MAC on ARM vs Windows on ARM

[Prometheus2021]

A friend of mine sent me this story

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/06/apple-announces-mac-transition-to-apple-silicon/#mn_p

Basically Apple is moving their OS into their own in-house chip and they say they're gonna transition it all into one ecosystem within two years. Like what MS is doing.

Two questions:
Who do you think will do it better?
How worried should MS be?

I'm excited to see what the future holds for Windows on ARM, but I also don't want them to be the ones coming in last.

What do you guys think?

 

[Andrew Brehm]

I didn't know MSFT was planning to transition into the ARM ecosystem.

Anyway, for Apple the switch to another architecture is much simpler because most of their users don't care so much about backwards compatibility. Apple users often simply use the software they get from Apple with the device. And that software will simply come as ARM versions and the users won't even notice a difference.

MS-DOS, Windows, OS/2, and Windows NT users always cared about backwards compatibility. You run Windows because you want to run application X. The Mac user runs application X because it runs on the Mac. That's a huge difference.

The future of Windows on ARM is already the past. The MSFT offerings are great, but there is not much energy behind them and MSFT make it incredibly difficult to buy those things. Here in Switzerland only the Surface Pro X is available and only with Swiss-German keyboard. All the other WoA devices from Samsung, HP etc. are not even available here. In contrast to that Apple sell all Mac products here in an Apple Store and online and in partner stores, you get to pick your keyboard and they have everything in stock. It's much simpler for Apple to change architectures because it's much simpler for Apple customers to be customers.

MSFT moves slowly, markets products as if not wanting to sell them, and waiting for OEMs to market new MSFT software which they don't do.

 

[TechFreak1]

MSFT moves slowly, markets products as if not wanting to sell them, and waiting for OEMs to market new MSFT software which they don't do.

Pretty much hit the nail on the head there.

The only exception to this I would say is the Xbox Team, they have made massive leaps and bounds from the Orginal Xbox One Launch. Can they do better, absolutely as there is always room for improvement. However, when compared to the rest of Microsoft they're light years ahead.

Personally, I feel it's the bean counters that are stifling marketing spend in the pursuit of fast stock growth through means of high net profits. But this only short term, a company cannot grow without spending on marketing.

It's due to these damned bean counters that all of Microsoft's physical stores have closed. Now, they have to produce results because that was a drastic decisions and could severily back fire without a digital platform.

Mixer was that digital platform but Microsoft didn't put enough resources into it.

As a result of we have the pending Tiktok deal, a classic Microsoft knee jerk reaction imo.

 

[eshropshire]

Pretty much hit the nail on the head there.

The only exception to this I would say is the Xbox Team, they have made massive leaps and bounds from the Orginal Xbox One Launch. Can they do better, absolutely as there is always room for improvement. However, when compared to the rest of Microsoft they're light years ahead.

Personally, I feel it's the bean counters that are stifling marketing spend in the pursuit of fast stock growth through means of high net profits. But this only short term, a company cannot grow without spending on marketing.

It's due to these damned bean counters that all of Microsoft's physical stores have closed. Now, they have to produce results because that was a drastic decisions and could severily back fire without a digital platform.

Mixer was that digital platform but Microsoft didn't put enough resources into it.

As a result of we have the pending Tiktok deal, a classic Microsoft knee jerk reaction imo.

You do realize that Microsoft does not really view itself as an enduser consumer company. Nadella was hired to move Microsoft away from massive loss making consumer ventures and move the company to high margin and high profit enterprise areas. Movement to be a leading cloud/SaaS company. Yes, the company does do a few consumer ventures, but most are designed and built to support Nadella's main vision. For example the Surface Duo runs Android to all MS to tap into a much bigger market. Nadella wants Android and iOS to better support all of MS's enterprise services. Nadella could care less about a Windows phone that might get 3% market share. He wants to have MS services widely available and used by 100% of the mobile market.

Nadella is prudent. He is the MAIN MS Bean Counter. He has to be, he is the CEO. We can see this in some of the limitations in the Surface DUO. With a little investment the device could be running the 865+ chip and a decent camera. The device could support 5G and enough memory to do real multitasking , but right now you see reluctance from MS to even classify this device as a phone.

 

[TechFreak1]

You do realize that Microsoft does not really view itself as an enduser consumer company.

.

The TicTok Deal turns this notion on it's head and shoots it outside the heliosphere lol.

 

[MBytes]

Basically Apple is moving their OS into their own in-house chip and they say they're gonna transition it all into one ecosystem within two years. Like what MS is doing.

This was the plans for Apple since many years. Microsoft is completely new at this.
Apple ARM chips are crazy more powerful compared to the best that is available outside of Apple, and that is Qualcomm. Qualcomm turned into Intel, basically. They became the top Android chip maker, and started to be complacent. Their performance improvement turned out to be marginal each year, just to stay at the top, while Apple who had a vision of having laptops and desktop system running its ARM processors, pushed forward each year with massive improvements.

Microsoft ARM SoC is just a rebranded Qualcomm Snapdragon SoC, with some AI stuff, which, let's face it, will never be really utilize, because Microsoft lacks commitment to its visions.

What I mean is this:
- Apple had a vision for years, and started to dive in ARM SoC early to ensure that that their vision becomes a reality. They built the expertise over the years and deliver time and time again impressive processors.
- Apple, day 1, got most of its application ARM ready. Microsoft had nothing beside Windows. They didn't even want to include the new Edge Beta inside.
- Apple worked with third-party developer to have many big apps a native ARM version of their applications
- Apple genuinely put effort to have effortless conversion of applications for developers (Apple has always been really good at given a competent SDK to its developers, which are all easy to implement and looks great. Microsoft tend to require a lot of work, and then you end up with this ugly thing and now have to figure out how to make it look nice. In other words, Apple goes above and beyond compared to Microsoft to make dev live easy. Microsoft, delivers the bare minimum in comparison.

The end result, Apple M1 powered systems, looks like finished products, delivering an excellent experience, doesn't feel like a 1st gen beta thing, and shows commitment, making developers, without doubt, jump in and support Apple latest APIs and features. Compare that to under Windows, companies want complete justification, business case, and some sort of guaranty that their consumers would be willing to spend more money for it. Companies and its devs are afraid that Microsoft will abandon whatever is new. Mind there is another factor and that is lack of competition under Windows world between applications. Under Macs, competition is fears. The simple APIs and SDKs, plus its user base more willing to spend money than under Windows, makes and pushes anyone to make great software that competes against others. Under Windows, people tend to stick with what they know, and much more difficult to make an app and be successful.

Two questions:
Who do you think will do it better?
How worried should MS be?

Apple is better. Plain and simple. Microsoft still doesn't support x64 under Windows 10 on ARM.
Microsoft SHOULD be worried, but I don't think they are, and that is a problem. Maybe they should be focusing on execution of products instead of yearly restructures.

I'm excited to see what the future holds for Windows on ARM, but I also don't want them to be the ones coming in last.
What do you guys think?

They'll be last. They are last. And yes, it angers me, because Microsoft should be doing better, they CAN do better.
If they don't adapt quickly, Microsoft will join the likes of IBM and RIM/Blackberry.

 

[justjun555]

competition was much needed to drive windows on arm forward. there will be pressure on Intel to create efficient and powerful mobile processors & Qualcomm will be motivated to build more powerful arm chip to eat Intel's ultrabook market.

before that Microsoft needs to deliver capable 64bit x86 apps emulation & also windows 10x as fast as possible before inevitable apple's hybrid ios/osx touch device comes to the market.

for the sake of windows on arm platform Microsoft also needs use future arm processor inside surface go ,surface laptop go & surface neo not just solitary surface pro x.

 

[sporosarcina]

Okay, I'm playing devils advocate here. I have a Lenovo C630 (Snapdragon 850, 8GB) and a Surface Pro 7 (i510th, 8 GB) that I regularly use for my job. I'm a professor so I routinely use the crap out of Office, Team, and various online presentation system (mainly Big Blue Button and Zoom). On paper the SP7 is the better machine by a country mile (though that difference would shrink significantly with the SPX series), but in practice I have found much less lag and inking hiccups with the Lenovo system while I am running a class on online with BBB, PowerPoint, Excel, and Word all running between the monitor and my second monitor. I'm more likely to grab my Lenovo when on the go just due to the insane battery life (though the 11gen series from Intel seems to have helped that) and the fact that it never, and I mean never, gets hot (my SP7 gets a little toasty at times). The downside to the Lenovo is that you have to be a little heavy on the keyboard to get guaranteed hits and it is provider locked to Verizon (as are all Samsung and Lenovo comps in the US).

I don't know if Qualcomm is sprinkling in some magic fairy dust (coprocessor loads) or what, but in my use it has already beaten the Intel chips for me. I am not a "creator" or gamer, though a number of games play on the chip and XCloud is coming, and that would obviously change the equation, but for productivity and general use WoA is great and the M1 isn't going to give me anything I on't have or need.

 

[MBytes]

Okay, I'm playing devils advocate here. I have a Lenovo C630 (Snapdragon 850, 8GB) and a Surface Pro 7 (i510th, 8 GB) that I regularly use for my job. I'm a professor so I routinely use the crap out of Office, Team, and various online presentation system (mainly Big Blue Button and Zoom). On paper the SP7 is the better machine by a country mile (though that difference would shrink significantly with the SPX series), but in practice I have found much less lag and inking hiccups with the Lenovo system while I am running a class on online with BBB, PowerPoint, Excel, and Word all running between the monitor and my second monitor. I'm more likely to grab my Lenovo when on the go just due to the insane battery life (though the 11gen series from Intel seems to have helped that) and the fact that it never, and I mean never, gets hot (my SP7 gets a little toasty at times). The downside to the Lenovo is that you have to be a little heavy on the keyboard to get guaranteed hits and it is provider locked to Verizon (as are all Samsung and Lenovo comps in the US).

I don't know if Qualcomm is sprinkling in some magic fairy dust (coprocessor loads) or what, but in my use it has already beaten the Intel chips for me. I am not a "creator" or gamer, though a number of games play on the chip and XCloud is coming, and that would obviously change the equation, but for productivity and general use WoA is great and the M1 isn't going to give me anything I on't have or need.

The reality of things is that the Surface Pro X provide an excellent experience. The problem in my opinion is the same as electric cars. Electric cars were never able to get the attention despite being reasonable in real world environment, with a affordable price. It took Tesla with its reverse approach of going "all-in" (and not care about the price), to actually get attention. They needed to make a car that crushes combustion engines to have people be excitement, despite being a car over killed for most people.

Windows is well optimized for ARM64. I have it running on a Snapdragon 810 and it runs fine. People got it running without drivers on a Rasbery Pi 4, that is even slower processor. That said, people look at benchmarks performance, expect a system that can play the latest games with the highest visuals with superb performance, find the last digit of Pi in less than a second, and make them breakfast to say "Oh yea, this is the system I need for my Facebook surfing needs".

No one was considering ARM based PC as a viable option until Apple showed it, and they have pulled a Tesla. Microsoft tried to do this with the Surface Pro X, but the problem is that Microsoft is at the mercy of Qualcomm, and that company, being the king of SoCs on Android, were sleeping. Apple was moving fast; Qualcomm didn't really care. But now that Microsoft is making its own ARM based processor, Nvidia is back to it again, Samsung SoC is getting competitive, and now Qualcomm feel pressure from Apple (Android manufactures pushing Qualcomm and ready to switch to anything that is faster), they are being pushed. Sadly, a making a new processor takes many years.

 

[sporosarcina]

One thing Mac has that Windows will, the ability to destroy legacy support. I lived through the Switch from 68K to Power PC, to Intel, now to M1, each time they just said go **** yourself about legacy support (they are already doing this with the M1. OSX was billed as their "last operating system" so they just gave them subtitles and plenty of OSX machines are now bricked. Windows can not get away with legacy killing.