
Microsoft is bringing Windows 10, with desktop app support, to ARM chipsets - Tomte
http://www.theverge.com/2016/12/8/13881930/microsoft-turn-a-phone-into-a-pc-arm-continuum
======
setq
Microsoft are telling us this. When they deliver it I'll believe it.

As a Microsoft focused developer for 22 years and a windows phone user,
everything still feels like its held together by sticky tape and string at the
moment. It works but inconsistency and sometimes show stopping failures just
ruin it. As an example, Windows 10 Mail just stopped working for me for 11
hours throwing an update settings notification loop on two devices. No fast
ring here; only the stable releases. Edge is all marketing and is slow and
clunky as fuck still.

This is daily friction which kills the platform. They need to focus on quality
before promising features.

~~~
flukus
Were the background images always there in Windows 10 mail? It honestly looks
like an amateur access app from the 90's.

~~~
roryisok
I enthusiastically started using windows mail when I switched to win8, and
then discovered that file attachments were severely broken. They disappear
from emails over time, and rather than fix the problem, it was suggested that
we move a message from one IMAP folder to another to make them reappear. I
wonder if they seriously thought anyone would put themselves through that.

That said, I am still a windows phone user. Yeah, there are no apps (even less
these days, amazon and ebay actually pulled theirs from the store) but the UI
is so neat, and i like to think having fewer apps makes me more productive.

~~~
setq
Whilst bitching heavily about it earlier, I've got to be honest here. If they
fix the people, mail and calendar app bugs, which they are doing rapidly, it
destroys Apple and Google's offerings. I've only used them with an outlook.com
and office 365 account so far but it really has potential. Just please
Microsoft, don't screw it all up and feature dump too hard!

For reference I went on a six month long hiatus after using Android for about
two years and getting shafted by zero updates, via a Nokia dumb phone and now
to WP, which was where I was before the android handset. Android on a mid
range handset is a disaster worthy of it's own rant in a more appropriate
thread. My wife is always complaining about her iPhone 6s random problems like
audio disappearing and suddenly getting random impossible to delete stuff
appear in her calendar from emails and the inability to easily move music
around. There's an opportunity to kill this friction.

As for app culture, screw it. When I had a dumb Nokia I learned that it pays
to use a proper computer for anything serious so I run the phone as a music
player, a phone and casual email/calendar device and nothing else.

eBay app was awful. The android one is no better - falls over all the time.

~~~
pjmlp
The developer experience is miles ahead of Android, even when looking at the
phone/store split they had on 8.x.

The only downside was having accelerated graphics only available as pure COM
instead of WinRT components, but even there the situation is improving.

~~~
hashhar
The best thing I love about Windows development after coming from playing with
Java and Android is the power and flexibility and saneness (is that a thing?)
of XAML and WPF. And even the C# language is very much compared to Java.

------
reynoldsbd
I don't understand all the hate here. Either it will work well or it won't,
and the market will decide if it gets to live or die. For a company with
resources like Microsoft that has its fingers in so many corners of the
market, this seems like a workable, if inelegant, business strategy.

I am much more interested in the technical details of such technology. How are
they doing this? Is it pure emulation? JIT transpilation? Does .NET CIL have
anything to do with making this "emulation" easy?

~~~
bhauer
This announcement provides a bit of credibility to the suspicion that
Microsoft has been wanting to make a "Surface Phone" device for some time, but
was delaying until the right pieces were in place. It is possible they had
been working with Intel's Broxton and that chip's cancellation required
returning to the drawing board, so to speak.

But it seems likely, to my mind, that what we see today—x86 emulation on a
Snapdragon—materialized because Microsoft wants to deliver full Windows 10 on
a phone-sized device and Intel wasn't able to give them the necessary
platform.

Emulation may be inelegant, but the video [1] confirms performance that would
be "good enough" (oh how I hate that phrase) for many users.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_GlGglbu1U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_GlGglbu1U)

~~~
nailer
If it works, how usable would a desktop app run on a phone? I think Microsoft
would intend to do this for tablets (which need longer battery life than what
Intel provides) rather than a Surface Phone.

~~~
roryisok
A desktop app would probably be tricky to use on a phone _screen_ , but the
big idea here is that you can connect the tiny computer in your pocket to a TV
or a monitor and have it work _just like a laptop_ , with no OS restrictions.

------
mhomde
I'm more than a little confused about MS "mobile" strategy. Continuum sounds
like a good idea, in theory. For enterprise I can kinda see it be attractive
to just give your employees mobile phones and hook the office up with
continuum docks. But it seems problematic in more than one aspect. For
starters it's based on the fact that people are going to want to use a windows
mobile as their primary device to start with.

MS could have been there, in fact they almost _were_ there, but they've let
the mobile side drift aimlessly to the point were neither vendors nor third-
party developers have any faith left in their mobile efforts. I could never
wrap my head around how strategically MS could just let mobile go and not take
the fight. It seems so integral to so many other efforts.

Another problem, is continuum really a good idea for anything else than niché
scenarios? I have trouble coming up with use-cases. A laptop you can bring
with you to meetings, on planes etc. With continuum you need a lap dock for
that.. but then you have a sub-par laptop _and_ a phone.

I guess if I were travelling it could be nice to just bring a mobile and
connect it to a setup at a co-working space. But is carrying a dell xps 13
around really such a big deal? and what if I want to use a computer outside of
the co-working space/office?

Then we have x86 apps on the mobile platform. There's been a lot of people
wanting to see "Desktop" apps on mobile... I can understand that from a
"continuum as a computer" perspective, if you buy into the continuum premise,
but I can't see x86 software ever work well on a mobile form factor with the
battery limits and UI challenges that comes with that.

So what is Microsoft's plan, now it seems they're just throwing stuff on the
walls and to see what sticks. I'm a bigger UWP and .Net proponent than most,
but I wish Microsoft would get their shit together and start executing across
the board.

There's a bunch of stuff in UWP that could make the windows platform larger
than the sum of its parts if you are in the ecosystem. Roaming settings/files,
Notification mirroring and synchronization, universal apps, continuum,
continue on another device etc etc. But it requires that there actually is an
viable windows mobile that people wants to buy.

~~~
drawnwren
My personal take away from your critique is that the problem is not just the
computer. We also need a mobile display solution. Whether MS thinks they have
that solved with their coming AR devices or they are looking farther down the
pipe, I'm not sure.

I think MS's plan right now is to not have a plan. Many of their products
point to them thinking that we are at a point where computers are making a
fundamental shift in the way we interact with them (Surface, AR, this) but not
necessarily being sure where the shift is going.

~~~
WorldMaker
Miracast is a Windows 10 supported mobile display solution with increasingly
surprising ubiquity. You currently can't expect every hotel room TV to support
it yet, but a generic Miracast stick (or Amazon Fire stick if you want a
branded one) can be obtained pretty cheaply and is small and easy to tote
around.

Microsoft has a folding bluetooth keyboard that fits in my pocket and is
surprisingly nice to work on despite the size.

Keyboard, stick, phone, phone charger is just about all I need to be
productive, and with a bit of arrangement I can fit all of that in carpenter's
jeans pockets.

I think MS has several plans in motion but has been slow to get all of the
moving parts in place. The Creator's Update and "Redstone 3" to follow sounds
like some of those plans are finally starting to converge (now that the basic
infrastructure is in place).

~~~
RandomOpinion
Intel also has their Compute Stick devices for people who need a full x86 PC
in the same form factor. They're surprisingly inexpensive.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Compute_Stick](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Compute_Stick)

~~~
WorldMaker
I think we've definitely hit a Gibson's Law inflection point here: the future
is clearly already here and we can definitely see it; it's just very unevenly
distributed right now.

------
no1youknowz
As soon as I saw Ubuntu Edge back in 2013, I have been dreaming of the day
something like Continuum is a reality and not just for Windows. For Linux and
MacOS as well.

Hopefully, it's not to far off now.

~~~
notadoc
Greatly agreed. Being able to dock a phone and turn it into a fully
functioning desktop is a phenomenal idea and feels like the natural
progression.

I don't think we'll ever see that with the Mac though unfortunately, and I
suspect Apple would never introduce a cursor and windowing system into iOS
either.

~~~
criddell
It's a neat idea, but I think it's an idea ahead of it's time still. There
have been docking laptops forever and even that doesn't seem to have taken the
world by storm.

My PC is configured with terabytes of slow storage, gigabytes of fast storage,
a fast CPU, a fast GPU, and applications that need lots of storage and a fast
video card and big screens. I'm unconstrained on size and power consumption
and optimized for performance and my efficiency.

Meanwhile, my phone makes all kinds of compromises in order to be small and
run all day on a single charge.

If being able to dock a phone is a good idea, why not go one step further?
Make a watch that's your PC. When you sit down at a keyboard and monitor at
Starbucks, it pairs with your watch and you get to work. Make the phone be
nothing but a remote speaker, microphone, and display for your wrist computer.
Your desktop is just a remote keyboard, mouse and display.

~~~
pjmlp
> It's a neat idea, but I think it's an idea ahead of it's time still. There
> have been docking laptops forever and even that doesn't seem to have taken
> the world by storm.

Probably not the world, but the customers I deal with, surely yes.

Laptops with docking station have been my work tool since 2006.

~~~
criddell
I'm not saying the market doesn't exist, just that it's probably not going to
take off.

I too use a dock (or port expander) but haven't had a lot of luck since I
started moving to high-dpi displays a few years ago. Do you have a laptop that
can drive a couple of 4k displays?

~~~
imtringued
The latest macbook pro can drive 2 4k displays per USB C port.

[https://www.startech.com/AV/Converters/Video/thunderbolt-3-t...](https://www.startech.com/AV/Converters/Video/thunderbolt-3-to-
dual-displayport~TB32DP2)

I don't know if apple fixed the incompatibility problem with older thunderbolt
3 devices though.

------
FlyingSnake
> Microsoft’s dominance in PCs means it’s the only company likely to pull it
> off at scale.

Try they might, but it's not going to work of you don't have another piece of
the puzzle i.e. Mobile.

Microsoft is so much out of the mobile game, no matter what it's gonna do on
PC, it'll not work. The windows phone is dead as a dodo, and they've nothing
to show on mobile.

It'll take extraordinary efforts to get their continuum working on
Apple/Google walled gardens.

This will fizzle out soon, not because of the technical merits, but due to App
Store politics.

~~~
ianai
I don't think you can count Microsoft out of entering a market. They have the
capital to startup and launch in probably any industry, including big pharma.
I also think it'd be dangerous for Apple or google to count Microsoft out.
Furthermore the economist in me wants to see many more options in the IT
industry than just 2-3 so adding one more is welcome.

~~~
tluyben2
> They have the capital to startup and launch in probably any industry,

They tried that more than a few times and failed. X-box worked, but portable
music players, mobile and search would be things they pumped massive amounts
of money into and didn't get very far with.

But yes, I would like choice above all. I am not a big Windows fan, but
Android is really starting to annoy me and iOS (or at least the rules around
iOS) is too limited for what I do with computers/phones/tablets.

~~~
UK-AL
Bing has 30-40% of the market for search. Remember lots of search engines are
just rebranded bing.

~~~
euyyn
This [https://www.searchenginejournal.com/august-2016-search-
marke...](https://www.searchenginejournal.com/august-2016-search-market-
share/172078/) says Google is 80% on desktop, higher if you count mobile too
(for which it is 95%).

Oh, if you mean US only then these other people
[https://www.statista.com/statistics/267161/market-share-
of-s...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/267161/market-share-of-search-
engines-in-the-united-states/) say Google is 64%, yeah.

------
sdegutis
Wow. It just clicked:

We could have a future where your personal computer fits easily in your
pocket, you can carry it everywhere you go, and you just plug it into whatever
monitor & keyboard & mouse you happen to be near by, whether it's in a coffee
shop, at work, at home, on an aeroplane, anywhere!

It's almost kind of the return of the mainframe & terminal. Your OS & apps
would be installed on your device, and your data would primarily be on your
device but also backed up in the cloud.

This is one of the first computer-based innovations I'm actually excited about
in like 15 years. Count me hopeful.

~~~
mikestew
_It 's almost kind of the return of the mainframe & terminal._

Man, I hate to be Mr. Pedantic here, but with mainframes/terminals all of the
processing and data storage took place on a machine you couldn't see and
(probably) didn't control. Which is the exact opposite of having the machine
in your pocket.

When really what we're asking for is better OS and device support for
peripherals. If an iPad had mouse support, I'd have little need for a MBP save
running Xcode.

~~~
cJ0th
> Man, I hate to be Mr. Pedantic here, but with mainframes/terminals all of
> the processing and data storage took place on a machine you couldn't see and
> (probably) didn't control. Which is the exact opposite of having the machine
> in your pocket.

To be fair, much of the processing and data storage is going on in the cloud.

------
ralmidani
I believe I have a right to computing freedom, and actively try to use free
software on my personal computer and on servers I develop on and deploy to. I
have EOMA68 laptop and desktop housings[0] coming, hopefully in the spring. I
am also about to build a server with a motherboard that is supported by
Libreboot[1] and processors that work fine without microcode updates.

I use Android phones and tablets, but as long as they have non-free
components, I will never accept the "convergence" paradigm. If I can't have
freedom all of the time, at least I won't surrender it all of the time.

[0] [https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-
desktop](https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop)

[1][https://libreboot.org](https://libreboot.org)

~~~
gshulegaard
Just curious, did you support the Ubuntu Edge effort a couple years back? Why
or why not?

[https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ubuntu-
edge#/](https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ubuntu-edge#/)

I ask because my perspective is that the convergence effort started a long
time ago...perhaps as early as Canonical's original controversial release of
the Unity desktop...and these efforts by larger players are more or less
followers (albeit higher powered followers with larger market reach).

This being the case, I actually support the "convergence"
paradigm...particularly Ubuntu's efforts but even from players like
Microsoft...since I see convergence as a way of cracking open (to some extent)
the walled gardens mobile devices have become.

But I wonder if there is some part of the Ubuntu Edge that was "closed" and I
didn't notice.

~~~
gyigdjjlpp
I think the opposite.

Microsoft has a "legacy" on x86 that its open and standardized. Once it moves
to ARM, all bets are off (see surface).

I wonder if I'm going to be able to install Linux on a "PC" in ten years

~~~
my123
They standardized ARM with UEFI and ACPI. All bets are not off, Secure Boot
was defeated :)

------
alkonaut
Complete change from just a few years ago when they seemed hellbent on turning
my computer into a smartphone!

------
joeax
I know I'm in the minority but I tried out Windows Phone for a couple years
and loved the interface and the experience. But the app store/vendor lock-in
is its achilles heel and ultimately its undoing. When I bought my phone I was
betting that more app developers would go HTML5 web apps (and break up the,
but the opposite happened, and I felt like I was on the outside looking in
with my iOS/Android friends.

I do feel a phone/PC convergence is inevitable, x86 emulation on ARM is the
future, and web-based mobile apps will make a comeback, but that day seems far
off.

~~~
swiley
Why bother with emulation? The only app I use with any amount of regularity
that doesn't run well on arm is spotify.

EDIT: I forgot you where talking about windows, still, if you stick to open
source *nix stuff then you really don't have this problem.

------
jarjoura
Hmm, x86 emulation on ARM is the most interesting nugget. No one here thinks
Windows Phone will be back in any serious capacity and that brand is pretty
much finished.

Looks like this will run similar to how Apple got PowerPC apps running on
early Intel Macs. Emulated just enough to cross the bridge to the Intel bits
so that performance wasn't completely unusable. You could really run Adobe
Photoshop, which would have been unthinkable if it was full emulation.

Question for this effort, is this Microsoft revisiting Surface Books that are
running on ARM chips?

~~~
wlesieutre
My hunch is a Surface Phone that can hook up to a larger screen and become a
full computer, but I'm not sure how that would work if you ever need data
that's in a win32 app while you're mobile. Guess it could run a desktop like
you can use VNC/RDP apps on phones, let you pan and zoom around?

Not a great experience, but then again, touch input on the Windows desktop on
the whole Surface line is occasionally janky when you have poorly compatible
software, so that's nothing new.

~~~
scholia
_> ever need data that's in a win32 app while you're mobile_

Your data is assumed to be in the cloud, or on your SD card. If not, you do
what we did roughly 20 years ago from (pre-smartphone) PocketPC handhelds:
used RDP.

This was so much fun, you remembered to stick it on a ComnpactFlash card for
next time ;-)

------
carsongross
Pour a little out for the Friendster of this concept:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OQO](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OQO)

------
TazeTSchnitzel
So, Microsoft finally solved the Windows on ARM puzzle.

Did it take them more than five years to write an x86 emulator, or did they
only decide to try this after Windows RT had failed?

~~~
reitzensteinm
On a Microsoft scale, it's always been trivial to write, I think it has a lot
more to do with the gap in phone vs laptop performance shrinking
significantly. Mainly because laptops have been stagnant.

Using any kind of desktop software on a 2011 mobile phone would have been
horrible, even if the ARM translation were free.

~~~
gsnedders
Doing it well while either obtaining patent licenses or avoiding patents,
however, could make it non-trivial.

------
runeks
Does it really make sense to reuse hardware, optimized for low power usage,
when ample power is available? Why not use a real PC in the office, when all
the data is in the cloud anyway? I think this is a neat trick, but I don't see
the purpose.

~~~
criddell
What else can Microsoft do? Without this, there's really no mobile strategy
except to support users and developers on Android and iOS (which isn't a
terrible strategy).

------
raminonstuff
Wow I just did a quick search here and found zero references to the word
"Internet"! Nobody mentions the IoT.

Internet of Things is and will be running on ARM CPUs, ARM GPUs, ARM Display,
ARM Video, etc. Not having your major OS on ARM means you are behind Android,
behind iOS, behind Linux, behind IoT and basically behind the world...

Have you seen Windows 10 IoT Core? [https://developer.microsoft.com/en-
us/windows/iot](https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/iot)

Some companies have already been making ARM microprocessors for Windows 10 IoT
core for a while now.

This one for example runs it:
[https://www.pine64.org/?page_id=3707](https://www.pine64.org/?page_id=3707)

~~~
raminonstuff
I am waiting to see the MacBook Pro run on ARM with 10x more battery life :)

~~~
andy_ppp
Or my preference with 32 cores; some for power efficiency and some for battery
life.

------
nickhalfasleep
I can't wait:

C:\Program Files\

C:\Program Files (x86)\

C:\Program Files (ARM)\

~~~
frik
I can't wait:

    
    
      C:\Program Files\
      C:\Program Files (x86)\
      C:\Program Files (ARM)\
      C:\Program Files (ARM64)\

~~~
my123
On ARM64, C:\Program Files\ is used for native. and the normal (x86) path for
WoW.

------
xutopia
Although for my use cases a phone will most likely never be fast enough I can
see this working for a large majority of end users.

As someone in my office just said: "This is like saying 'of course shoes need
laces'".

~~~
ebiester
As a developer, I think I'm damn close to being able to work on a phone's
processing power. The biggest problem is driving large enough monitors at this
point, but most of my work can be handled via SSH when speed is an issue.

~~~
tracker1
On my windows desktop, at least half the time, I am using an SMB share in my
Linux VM to use a gui editor in windows (love VS Code), and have a few SSH
terms in conemu connected to the same VM for running stuff. On mac, I managed
to do fine locally against iTerm2. I tend to deploy against linux so this is
the least friction for me.

I was actually fine with a chromebook a couple years ago, but couldn't get it
to work with the VPN at work... So went back to an mbp. A lot of people do
fine with this level of device (hence the chromebooks). I think the real shift
will be in terms of integration without friction, which MS has a poor track
record of, and most developers in general do poorly with.

Who knows though.

------
ChicagoDave
If the email and calendar apps of Win 10 Mobile aren't are seamless and simple
as the iOS apps, it's a non-starter. The current apps look like they're from
1999 and are horrible when you have multiple accounts.

There are probably about 1000 apps that MS would need to make sure are in
their own app store for any new Surface Phone to survive, plus continuum, plus
"something else".

I personally think they need to dump the tiles and mimic the UX of iOS/Android
and just admit that's what people like and are comfortable with.

------
deelowe
I wish them the best of luck. This could be big if it works well.

------
brilliantcode
I wonder what their end user is here. Android is clearly the winner which
Windows Phone has lost to.

Perhaps they are aiming for productivity based use that requires windows
toolsets? Sort of like a Bring Your Own Work Device to work that will
inherently tie the worker beyond the office?

~~~
tdb7893
If they released a windows phone that connects to monitors and has the basic
word processing and web browsing capabilities I would definitely consider
buying one. Also as long as monitors and everything aren't very expensive I
could see them eating part of the market for chromebooks and tablets

~~~
brilliantcode
I think Surface Pro + ARM Processor + Cellular Connectivity will be the
ultimate portable development environment.

I think bouncing off on your idea of the windows phone, it'd be a crazy win if
you at the end of the day, you didn't have to carry a big laptop bag, but you
could carry it in your back pocket.

maybe we don' even need monitors or keyboards. it could be VR or AR even....!

------
ak217
Ironic that instead of working on establishing a proper mobile software
platform, Microsoft is spending enormous resources on escaping the Intel
ecosystem just as Intel is finally getting a handle on pushing its x86 line
into smartphone power consumption territory.

~~~
RandomOpinion
> _Intel is finally getting a handle on pushing its x86 line into smartphone
> power consumption territory._

Intel cancelled their smartphone x86 chip in April.

[http://www.anandtech.com/show/10288/intel-broxton-sofia-
smar...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/10288/intel-broxton-sofia-smartphone-
socs-cancelled)

Perhaps they'll re-enter the smartphone market but it's unlikely to be anytime
soon.

------
chiefalchemist
Make this platform "extendable" \- a la Motorola and Moto Z Droid - and MS
might be on to something. It's silly how much redundant hardware each of us
own.

It's then just a matter of apps. If that's dev once for all Win 10, then the
future looks bright.

~~~
raminonstuff
You know what I don't get is why on Earth do game publishers and console
manufacturers like Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo get in the way of people's
creativity. This arcane idea of make a big huge console and filter the hell
out of content on it is like prehistoric now. Ok, yo don't want spam, virus or
stuff like that but I don't get why these companies don't just let go. Why
make yourself a bottleneck!? Look at Google's ranking method. The more a page
is liked the higher it appears when doing a search. Wouldn't it be funny if
Google said, no "submit" your pages to us and we will review which ones should
be listed on our search engine!? That's what these old school console
ecosystems are doing. Make a 100% open ecosystem, make it not depend on a
particular hardware or operating system and let people create. It's like you
know depending on hardware is a limiting factor, you know depending on a
particular OS is a limiting factor, you know manual filtering of content is a
limiting factor. What do people want!? As a player I want a game streaming
service, as a developer I want a multiplayer networking service to build my
game on. The rest is history... Why not just build the infrastructure, relief
yourself from all that stuff like H/W, O/S, etc. (make it someone else's
pain). Why!?

~~~
chiefalchemist
It's kinda a twist on razors v razor blades. There's profit in power. And as
much as VCs and such rave about disruption, there are just some fights they're
afraid to pick.

------
faragon
Good news. I never imagined to buy a "Windows Phone", but if they do that, and
provide a good "restore" system (i.e. easy recover of a non-booting phone via
USB), I would be glad of using one, so I can avoid traveling with a laptop
(e.g. using the phone on hotel TVs with Bluetooth keyboard would be very
convenient).

I hope Android provide an equivalent thing. For me a simple dual boot of e.g.
an Ubuntu read-only image stored in the SD card or similar would be enough for
my needs, if MHL/HDMI-Out, USB OTG, and Bluetooth work properly.

~~~
tracker1
It could get _very_ interesting... most of the profits from phones seem to be
the "storage" differentiation on overpricing the extra storage... I don't
think I could get by with a desktop with less than 128gb of open space...
though RDP and SSH access could offset this a lot. Wonder if I can manage to
get cifs sharing over ssh tunnel.

------
hitr
Though there are many negative comments here,I think this is going to be huge
for win for many if they deliver the mobile part decently. At least if they
port windows phones basic apps as it is (caller,messages,email etc),I will
give it a try -You have a decent working portable machine with amazing battery
life \- You can domain join your phone and you will be able to access your
internal apps -Continuum will be anyway present so you can attach to other
devices

------
hawski
Licensingwise where is the difference between x86 software emulation, x86
hardware assisted emulation and new x86 processor? What I get from this is
that they will do user mode emulation like qemu-user. Either way they will
emulate it in software. If they would add a co-processor that would assist the
emulation, would it need a license from Intel? I understand if it would run as
a normal x86 core it would require it.

------
protomyth
I really gotta wonder if this was a long term plan or in response to Intel
leaving MS in the lurch with the changes to x86 strategy on mobile or a bit of
both.

~~~
scholia
Clearly a long-term plan because Microsoft wouldn't have been able to do it so
quickly.

Also, Intel did not leave Microsoft in the lurch: Intel left Intel in the
lurch.

It made no difference at all to Microsoft, which already had Windows on ARM
smartphones and tablets. It didn't even lose any revenue, because Windows is
free on small screen devices.

~~~
protomyth
I think it screwed up Microsoft's original Surface Phone strategy if the tech
press is to be believed.

~~~
scholia
You're worrying about ill-informed speculation about a hypothetical product?
;-)

~~~
protomyth
No, I'm worrying about a strategy that would have been a bit easier to
implement. I have about as much belief in the hypothetical nature of a Surface
Phone as people had about an Apple Phone. An intel chip would have made much
more sense for Microsoft.

~~~
scholia
No, it wouldn't. Microsoft's long term preference is to move to sandboxed apps
downloaded from the Windows Store.

If you're running Windows 10 on a smartphone with an Intel chip then you're
potentially leaving yourself open to badly-written Win32 programs that can
have devastating effects on performance, security and battery life.

If you're only going to allow UWP apps then it doesn't matter whether it's a
ARM chip or an Intel chip.

In passing, OEMs can already make and sell Intel-based smartphones and tablets
with free Windows 10. However, Intel-based phones like the Asus ZenPhone
weren't successful, which is why Intel dropped the new Atom SoCs for phones
and tablets....

------
chx
I have been expecting a single central computing unit which serves as a phone,
docked to a living room computer serves as a media player and gaming console
for about two decades now (I believe my first article in Hungary's biggest
computer monthly outlining this vision was published in 1998). Eventually it
will happen. It's too logical not to.

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veeragoni
Does this mean I can install Windows 10 on my 820 chip android phone as a
custom ROM. someone from XDA should take a look into it and build a windows 10
ROM for my Axon 7 which have 820 chip

~~~
vxNsr
From the article it sounds like this will only work with the next gen CPU ,
835 not current 820/1

------
bitmapbrother
Did they mention battery life? I can only wonder how much battery life will
take a hit with emulation especially when you're trying to make the emulated
app as performant as possible.

~~~
petecox
Probably not great but I'd envisage running 'legacy' x86 desktop programs on a
phone typically when 'docked' on mains power with external screen(s), a mouse
and external keyboard.

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soyiuz
I would love for a linux distro to target exactly this use case.

~~~
pritambaral
Did you hear about the Ubuntu Edge fundraiser?

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joe_momma
This is the future but even better if it were without wires...

~~~
artursapek
I'm starting to lose hope about losing wires. I use them whenever I can
because wireless solutions tend to be spotty and eat lots of battery power.
Are people optimistic that we'll ever truly get rid of wires?

~~~
eropple
I think latency-sensitive or quality-sensitive applications are pretty much
always going to require wires at _some_ level of tolerance. I'm barely willing
to put up with my Bluetooth headphones when I'm exercising; h.264-blocky and
lagging displays is no bueno. And maybe there's a technological solution we
haven't yet explored, but a lot of this strikes me as kind of core to "these
aren't just wires that light up, we're decoding radio waves and have to do a
bunch of logic to make them comprehensible".

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dfarts
That's a pretty smart move.

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mythrwy
Whether you like it or not...

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jmsmistral
Sorry Microsoft... No one cares

