14 DAY TRIAL // Apple launched Apple Silicon earlier this year, and the first M1-powered devices are already up for grabs, so now developers are hard at work on optimizing their apps to run on them.
Naturally, whenever it comes down to software developers, one can’t help but think of the world’s biggest software company, Microsoft. And the big question now that M1-powered devices are here is: does Microsoft want to bring Windows 10 to Apple Silicon?
Apple VP of software engineering Craig Federighi says Microsoft is the one to decide if such a project can go live, as otherwise, Apple Silicon is perfectly capable of handling Windows 10.
And as it turns out, it really is, as a developer managed recently to install an Insider build of Windows 10 ARM on an M1 Mac and run the operating system in virtualization mode.
“It’s pretty snappy,” developer Alexander Graf tweeted.
Microsoft tight-lipped on Windows for M1
Needless to say, getting Windows up and running on an M1 Mac isn’t really an easy job for beginners, but you can find all the full technical details on this page.
In the meantime, Microsoft has remained completely tight-lipped on the chances of seeing Windows going live on Macs, even though Apple itself has clearly launched an invitation in this regard.
“That's really up to Microsoft,” Federighi 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.”
Time will tell if Windows 10 makes its way officially to M1 chips, but in the meantime, CrossOver and Parallels remain the best choices for most users out there.