Apple’s plan to transition its entire Mac line to “Apple silicon” (microchips that use ARM tech and other in-house developed technologies) is in full swing. Only the MacBook Pro and Mac Pro have yet to make the transition. That should be coming soon. However, there’s no “Boot Camp” support.
Apple Silicon (M.x chip) Macs sport feature called “Rosetta 2,” integrated emulation software, to enable ARM-based Macs to run Intel code. However, it doesn’t support Boot Camp, a utility that assists users in installing Microsoft Windows operating systems on Intel-based Macs.
I never use it, but Boot Camp —— is popular among folks (such as my wife) who need to run Windows software occasionally, but want to do so on their Apple device. The utility also installs a Windows Control Panel applet for choosing among different boot operating systems.
Thankfully, there are workarounds. Parallels has released Parallels Desktop 16 for Mac, and with it comes out-of-the-box support for M1 Macs. However, you should note that the software requires that you use a version of Windows designed to run on ARM processors, called Windows 10 for ARM64.
Also, as I reported today, company called Shells is developing a fully functional virtual cloud desktop aimed for use by individuals, remote workers and small businesses. However, I haven’t tried it, so can’t attest to its effectiveness.
And let’s hope that in the future Apple makes an M1-compatible version of Boot Camp.
