Official support for Windows 10 on ARM development | Hacker News Reader

Official support for Windows 10 on ARM development

blogs.windows.com

79 pointssohkamyung49 comments

Is Visual Studio going to be available in an ARM native format? I understand you can emulate x86 applications on Windows On ARM, but it would be nice if they provided a native performance experience.

I also feel like Microsoft and Apple are both doing cool stuff with the ARM space... but it would be cooler together. The iPad Pro is incredible, but iOS is so limiting. Windows 10 on ARM seems nice, but none of the hardware seems compelling, and no one makes a mobile ARM chip that's even remotely competitive with the A12X.

Since Apple is never going to let Windows 10 run on their iPad Pro, the least they could do is bring Xcode, Terminal, and external storage support to iPad Pro... but who knows if that's going to ever happen.

Probably not until the platform gains enough traction. It’s a complicated, gigantic beast. VS Code, on the other hand, seems like a more tangible goal at the beginning.

I mean, it's mostly Chrome right? I bet ARM electron and VS Code could be done today.

vscode runs on samsung phones with Samsung DeX so ARM64 isnt the limiting factor. In general samsung is awesome at this and is spreading the linux love to their android platform with https://linuxondex.com

Not sure anyone has built Electron for Windows/ARM64 whilst it's worked for a long time on Linux/ARM64.

Xcode is finicky enough on the Mac. My vote would be for Apple to focus on improving it on the one platform instead of trying to shoehorn it into iOS. Better yet, free us Swift/Cocoa/iOS developers to use whatever platform we choose.

Visual Studio still isn’t even 64-bit native on Intel. I wouldn’t be surprised if that got fixed in the next year or two, but I think ARM native is farther off (depending on how well ARM machines do in the marketplace)

Microsoft stated some time ago that they don't want VS to be 64bit because it would use too much memory then. Instead they are using worker processes that can run in 64bit to do the heavy lifting.

It looks like Xcode on iPad is probably happening based on some hires they've been doing. iOS 13 is also going to be a big update for iPad. Seems they're on an every other year release cycle for big iOS iPad updates - 9 introduced multitasking, 11 introduced big UI changes, and now lots of 13 rumors. I'd look at this year's new iPad hardware as a sign that they're serious about iPad as the next computing paradigm and are putting a lot of effort behind making the platform suitable for a variety of professionals.

In some ways I’m glad in other ways it’s sad to see many considering a locked down device as an option for software development. Maybe it’s a good learning solution.

Hopefully it never takes off as more than that.

Developers love Apple. The fact that its locked down means everyone has to go through the official store. Follow the money: billions are being made on Apple devices. Apple users spend more money than Android users.

Can they really build an Xcode for iOS while sandboxing apps and refusing to expose the underlying file system?

(Would your app icons, for example, be forced to live in your iOS photo stream, as it’s the only way to share images between apps? What about non-image data files?)

Even if those issues can be addressed, iOS native UI is completely and utterly touch-centric, designed for fat fingers on small screens - and so far, nobody has really succeeded in building feature-rich professional software with high-complexity UIs within that paradigm.

Also, most developers demand multiple monitors as well as the precision of a keyboard and mouse... who would be the audience for XCode-on-iOS?

> Can they really build an Xcode for iOS while sandboxing apps and refusing to expose the underlying file system?

I think that's kind of the point. Apple is going to eventually have to give certain classes of users more freedom if they want to see the iPad Pro adopted as a Pro platform.

Consistently, every single major review I read or watched for the iPad Pro berated Apple about this. The Verge, Engadget, MKBHD, and many others. Reviewers are not just letting Apple get away with this. Apple is going to have to open this up, even though some people like to believe they're never going to do that for some reason.

> most developers demand multiple monitors as well as the precision of a keyboard and mouse

iOS already has great keyboard support, and with the USB-C port on the iPad Pro, you can literally plug it into a USB-C dock and instantly have an external monitor, keyboard, and more connected, and yes, the monitor can show different content, it doesn't have to mirror the internal iPad display.

The iPad Pro's keyboard folio case is really great. I think it's actually a slightly more pleasant typing experience than what Apple's current generation Butterfly keyboards offer on their laptops.

Mouse support is another thing that reviewers have harped on Apple for. Whether they will support that at an OS-level or not is honestly more questionable than whether they're going to open up the underlying file system to advanced users, in my opinion.

> who would be the audience for XCode-on-iOS?

- Developers who like portability.

- Developers who like powerful hardware. (considering the iPad Pro is easily more powerful than the new MacBook Air and many of the MacBook Pros)

- Developers who like a great display... that 120Hz Liquid Retina display is really fantastic.

- Developers who enjoy long battery life.

- iOS Developers who want to save money. (an iPad Pro is cheaper than a MacBook, although not by as much as it should be)

Which developers wouldn't be interested in a professional-grade iPad Pro, given the list above? Unfortunately, Apple hasn't released such an iPad Pro yet, due to software limitations.

Apple don’t really seem to care much about ‘Pro’ users. Look at the state of the latest MBP (especially in real-world use, with dongles and USB hubs trailing out of it), and the silly pricing and infrequent updates of other Pro-branded Macs.

Pro users are a very small and demanding market compared to the massive and hugely profitable market for shiny ‘content consumption + communication devices’

I have heard argument that MacOS is great for development because it is Unix-like so you have proper shell but it is much more polished than Linux.

Wouldn't iOS without shell be much less suitable for development especially for anything that not apple specific for example web development?

iOS is also based on NeXTSTEP(which itself is a derivative of BSD Unix). Also previous jailbreaks could gain root access along with some kind of shell. iOS, in its current form, seems to be a very locked down, sandboxed version of Unix. So I think iOS might prove as good as macOS.

Quoting myself from the top of this comment chain:

> the least they could do is bring Xcode, Terminal, and external storage support to iPad Pro

I think a virtual terminal is a necessary piece here, which implies a Unix shell.

Do you think they give ability to install necessary tools? If not what the point of terminal? Or provided minimum of basic tools will be good enough for most developers?

If you're going to have a full IDE where you can write and compile code that Apple has never seen, it makes sense that developers would be able to download and run unsigned binaries inside the terminal for development purposes.

Attempting to arbitrarily differentiate between unreviewed code that you're writing and running versus unreviewed code someone else wrote that you're running would be a strange line to draw in the sand.

If they somehow decide to provide Xcode but don't provide a terminal at all, that would obviously be very limiting.

Also Xcode and iPad related development would be nice testbed for ARM macs.

Is there a reason you can't just use remote desktop on the iPad Pro?

Obviosuly, this is not the solution for all situations, but still.

At that point, why buy an iPad Pro to work at 5 FPS only when you have an internet connection, when you could buy a laptop that works at 60 FPS all the time?

The iPad Pro hardware is incredible, and if you're remoted into another computer, you're not really using the iPad Pro's hardware.

Regardless, for non-developer tasks, I think it would be really fun to have an iPad Pro. I just wish Apple would allow it to actually be a pro-level machine for developers. Apple is the limiting factor there.

Now please get an ARM Windows Andromeda device release ready. I need a new option in the mobile space and I would happily use one that is a full computer in the form factor of a phone.

I've been waiting for such a device for years and it looks like we're finally getting closer to it happening. Between Samsung's Linux on Dex, the Librem 5 hopefully next year, and the ever-present rumors of Microsoft's Andromeda device it might actually happen.

Agreed. If Microsoft doesn't come through with Andromeda, the Librem 5 is my backup plan.

One of the most interesting things about this is the reintroduction of a concern for non store apps. The new app model for Windows is a failure, there isn't a app developed using the new model that can match anything developed using the "old".

I noticed the same exact thing. It's nice Microsoft finally see that its UWP/Store thing is a failure and start supporting the good old way instead of persisting to force developers using something they don't want.

But they should, if they care about their users: UWP gives users capability-based jail, that protects them from potentially malicious or vulnerable app.

Quite the opposite, I guess you haven't been paying attention to the developer sessions.

They are building the infrastructure to place Win32 apps inside the same sandbox model as UWP, to the point they can share the same container model.

Project Centipede and Desktop Brige were the first steps, the most recent one is the new MSIX package format.

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/sgern/2018/06/18/a-closer-l...

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/MSIX-Blog/MSIX-Packag...

Sure there is, Adobe XD for example.

Win32 app are also store apps nowadays, specially after Desktop Bridge, MSIX containers and XAML islands got introduced.

Oh, and any signed PWA have replaced UWP Hosted Web Apps, making W10 the only mainstream OS besides ChromeOS, where Web apps enjoy the same privileges as native apps.

Adobe XD isn't showing as the available in the Microsoft App Store, but I can download it through Adobe CC desktop.

I should have said UWP instead of store apps, my point being, I haven't seen one UWP app that isn't crippled in some way.

I like what Microsoft is trying to do, but their execution leaves much to be desired.

There is only one single version of Adobe XD.

Store apps can be installed via .appx, .msix or any third party installers like InstallShield.

maybe we can get windows phone back.. I miss mine :-(

My secondary phone is a Lumia 630, just got an update yesterday.

As for my Android devices, well at least they still get app updates.

I have a 640 as a backup, it's a really great phone. Amazing that they're still getting updates after all these years.

I still use a 950 as daily driver, because if it isn't broke, don't fix it. Certainly the app situation is starting to hurt lately, but I haven't convinced myself I have enough need to pay for a new device yet. (My "new shiny" gadget budget has been needed for other things.)

As long as it keeps getting security updates, I don't feel a rush to buy a new phone. But yeah, I realize I'm an ugly duckling at this point every time some business starts a conversation with "Have you tried our app yet? Why don't you download our app?"

Is it possible to develop x86 apps from a windows arm laptop?

windows Arm64 laptops and tablets support some x86 emulation but still are primarily Arm Machines

So is that a no/maybe/yes

"Depends on what you mean exactly". You can cross compile x86 apps from any architecture you can run the compiler. If you expect to also run them on the local device then it still depends on more detail of what it is you mean by x86 development. 64 bit x86 emulation still isn't supported so you wouldn't be able to run apps compiled in such a fashion. Drivers/kernel level stuff is not part of the application emulation layer so would not work. Other than that, it would most likely work (albeit slowly).

what is interesting about this is that maybe this is an opportunity for flutter and dart to take off a bit more, it compiles to ARM.

I don't see any future for them, unless Google really doubles down of pushing Flutter to everyone no matter what, which I don't see happening and the Android team isn't much happy about it, just giving political correct answers when asked about Flutter.

Right now Google management seems to be more into Kotlin everywhere and PWAs.

I wouldn't bet my future on flutter nor dart. flutter in my eyes is pathetic attempt to give dart some meaning, after it failed to compete with other compile-to-js languages like typescript (and now wasm). Came too late. Solved some problems that cordova and react-native have, but brought new ones. You need to learn new language, ui is not aligned with the system or other apps, you rely on flutter components only, which are more difficult to write than react-native's (mostly just simple wrappers)...

The end of Intel is near?

Not in the next 10 years.

Not while ARM is synonymous with ‘locked down, dumbed down, and touch-centric’

The PC clone market was a side effect of a strategy mistake from IBM.

Apple, Atari, Amiga, Acorn were quite different.

A beautiful mistake that led to an open and competitive PC market. While Windows dominated, the availability of PC hardware allowed the growth of Linux, too.

And I’m saying that as somebody who was a huge Amiga fan back in the day, and moved quite reluctantly to PCs after that.

Any new platform these days is likely to be user-hostile: locked down, tied to a monopolistic App Store, disallowing development without special permission, and abusing secure boot tech to lock out alternative operating systems.

So we should be fighting to keep the traditional Intel-based PC alive, as we’re unlikely to see anything like it again!

I totally agree with what you're saying, but sadly I don't think the average user actually cares about these issues.

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