Which got me to wonder: what if Apple were able to introduce a "MacOS subsystem for Windows", which could run most x64 binaries for the latter platform?
The only app that keeps me from switching to my M3 MacBook full-time is Visual Studio (and Mikrotik WinBox, to some extent, but that runs just fine under Wine).
If I could run VS without tanking battery life, that would be sort-of huge...
Where would they get the ‘for Windows’ part? They would eiher have to use Wine (which isn’t 100% compatible), license Windows from Microsoft ($$$), or write their own Wine (takes time)
> If I could run VS without tanking battery life
There’s no guarantee emulating Windows would be as energy-efficient as running MacOS.
Also, if it did, that would open the door for third parties abandoning MacOS (it runs fine "MacOS subsystem for Windows”, so why would we spend time on a Mac port?), just as happened with “OS/2 subsystem for Windows” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS/2#OS/2_2.1_and_Windows_comp...)
If anything, Apple can afford to shove a few millions onto Wine. Most of the heavy lifting has already been done, you can run a lot of Windows apps with just a few issues.
The nasty exceptions tend to be anything involving DRM and anti-cheat, as well as stuff requiring interfacing with external hardware directly.
I feel old for witnessing rumour cycles start over again.
If you need the full Visual Studio experience, then another option would be the Windows/Arm64 build of Visual Studio, and run that on a virtual box.
There is no such thing. "Visual Studio for Mac" is a re-spin of MonoDevelop, and doesn't compare to the actual VS in any way, shape or form.
The closest you can get to VS-on-ARM-Mac right now is using a JetBrains IDE, but, as useful as these are, it's really no competition...
Where can I get this 'full fat' ARM build of VS? I'll settle for a Win64-ARM release, but I'll personally provision a botnet to upvote you to Mars in case you point me to an Apple-Silicon-on-MacOS DMG...
See: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/visualstudio/arm64-visual-stu...
Was attempted by Apple but abandoned ages ago, around Leopard times.
What they do nowadays is to keep good enough platform support to be able to use Wine.
I'd love to hear if this was ever more than rumour!
https://www.winehq.org/pipermail/wine-devel/2007-November/th... some remaining notes of that bizarre episode