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https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23640746

I will believe Apple if they say they officially support booting of other OSes, and will keep doing so in the future.



You mean like they supported bootcamp "officially" and then just took it away suddenly with M1? I don't see how that is different then having unofficial support and apple then locking down a new Mac. In either case you lost support with a new hardware platform.


> In either case you lost support with a new hardware platform.

If we're talking about "new hardware platforms" --- yes, any vendor or vendor ecosystem may drop support for anything at any time in future products. If ARM Ltd's next core is a mechanical abacus, it will not run Linux.


Right! So whether there's unofficial or official support. It doesn't buy you anything.


Unofficial support: you may get locked out at any time, even within that product's lifecycle.

Official support: if you get locked out within this product's lifecycle, they will have to compensate you.


Can you give a single example of a product being locked out without user intervention?


Boot Camp was always Intel-specific. There was no Boot Camp on Power Macs, and they couldn't run Windows either. MS has not made available a version of Windows on ARM for the M1 platform, either.


There is no "Windows for mac" for Intel either. Apple just added some drivers. That could be done for the M1 as well.


No it couldn't. The ARM ecosystem is a lot more fragmented than x86, and M1 does not follow the SystemReady specification (which mandates certain hardware beyond the CPUs), which means OSes need core kernel patches to support it (which is what we're doing with Linux). To run Windows on the M1 requires Microsoft's cooperation. You can't do it just by writing drivers.

This isn't new; Microsoft did it with the Raspberry Pi 3, which is also a nonstandard SoC. But it can't be done by Apple alone.


I stand corrected. Still I think if Apple approached Microsoft with we want windows on this thing that Microsoft would jump at the chance.


No it couldn’t. Microsoft doesn’t sell Windows for ARM.


How is that a problem. Microsoft would jump at the chance to run windows on M1. Make no mistake here. It's only Apple not wanting to invest in features that have existed for years.


If they would jump at it ... why is the ARM version of Windows OEM only?


Because there is no reason for it to be. Apple has made a clear statement that it won't actively support other operating systems.




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