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chucker
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: near Bremen, Germany
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2018-04-10, 00:29

Quote:
Originally Posted by turtle View Post
a new version of VMware for the new chipset
Don't hold your breath.

Regarding running x86 stuff: VMware has always virtualized, not emulated, and while Microsoft has some tech to do 32-bit x86-on-ARM emulation, jury's out on how fast that is, whether VMware is interested, and whether Microsoft will license to them.

Running Windows on ARM on a Mac: Apple's ARM and Qualcomm's ARM aren't like Intel's x86 and AMD's x86; there is an ARM spec that they both target, but beyond that, actual ARM implementations are kind of all over the place. Standard x86 stuff like having a PCI bus is sort of defined willy-nilly by vendors in the ARM world. So Qualcomm's details will differ significantly, and again, it's unclear if Apple cares enough, and if Qualcomm wants to license.

But suppose they do, or Apple comes up with a compatibility layer with or without Qualcomm's help. Now you have, at best, a Boot Camp scenario where you can dual-boot into Windows on ARM, which is already a pretty mediocre value proposition (it's barely good enough for business apps, but forget about, say, games). For virtualization, you still need either for Apple to step up their plate (there's some evidence they might, given that they shipped their own Hypervisor in macOS and then never used it themselves), or for a third party like VMware or Parallels to step in. Which would take years to develop.

All that for scenarios that mean much for Apple's bottom line and are of limited value even for Apple's developers. They mostly matter to the sizeable subculture of either PC gamers with a Mac, or Windows developers with a Mac (that's yours truly), and while Apple surely doesn't mind their hardware sales, they don't make much of a dent in the grand scheme of things, nor do they push Apple's own platforms forward.

The very optimistic scenario there: Apple has already been working in secret with Qualcomm, VMware, Parallels, or several of those, and are further along on those matters and care more about them than I would expect. In that scenario, 2020 seems like a realistic target for a new ARM Boot Camp and an ARM VMware Fusion or Parallels Desktop or whathaveyou to launch, or to be close to launch (even Boot Camp took a few months to come out). But even in that scenario, Windows will mostly be useful for, like, your old terrible Quicken version.
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