Less than 1% do. Let's say, though this is a high estimate, 0.5% of Windows users are ARM. Now let's say my app has 1 million installs at $1 each (pretty successful). That means my total value for optimizing for those ARM users is... $5,000. And they can already run my app with translation, so it's actually worth less than that. So... when you factor in costs of Project Volterra + Developer Time + Fixing Code Time + Lost Opportunities on More Productive Things... there's basically no way, even with 1 million users at $1 each, to justify the effort.
This device is great for developers who already care and love their users. Anyone who doesn't care won't care.
Edit: Also, at those numbers, it would be better if I didn't offer an ARM-native version. If even a tiny percentage of my userbase downloads the ARM-native version by accident on their x86 machine, the support costs will eat away at that too.
Edit @bartlettD: We're not - sorry if it reads that way. I'm just providing an additional argument, but I've reworded slightly to make that a bit clearer.
I think there will come a time when the number of ARM Windows machines increases though.
This kit is useful for the devs who care about the performance of their programs on ARM kit but they'll only optimise for it if the market is there.
<raises hand>
Anyways, what I noticed is that CxOs started to carry Apple MacBooks around and sysadmins just had to deal with it.
Not disputing your numbers, but for devs writing web services or cloud workloads, compiling for arm can mean spending a lot less on VMs. If I were writing software that had to run on Windows Server on ARM, I would probably want one of these devices for local development.
why would you use windows with ARM?
m1 mini let's you build apps for the biggest OS on the market (iOS)
macOS is the industry standard when it comes to audio/photo/video production
office? everyone uses a web interface, even slack has a web interface
and it makes even more sense to compare both, specially considering we are headed towards a giant recession due to rising cost of energy and the anti-carbon policies that will come will affect the companies that are wasting energy with inefficient machines
it's mindbloging that people put this much energy defending qualcomm contract, it literally is putting the west at a disadvantage against China
it makes perfect sense to compare it with the apple chip, you are blind if you think otherwise, to stay polite
Android 42%
Windows 30%
iOS 18%
> everyone uses a web interface
Can you provide some global statistics for this claim? I don't believe it's accurate, but I don't have a good way to measure or disprove it.
Look around you, look what tech companies uses to make their products (hint: electron)
Microsoft moving their Office suite to the web should give you an indication where they want to take Windows, due to new usages
Global market share is a fake metric, what grandma's PC from 2006 has to do with todays usages?
It's true for everything, gaming, music, video, even art [1]
"Photoshop's journey to the web"
I mean, grandma clearly uses her PC for it to be included in a global market share, so why do you think her use should be discounted?
Even if her usage is considered "niche" (debatable as that is), it doesn't mean it shouldn't be included.
You fandom for all things Apple make you a bit blind to reality, I suggest you look at things with more nuance and actually document yourself with actual numbers. You might be surprised by what you find.
it even dropped in revenue in their latest report
https://www.wsj.com/articles/microsoft-msft-q1-earnings-repo...
Have you ever worked in an enterprise environment ?
Mobile OS it's Android,Desktop is Windows.
> office? everyone uses a web interface, even slack has a web interface
Huh? Microsoft Word on Windows native?
> companies that are wasting energy with inefficient machines
I bet your usage of cloud office burns more energy than an native app.
I think the commenter is trying to say that it's not something you need a Windows device for anymore.
I agree with that sentiment, but disagree about web-based Word, web-based Word is terrible, we often joke in my team that we need to start over if someone accidentally opens a SharePoint document in web-based Word.
Money is not in Android development compared to iOS.
And M1 Macs are faster for Android development than Windows
PC games, plain and simple.
1) PC Gaming is a big market mover.
2) (Underrated) As a systems developer, Visual Studio is one of the best development environments I have ever used. VS for windows is the real one, VS for mac is a totally different software.
https://kevurugames.com/blog/mobile-gaming-vs-pc-gaming-over...
- Gaming
- Cheaper hardware options than Macs
- Commercial software support (e.g., Adobe, Autodesk, Affinity, Office, etc.)
- Better hardware support (e.g., Nvidia graphics cards)
- Easier Linux VM setup with WSL and x86(_64) support than Mac (i.e., requires ARM iso or the hassle of setting up Rosetta)
- Piecemeal hardware upgradability
- Less hassle than Linux, depending on hardware configuration and needs
- Smoother experience for some things like (HiDPI) multi-monitor setups and video playback than Linux with the current state of Wayland and the recent drop of third-party codecs by multiple distros
Some of these apply to Mac and some of these apply to Linux, but only Windows has all of these characteristics. Windows is far from perfect, but it is the best tool for some jobs. People also simply have different preferences and trade-off priorities, whether it be in regards to usability, affordability, privacy, or anything else.
We would have kept using Solaris, Aix, HP-UX, Tru64,...
- Gaming - no question windows is still better.
- Less hassle? - I find that questionable these days. Windows 11 has broken this somewhat.
I like WSL2 but for the last couple of years I've found it easier to reboot into Linux for dev work and just switch back to Windows for gaming.
Windows on ARM ruins everything Windows offers.
- No gaming due to poor emulation
- Usually pricy Surface devices
- macOS on ARM has waaaaay better commercial support
- Do any WoA devices even have USB4?
- WSL still exists, and is better than anything on the Mac
- No hardware upgradability
- More hassle than Linux, since everything is compiled natively for aarch64
One thing people have not mentioned is Enterprise.
Just because its all webapps does not mean everyone can move to a Chromebook.
The ecosystem of HP/DELL/Lenovo Thinkpad hardware + Windows 10/11 OS + management over Azure AD or on-prem AD that hooks into Office 365 and most other apps. Plus all ERP and HR software that run on Windows Servers.
Yes the USERS are mostly on the Office 365 suite and webapps for things. But their PCs have to be managed and apps have to be served.
It's been a while since I used Windows on a laptop, about 2 years (so Windows 10 20H2 was likely the last I used on a laptop). Back then un-docking and re-docking my laptop was a pain because it would smoosh all app windows to the primary monitor, and I'd have to move everything around on my 3 monitors when re-docking. Every. Single. Time.
Those had different DPIs as well, with all the issues that brought.
I can't actually recall a time when macOS was that bad at managing my app windows when changing monitor configurations, but I'll give you that Windows is better at window management if all displays stay connected and have the same DPI.
Has Windows gotten better at these things?
I'm more interested in what happens to app windows when you remove and reconnect displays.
Not to mention all of the stuff that requires CUDA to run and the fact that Apple made their bed with AMD a long time ago and you can no longer use Nvidia GPUs.
I've been wanting to try Windows 11 on ARM64 with a Microsoft or a Lenovo device, but nothing seems to have the basics I'm looking for like OLED for a laptop, or ECC (for both a laptop or a server)
If there were ARM64 options with ECC RAM, I'd buy that today and start deploying tomorrow.
[0] - https://solutions.amperecomputing.com/systems/altra/kraken-c...
[0] - https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/technotes/tn2274...
I just want ARM64 with ECC and the ability to put quite few NVMe inside (U2 or M2, doesn't matter that much)
Disclaimer: I work for Amazon (not in AWS).
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/now-in-preview-azure-...
1. Renting them out via Azure definitely interests them.
The fact remains that the fastest way to run Windows ARM is on an Mx Mac in a VM.
No, more consumer hardware like the Surface series will push devs. Who will eventually want to get out of the x86 emulation layer and run their programs native.
Comparing this to an M1 Mini is a bit odd since they're not competing with each other at all, and Microsoft is limited by what Qualcomm et al can put out.