Craig Federighi says Windows can run natively on M1 Macs, but it’s “ really Microsoft’s ”



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While the transition to Apple Silicon has been incredibly smooth overall for the early Mac M1s, a big lingering question is what Windows support will look like, as Boot Camp is not supported on the new generation of Windows. Mac. In a new in-depth interview, Apple’s vice president of software engineering Craig Federighi said the ARM version of Windows could work natively on Apple Silicon Macs, but that will be at Microsoft.

A little history of the pickle with Windows on Mac M1 is that Microsoft’s current license does not allow its ARM version of Windows 10 to be used by Apple (as it is not preinstalled). And previously, Microsoft said it had no news to share when The Verge asked it to make a change to allow Boot Camp on ARM Macs.

In the meantime, we’ve seen apps like CrossOver support Windows apps on Apple Silicon Macs via emulation. And Parallels just announced today that it has a version of its Windows virtualization software in the works that has M1 compatibility.

However, in a new Ars Technica interview, Craig Federighi shared an interesting commentary on the “core technologies” put in place on Apple Silicon Macs to run Windows natively. He went on to say that “Macs are certainly very capable of this”. But underlined, it will be “really at Microsoft”.

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

In the meantime, Federighi shouted at CrossOver and also touched on the fact that we can see cloud solutions for Windows apps on Mac M1s. Ars shared a few consistency issues with CrossOver:

Federighi pointed to Windows in the cloud as a possible solution and mentioned CrossOver, which is capable of “running 32- and 64-bit Windows x86 binaries under some sort of WINE-like emulation layer on these systems.” But CrossOver’s approach to emulation isn’t as consistent as what we’ve enjoyed in virtualization software like Parallels or VMWare on Intel Macs, so there may still be some hills to climb.

Ars’ full interview with Federighi, Johny Srouji and Greg Joswiak is a very fascinating read, delving into the story behind “why and why now?” for Apple Silicon, and much more.

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