1y agoThey stopped x86 support so it's move or be gone. It's survivor bias to say it's fully on arm, no?
- segphault 1y agoApple’s development stack and a large portion of their third-party developer base already had fairly mature ARM support for iOS. It made for a much smoother transition. Microsoft’s lack of meaningful mobile footprint meant that they started from further behind.
- cowmix 1y agoMSFT simply has done half-assed attempts at ARM for each wave / attempt over the past 10+ years. APPL, for each processor move, "bet the company" and it was full speed ahead whereas MSFT has never HAD to align everything for a move. Having said all that, I've been using a Snapdragon Elite X laptop since day one and the experience has gotten better over the year plus I've been using it. Once there was a native port of command line git (yes, THAT didn't even work) - my life got a lot better.
- 7jjjjjjj 1y agoApple has the M-series chips. Windows laptops are made with Qualcomm processors that are far behind Intel and AMD in performance. As a result, Windows has no road towards completely replacing X86, the two architectures will live side by side for the foreseeable future.
- keithnz 1y agoyou said it in your question, Apple was making a transition. Windows isn't.
- gt0 1y agoAgree with the other answer, just no incentive for third party developers. With Apple it really is a transition, with Windows, it's well under 5% of PC sales, so probably under 1% of actual computers in use. Apple is 100% on board with ARM, Microsoft isn't and the OEMs even less so, you can barely buy an ARM Windows desktop, only thin laptops. Where I work, we ship Windows desktops for an industrial application, and we haven't even had a meeting about supporting ARM, it's like they don't exist.
- pjmlp 1y agoMicrosoft can't never be, because unlike Apple, they are mostly a software company, they depend on OEMs wanting to come for the ride. They aren't alone on this matter, this kind of stuff has equally plagued other open systems like CP/M, UNIX, MS-DOS, Android, where a product might come from multiple OEMs and each has their own agenda for differentiation and keeping their customers around.
- p_l 1y agoMaking ARM machine that fulfills Windows requirements is harder than making your typical throwaway arm gadget (and then you hit things like Qualcomm not implementing it right either). There is not much profit for a hardware maker, and thus little install base for software makers to care
- mrheosuper 1y agoMS does not control the hardware. They can not force all laptop OEM to "use ARM or nothing". Also they did not design the ARM CPU, so they can not add any features they want to CPU if QC not agree.
- Joel_Mckay 1y agoThe monolith must persist, as 1980s architecture is ounce again crammed onto a modern CPU with predictable problems. Never ask "why?" in business, as the answer is always money. =3
- pezezin 1y agoThe very first ARM1 was created in 1985 ;)
- Joel_Mckay 1y agoARM1 is not AArch64 from 2011, or the ARM Win11 x86 emulation layer. Why you so mad all the time? =3
- p_ing 1y agox86-64 isn’t x86 of 1978. Arguably they’re no longer CISC and haven’t been for eons.
- Joel_Mckay 1y agoJust to be clear your argument is x86 and x64 win11 software emulation is somehow better than the microcode kludges. This doesn't even work very well or at all with a lot of software written today. =3
- p_ing 1y agoPrism leverages Snapdragon X hardware, like Rosetta2 does with the M-series CPUs. M-series CPUs also leverage micro-ops, like other Aarch64 processors and x86, of course. I have no idea what your reply is about, I never made such an argument one way or the other.
- Joel_Mckay 1y agoFAQ: 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... YMMV =3
- blitzar 1y agoAnyone seen Windows ARM in the wild? Its been a while now ...
- Kipters 1y agoI'm using one to write this very comment
- timpera 1y agoUsing one right now, it's the best laptop I've ever had.
- jve 1y agoBest because of an ARM or best because of the hardware? Reveal the hardware :)
- timpera 1y agoBoth! It's a Surface Laptop 7, the hardware is great but I believe the experience would not be nearly as good with a x86 chip. I'm especially thinking about the battery life (insane standby times!).
- topspin 1y ago> Why has it taken so long to get the Windows ecosystem fully on ARM? It is possible to ignore Windows on ARM and remain viable. That wasn't feasible with Apple. If Microsoft could decide tomorrow that the next Windows would be ARM-only, the transition would be similarly rapid, times some factor to account for the unfathomable legacy of Windows.
- 0points 1y ago> Why has it taken so long to get the Windows ecosystem fully on ARM? Windows has been through several ARM phases. The first one being Windows CE 2.0 in 1997. Win CE was used in the Dreamcast and the Gizmondo handheld. Lately confusion arose when people started calling arm64/AArch64 for just "arm".
- fredoralive 1y agoDoes Windows CE really count as Windows though? It’s a cut down separate thing to proper Windows really (although my view that it’s not Windows if it isn’t providing the Win16/32 API isn’t one Microsoft themselves share). Also, the Dreamcast uses a Hitachi SH4, not ARM.
- devwastaken 1y agoApple knows what theyre doing. Microsoft is a cheap immitation. Look at arm64ec, microsofts abomination that requires modifying the build pipe of every target. unsupported trash. they could have just implemented virtualization but windows is low quality soft nowadays.
- akmittal 1y agoApple went all in one ARM, they made it very clear all Macs are going to be ARM soon. On the other side windows ARM are kind of a failure even after snapdragon elite.
- Krssst 1y agoWindows's strongest selling point is to run compatible software from the last 30 years with almost no issue. Nobody would accept ads and being continuously force-fed products they never asked for in their paid OS while it often reboots behind your back if they didn't at least got that from it. (could very well be wrong though) You can still run x86 software on Windows ARM but for some software it does not seem quite there yet (games).