Apple: Windows on M1 Macs “up to Microsoft”

Jack Wilkinson

Apple M1 Macs

Apple has started to transition to using its own Silicon in its range of Mac devices, starting with the M1 chip. Apple promises substantial improvements in performance, at a fraction of the power usage.

But Apple’s move to its M1 chip has raised questions about running Windows on a Mac. Normally, a user can set up Boot Camp to natively run Windows on a Mac device, but Apple’s M1 chip does not have a Boot Camp feature.

Now, during an interview with Apple’s Craig Federighi, Senior Vice President of Software Engineering, has said that it is “up to Microsoft” if Windows can ever be natively run on M1-based Mac devices. Federighi stated that the technology is there to do it, but that Microsoft would need to licence it for it to happen.

We have the core technologies for them to do that, to run their ARM version of Windows, which in turn of course supports x86 user mode applications. But that’s a decision Microsoft has to make, to bring to license that technology for users to run on these Macs. But the Macs are certainly very capable of it.

Federighi tipped running Windows in the cloud as a potential solution to having Windows run on M1 Mac devices. An application called CrossOver can already bring the ability to run some Windows applications on Mac devices.

Would you like to be able to run Windows on Apple’s new range of M1-based Mac devices? Let us know your thoughts below!