Microsoft won’t want to alienate every other Windows on ARM customer in the name of winning Mac support, especially if it believes Apple’s M1 could be the beginning of a future in which ARM slowly supplants part of the current x86 market in the long term. Apple’s ARM cores are faster than any of the mainstream ARM CPUs that other vendors ship in mobile products. On the other, none of Microsoft’s existing partners in the Windows on ARM ecosystem can match the M1’s performance. On the one hand, Apple’s M1 is easily the biggest ARM chip to break into computing and the CPU most likely to challenge x86 to the performance crown.
Microsoft is in a bit of a strained position, here. It wouldn’t be surprising to see Microsoft come back with its own explanation, especially if Redmond doesn’t really want to support Windows on ARM on Mac in the first place. I’m not accusing Apple of obfuscating the situation - I have no specific knowledge there - but it’s downright common for two companies in a tangle over support problems to claim that it’s the job of the other developer to make everything work. It’ll be interesting to see if Microsoft responds publicly or if it highlights aspects of Apple’s software ecosystem that make supporting the M1 more complicated than Apple is acknowledging.
