Apple Says Ball In Microsoft’s Court For M1 Compatible Version Of Windows

Right now, Apple’s M1 Mac computers do not support Windows, which means that virtualization software like Parallels or dual booting tools like Boot Camp will not let Mac users run Windows. However, it seems that Apple isn’t completely closed to the idea of an M1 native version of Windows to make its way onto their new Macs.

Speaking to ArsTechnica in an interview, Apple’s software engineering chief Craig Federighi said that the ball was pretty much in Microsoft’s court as to whether or not they want to license out its ARM-based version of Windows that could be used on Apple’s M1 ARM-based Mac computers.

According to Federighi, “That’s really up to Microsoft. 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.”

Right now, the developers behind Parallels are working to bring their virtualization software onto the M1 Mac computers, but given that you will still need a licensed copy of Windows, we suppose the onus is now on Microsoft as to whether or not they want to allow M1 Macs to run the ARM-based version of Windows.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Apple, Computers
Tags: m1, macOS, Microsoft, Windows, Windows 10