Will Parallels die when ARM takes over?

Still no news as A12 ARM Macs are out now ...

 

The only ARM Macs I'm aware of are the DTS kits from Apple, which aren't yet made available for general use.

 

But they are out, and not hard to get for only 500$, Apple A12Z
They are already awesome, practically all programs are already working on them ...

 

Well, M1 Macs are now a reality! I have to admit I wasn't expecting a Mac Mini nor a MacBook _Pro_ at this point. Definitely curious about x64 emulation, and whether the photo/video editing is as good as hyped. I'll be watching

 

Well, it seems that we have good news and bad news. The good news is it seems that Rosetta 2 will use a different approach than the original Rosseta: instead on on-the-fly instruction translation, the new Rosetta will create an ARM-optimized version of the app ON INSTALL, so the conversion process runs only once and then the optimize version is saved on disk. According to Apple, users "won't event notice a difference" when running intel-based apps.

The bad news is that Rosetta won't be available for ever. Even so, if that level of optimisation can be achieved, maybe the folks at Parallels will be able to create an ARM version of Parallels Desktop that can deliver a decent x86 emulation. We will have to wait a little longer.

https://medium.com/nerdtastic/macos-big-sur-the-new-rosetta-2-282df45eca11

 

And now we have an official announcement!!

https://www.parallels.com/blogs/parallels-desktop-apple-silicon-mac/

Looking real good!!

 

I would like to know what the timeline is. Is there a chance parallels will be able to run Windows in the next three months or is this going to be a much longer waiting period?

 

So the important takeaway that I read in this article is Parallels is not suggesting they have a virtualization scenario ready for x64 virtual machines. My understanding is the Linux VM they demonstrated previously was ARM. It appears even with these changes that what we're going to get is ARM Windows that can potentially run x64 apps through emulation. Lots of question marks in my mind how well that will work...

 

Difference is that this time, Apple *could* add instructions to the processor to support virtualization, and mitigate this somewhat.
Whether they have, or will, remains to be seen, although there is some evidence they might have:

https://www.macrumors.com/2020/11/15/m1-chip-emulating-x86-benchmark/

There is bit of way to go before the Apple's chips are suitable for power users. Again, it remains to be seen how they will approach this: by increasing the core count or having more and more 'API on a chip'. I'd be willing to bet a bit of both - so perhaps expect a shift away from the traditional CPU competing on clock speed and core count.

All of this is exciting, if they use the opportunity to really shake up the industry, but for now developers will be clamouring to snap up the remaining Intel based Macs. Apple need to provide clarification, or they will lose a small, but important part of their market.

 

Well, official Parallels Desktop 16 with support for M1 processors is available, and it comes with a unpleasant surprise: the ONLY VERSION of windows supported is the Windows 10 ARM preview.... yes, this version of Windows 10 includes support for x86 programs, but that IS NOT what we all has been expected. I've ALWAYS used server versions of Windows as my virtualized programming machines (for several reasons, including stability and the ability to simulate more closely my customer's environments)... so, does this means that I am now doomed to keep using my venerable Mac Mini late 2012 until the end of its life and then move back to normal PCs with Windows ??? I am gonna cry

 

I really get where you are coming from. I specifically asked the question earlier, but they were rather tight-lipped about any details. I'll be honest it wasn't really a surprise -- even from the beginning, they mentioned the x86 work that Microsoft is doing in the ARM version. I took that to mean they would only support ARM O/Ss. I mean, makes sense - they're a virtualization company - running x86 would have required them to add an emulation layer, which necessarily is slower, and buggier.

I wouldn't completely lose hope, though - based on the popularity of the M1, I think we'll see more happening in the ARM space, and Microsoft perhaps coming out with a Windows Server SKU for AMD. I can't imagine technically there would be much more challenge than the consumer SKUs. Probably won't happen in the immediate future, though...

 

Based on Microsoft's efforts in making ARM64 a first-class-citizen in the Windows landscape, I'd say it's safe to assume an ARM64 Server OS will land in the not-so-distant future.


https://devblogs.microsoft.com/java/announcing-openjdk-windows-arm/

https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/18/22189450/microsoft-arm-processors-chips-servers-surface-report

Although I agree that x86_64 emulated VMs will be a huge win for those of us forced to support these architectures, I also understand that a hypervisor isn't the same as an emulator and x86_64 may never land on the M1 (except through something like QEmu).

What I do find surprising and impressive is the continued dedication to ARM64 that Parallels has shown. This week they announced a new beta of the Linux Guest Additions which offer experimental sound support (available through an early adopter program). Furthemore, the performance of the Windows on ARM has been mind blowing, considering how much resources the Intel counterpart would use, but I do agree, the usefulness of Parallels is limited to which OSs we can run, and for many, switching to M1 (or a successor) CPU is crippling until the OSs become viable.

 

Yeap. The make things worst, a friend of mine spent a month trying different Linux distros, using both VirtualBox and VMWare to virtualize a windows server, and the experience was .... well, better than we anticipated but still not great. The best result came from using KDE Neon and VMWare, but still not close to the experience of using Mac + Parallels... but I guess that being forced to choose between going back to Windows-hell in a normal PC vs a virtualized windows over linux, I would prefer to go down the Linux road.

Another possibility could be just move to a M1 Mac and buy a cheap windows PC box just for those things that can't be done on the M1. Nowadays I spent most of time programming with Angular/Ionic, so no need for a Windows machine there. The other part of my time is spent between .NET and VFP programming, and testing things on windows server, so those things can be done in the windows box, controlled by Remote Desktop or VNC from the Mac... not ideal, specially if you are continuously on the run, but its an option for more "sedentary" programmers like me.

 

Somebody, know if VFP(Visual FoxPro) run on Windows 11 ARM ?, Now that parallels can run windows 11 arm.