It’s because they were whole-assing one thing.
I haven’t been keeping track, but I think it’s true that the breadth of their product line is bigger or nearly as big as it has ever been, and certainly much bigger than 10 years ago. They got there organically over the last 20 years, instead of developing shovelware.
I am all for innovation and I welcome any chip that runs cooler while offering better performance with the apps I use. But so far, 90% of the praise I've seen of M1 either comes from benchmarking software that doesn't reflect my real world usage, or directly from Apple's marketing.
It's a bit early to draw conclusions about how much of a smash hit M1 is going to be. We don't know much about its performance, aside from a few benchmarks here and there.
Just as there was no excuse for the Surface RT not having a touch native version of Office despite them selling it as a tablet, or the Surface Pro X not having ARM native versions of ALL of Microsoft's software.
Where's the ARM native version of Visual Studio?
How can you expect other vendors to take Windows on ARM seriously if Microsoft doesn't?
Let's be real, it's just on par with the Zen 3 in single threaded perf which is on a 7nm+ process. When Zen 4 comes it might be moot.
AMD's entire market cap is practically on par with Apple's cash on hand (so very different companies in terms of size/capability) yet they are equal in performance single threaded? Not only that, in practical terms the AMD chip is very desirable in many situations because it has twice the cores.
We do have an entire shopping list of ways in which Apple's ARM core implementation leads vs. x86 in their five watt iPhone chip.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/16226/apple-silicon-m1-a14-de...
I don't have a Surface Pro X and would never buy one, but it's an example of how ARM isn't necessarily the answer to the user's problem, because the user may well use his device for more than running Microsoft Office and browsing the internet.
A glimmer of hope from https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/surface-pro-arm-app... on Oct 1, 2020:
With 64-bit emulation coming soon in Preview via the Windows Insider program, you'll be able to run 64-bit (x64) apps on Surface Pro X.
> Where's the ARM native version of Visual Studio?
Well, there is VSCode... [2]
[1] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/surface-pro-arm-app...
[2] https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-new-vs-code-update-i...
I don't know what to say to that, except that we must be living in different universes.
Do you always believe everything that a marketing department tells you?
Does all of your real-world experience with consumer products tend to line up with benchmarking software and short-term reviews based on a test drive?
That is to say, I have skin in the game.
Say what you will about my igneous domicile, but buying a new-to-market processor architecture is not something that I am willing to do just because some guy at The Verge or Tom's Hardware or AnandTech made some bar graphs or felt it necessary to treat hype as fact. I'm not saying they're dishonest or anything, just that the information is thin because the typical user isn't an instance of Geekbench.
My advice to them: Use the device for a couple of weeks, install all of your work software on it, put it through its paces, and then tell me about what you observed. That's the kind of review that would satisfy my curiosity. I do a lot of financial stuff on my machine, and the software (or software-based services) in that world is often proprietary, poorly developed, and/or expensive. Compatibility and performance of those programs are more important to me than battery life while browsing YouTube or render time in Final Cut Pro.
I'm in a similar position, I bought a 16 i9 at basically the same time. Certainly not adopting the first generation of a new processor architecture on a machine I use for work.
However, render time in FCP and number of channels in Logic Pro cannot be understated if they're really this good. It's crazy to see a sudden uplift in what's capable there. A lot of what I've read even indicates that general system use (windows opening /closing, scrolling, system animations) are noticeably faster on the M1.
Plus, I'm happy to take Apples word as they were totally right with the A12z in the iPad Pro. That thing outperforms most windows laptop in creative workflows.
Microsoft never had anything remotely like this. Their hardware is ok, but they forgot one important detail, that Apple has taken to heart like nobody else:
"People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware. (Alan Kay)"
Why would anyone want to switch to ARM on Windows if it wasn't a lot better than x86? What if their WOW x86 emulation was really slow?
For Microsoft, "own hardware" means plugging cots parts together. The best they can achieve is a "premium look & feel", but they can't do anything game-changing. For Apple, it means owning and designing the most important chips themselves. Because they are controlling the whole hardware & software stack, they can do things nobody else can. This is the difference in understanding design as "how it looks" vs "how it works".
Apple has a custom MSR in their M1 implementation to toggle Total Store Ordering, which enables them to run either the native, more relaxed ARM or the more strict x86 memory model. They probably use other tricks as well, but there is a reason Rosetta is as fast as it is.