MS beats apple to the punch with a ARM powered (full) OS
With all the rumors of Apple switching to an ARM based architecture for Mac OSX, it is funny that Microsoft already beat them to it with Windows RT.
Windows RT of course is basically Windows 8 for ARM devices. Perhaps with a ARM based Mac OSX Apple would choose to emulate x86 for older apps/programs, something MS declined to do. But still, it is impressive that Windows RT has virtually all of Windows 8’s functionality (sans legacy software compatibility) whereas Apple only has Max OSX for x86 and iOS for Arm… two wildly different OSes when it comes to functionality, file manipulation and expansion.
The end result of all of this is that PC manufacturers could for the first time ship devices slimmer/cooler-running/longer-running than anything Apple could get out of the comparatively power hungry x86 devices.
Well depends on your defintion of a full OS. Windows 8 RT is not a desktop OS (is stuck in in Metro, err “Windows 8 style” mode), sure it comes with office, but none of you traditional applications will run on it ;).
That’s a good point about Metro. But you do have full access to command prompt, explorer, file system, USB devices, SAMBA, etc.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6392/the-windows-rt-review/3
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6392/the-windows-rt-review/11
Also, I’m guessing that MS’s compilers can target either x86 or ARM? I may be wrong on that though ;-).
I didn’t know that a desktop view existed for the RT version (never got a chance to play with the MS Surface when I was at Microcenter on the Windows 8 launch day (my UPS died so I had to get a new one) as people where always crowding around it). I guess the fact that all apps must be installed via the Windows Store (no side loading until someone hacks it), and that all apps in the Windows Store really limits the usefullness of the desktop view. As for cross compiling, I’d assume Visual Studio 2012 has an ARM compiler but most likely only allows it for metro apps (though I thought they were all supposed to be JS/HTML based). I’m still using VS 2008 and VS 2010 so I can’t confirm anything in that regard.
I hear yah, most reviews/info don’t seem to mention much about desktop view etc. on Windows RT. I wish that it was possible to install apps without getting them from the Windows Store but I do understand that part of this was MS’s attempt to limit malware/viruses etc.
PS As ARM hardware advances it would be really cool to have an emulator app to run old x86 programs in a sandbox. That would get me a lot more interested in giving Windows RT a try, as it is the x86 based Windows 8 machines seem like a much more capable deal!
was supposed to be: