Intel Expecting Apple to Transition to Custom ARM-Based Chips Starting in 2020

Virtualization is relatively fast because the cpu instructions aren't actually being emulated. No one is going to be gaming on an X86 emulator, at least not for anything released in the past decade and a half or so.

I run boot camp, and for gaming, native CPU support is critical.

Aren't all the Windows ARM devices locked down? Can users purchase and install their own copies of Windows on a non-MS-affiliated piece of hardware?

That's a requirement for Bootcamp, unless Apple strikes some special deal with MS, and I don't foresee that happening.

Also, the software ecosystem for Windows on ARM still isn't great. There's an emulator built into the OS, but it's an emulator.

I wrote a comment and deleted it. There are ways Apple could make this work. But I highly suspect ARM macOS is going to be significantly more restricted and locked down. I doubt we'll be able to disable SIP, for instance.

The overall direction macOS is moving is not positive. The article mentions Apple wanting developers to be able to publish one app for both macOS and iOS. I'm all for developer's lives being easier, but Apple's initial marzipan apps are really, really bad. I don't want to use touch-first interfaces on a desktop...

Also, I run Windows VM’s, dual boot, do video encoding tasks that see huge benefits from a proper desktop x86 chip, etc.

...I'm not sure I care. I'll have to be careful.

I fell in love with macOS a decade ago. It is a legitimate emotional attachment; I love it more than I've ever loved any piece of software. Unfortunately, Apple is taking away more and more of what made the platform appealing.

I’m not going to outright give up macOS until it’s ripped from my cold dead hands, but I’m also not moving to ARM for all my computing.