Comment by GeekyBear | Hacker News Reader

Comment by GeekyBear | Hacker News Reader

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>a while after the first M1 Mac came out one of Apple’s VPs had said something on the record about Apple having tried to get Microsoft to sell retail licenses of a Windows 10 for ARM build

Not quite. The Craig Federighi quote is:

>As for Windows running natively on the machine, “that’s really up to Microsoft,” he said. “We have the core technologies for them to do that, to run their ARM version of Windows, which in turn of course supports x86 user mode applications. But that’s a decision Microsoft has to make, to bring to license that technology for users to run on these Macs. But the Macs are certainly very capable of it.”

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/11/we-are-giddy-intervi...

The scuttlebutt says that Microsoft is locked into a requirement to only run Windows ARM on Qualcomm chips for an unknown period of time, although I've never seen anything from Microsoft to confirm that.

My own pet theory, based on absolutely no inside knowledge, is that MS doesn’t want to have Windows on M1+ until other CPU makers have caught up to Apple. It would be a huge embarrassment to have Apple hardware running Windows that much better than all the native PCs. All the PC OEMs would slash Nadella’s tires.

I like the theory, but I’ll counter with my own theory that MacBook Pros were the best Windows laptop for many years, and they ended up pushing PC quality to catch up which was good for the Windows install base and Office. :)

> It would be a huge embarrassment to have Apple hardware running Windows that much better than all the native PCs.

That boat already sailed over a year ago.

>How did Microsoft screw this up? - Surface Pro X (SQ2) vs M1 Macbook Air

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhESSZIXvCA

Pretty surprising that MSFT would end up with a deal like that, I'd feel like they would be in a position of strength. Unless all the ARM vendors were pretty supicious of whether Microsoft would succeed/invest properly in the ecosystem?

Qualcomm has even ended up in a legal quarrel with Apple over a modem contract that in the end led to Qualcomm getting what they wanted.

They're a ferocious company when it comes to legal.

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