M1 Apple Silicon

From a single user Artist/designer point of view - Surface products don't interest me. The fact that you can't even draw a straight line - even with a ruler glued to the screen - is enough for me never to consider a surface product.
Then, as someone who also teaches video and effects - a product that didn't have any serious software making the use-case to switch from a standard desktop to a WOA device for editing sound, video or images makes the Pro-X an "interesting but never on my radar" device.
So, as a Windows user, I would prefer to get a full power laptop or desktop to run Sony Vegas / Da Vinci Resolve / Affinity Photo etc etc and as a Windows user who draws, nothing on this planet would entice me to throw money at a device with a digitiser totally unsuited to art. Meanwhile, people have been editing and putting together video on iPads for at least 5 years now - in the last 1-2 years those devices have proven as powerful as Apples traditional laptops in certain areas. Windows ARM devices have to go through similar proving ground - and need a loyal base of buyers who see the potential.

So then we go to the corporate angle - would I ever try and convince colleagues to invest or to pressure Adobe to port software over for such a device? No, life's too short. It's not a diverse software argument for me - its a product capability argument. Do I see or have confidence in developers doing for a Windows ARM device what was done for Apple's iPad? Seriously - no and this isn't the place to discuss the Apple App store except to say it is profitable for both Apple and developers.

Finally - the Adobe angle, they were probably schmoozed into promising support for a WOA port but if I recall correctly, Windows only released an emulator to allow WOA devices to run other windows software late last year (before the M1 steamroller hit) and where was the competition from other software to prove to Adobe that further investment in the ARM device was worth continuing?
On the iPad, Adobe released toy versions of software like Adobe Draw and Adobe Sketch which nobody took seriously - it took from 2009 to 2020 for software like Procreate or FlipaClip or Lumafusion becoming indie creative software standards before Adobe finally started taking the iPad seriously. It's largely too late now even with Adobe creating Fresco because those Apps have a huge and loyal following. Then, the announcement Apple would be shifting to its own silicon demonstrated that other software Adobe has to compete with like Final Cut Pro would become the standard on M1 processors if Adobe didn't do anything.

So it's not a simple case of Adobe preferring Apple "sheep" or Apple customers - there's been talk on iPad forums for years hoping Adobe would take the iPad seriously. On the other hand - Apple themselves eventually created pretty serious software for the iPad and then now the M1 Macs while Windows has yet to demonstrate any kind of similar commitment with serious software for their ARM devices. That latter is probably why Adobe had a try and probably kept quiet, shelving its prototype software port because Windows hadn't demonstrated any similar commitment to the new device. Equally - neither have any other Arts software makers - I don't have a list of Arts software that would run on the Surface Pro-X but I would guess it is pretty thin with no serious players to entice any desperate artists to buy.

 

OK Windows fans, looks like you can now safely buy an M1 Mac:
You can now run Windows 10 on Arm on Apple’s M1 Macs - The Verge

 

Not so fast pilgrim - where are you going to get WOA? And more importantly, what will WOA run that M1 can’t run natively or in emulation of MacOS 86?

 

Uh oh, seems like maybe I should have read the article

 

@JoeS Computerworld's self-proclaimed Apple-holic (Johnnie Evans) not only shares your enthusiasm (and anecdotal evidence that WOA on Parallels is the fastest Windows of all) but sees it as stealth move by MS and Apple to get WOA on the M series architecture ...

 

I think people are really undercounting the potential legal/license issues with Parallels and WOA. Our corporate councils interpretation of the WOA license is that Qualcomm for all intents and purposes co-owns it and most importantly it plainly states that it is only allowed on Qualcomm Processors.

Given how litigious Qualcomm is anyway and more than a little bad blood between them and Apple, we think that Qualcomm is just waiting for some prominent company to attempt to adopt it and then slap them with major license fees.

And FWIW, we have tried it on the base M1 Air and it just mops the floor with the Pro X with the SQ2 chip (200-350% faster in several cases)

 

Starting with the last thought first - YOU ARE A TERRIBLE TEASE!

Second, as to the Qualcomm dark shadow - your interpretation is correct, but my bet is that this is all marketing fodder for Apple to show just how pathetic Qualcomm and Intel processors have now become, and how far ahead Apple is blazing its own trail. I've read various articles about burgeoning performance cores in the M Series (16 up to 128) or multiple M series processors working in parallel. What then QC-Intel?

If MS really agreed to a patent sharing arrangement under which WOA can only run on QC processors, then Nadella is hearing the immortal words of Otter to Flounder about trust...

 

BTW; If anyone here individually is considering it there is a potential deal breaker if you have any thunderbolt devices. Simply put, under WOA they either don't work at all or have very odd behavior (displays at non standard resolutions for instance)

 

So Qualcomm would rather tie down its own horse in the desert, than let it free to find a watering hole?

But why though? As you said before, Nuvia-based chips are many years away, while WOA desperately needs a lifeline. Parallels M1 is WOA's best chance at wider consumer exposure. This could lead to renewed WOA developer interest and strengthen the PC ecosystem for Qualcomm's own chips.

Question for the philosophers: what do you do if you find yourself in bed with somebody who'd rather kill you, than let you sleep with someone else?

 

Or would it just lead those developers to see the future is brighter in the M universe? Could Qualcomm and Microsoft stand the invidious comparisons?