The rumor: An exclusivity deal between Microsoft and Qualcomm has prevented Windows from running on more ARM computers, according to XDA Developers.
- Up until now, the only PCs that could run windows on ARM chips were powered by Qualcomm
- Microsoft and Qualcomm have reportedly been in this exclusive deal for some time, but “that deal is set to expire soon” (an exact date is not currently known)
- This could explain why Windows (via Boot Camp) has been unavailable on Apple Silicon Macs thus far
Our take: As someone who owns a MacBook Pro with M1 Max inside and also games, I was incredibly excited to install Windows on my new Mac…until I learned that Boot Camp and Windows support broadly just doesn’t exist right now. Sure, there are way to virtualize Windows…but performance is never as good as it could be. I really hope Microsoft and Apple work together so that Windows can run natively on M1 chips sometime next year.
