How Microsoft can Learn from Apple

This past week at Apple's WWDC Apple announced a transition from Intel processors to apple silicon in macs.  This is a huge leap forward for the Mac, but I don't use a Mac I use Windows.  Windows-on-Arm has existed for north of 2 years by now, but the both the chips and devices are still not mainstream.  Apple created a few utilities to help smooth the transition for both developers and users alike.  If Microsoft wants to make Windows-on-Arm mainstream their going to have to learn a few things from Apple and their transition to Arm. 

So, what is the status of WoA (WoA=Windows on ARM)?  Flagship devices have been using the Qualcomm snapdragon 8cx with the tiers such as the 8c and 7c below it.  Samsung's Galaxy book S and Microsoft's surface Pro X lead the charge with superb hardware and accessories.  The chips come with the promises of excellent performance, battery life, and an LTE Connection; unfortunately, they only deliver on 2 of those promises and sometimes only one.  The Processors themselves are Qualcomm's first dedicated chips for laptops and....for most things their fine but recent benchmarks have shown that Qualcomm has some work to do.  The developer kit that was shipped to select developers has a A12Z processor from Apple, it beat the 8cX in emulation while the 8cX was running native apps.  Just....what?  This is unacceptable from the leader in third-party ARM chips for Android and Windows.  The A12Z isn't going to ship in the real ARM Macs, it seems like Apple ended the conversation before it began. 

"Apple ended the conversation before it began" 

Not all apps are optimized for ARM64, in fact most apps don't work with ARM processors on Windows.  That often forces WoA devices to emulate apps made for x86, that reduces performance and eats chunks of battery life.  Not to mention the emulation is limited to 32-bit apps, which are slowly dying as developers clean up their apps to 64-bit.  Apple won't have this problem for a few reasons.   

Apple has given developers ways to perfect their apps for ARM and intel, along with Rosetta 2 a faster and more powerful translator that allows for better performance in apps not optimized for ARM.  Apple has also given developers a one-button compile choice in XCode to help developers to quickly translate their apps to ARM, something Microsoft is yet to offer.  That easy optimization and translation is huge, developers don't have time for complicated debugging they just want to have their apps work for everyone.  Many developers simply will not perfect their apps for ARM on Windows because they already have a perfectly good x86 apps that work for mostly everyone.  Microsoft needs to do more to help developers develop for ARM, learn from Apple and it can make ARM laptops truly  

mainstream.  

Hey everyone! thanks for reading if you want a comprehensive review of a WoA device I inserted a Surface Pro X review by The Verge below: