Full Windows 10 on ARM? RIP, Windows Phone

Remember Satya Nadella’s claim about the “ultimate mobile device”? Surprise: It’s a PC, not a phone.

And yes, this means that Windows phone is officially dead. There, I said it. And my conscience is clear.

But this does not mean that Windows 10 Mobile is dead. Windows 10 Mobile is a fine-tuned mobile offshoot of full Windows 10 that also serves as the basis for such products as HoloLens and Surface Hub.

This also does also not mean that Surface phone is dead, or isn’t a thing, or whatever. But as I’ve been saying for some months now, I don’t believe that Surface phone is a phone anyway. And that it is instead a mobile device. A … Surface Mobile, if you will.

Microsoft has taken some big steps to wind down its phone business, most notably in July 2015 when it formally conceded the smartphone market to Apple and Google. Since then, the Windows community has suffered through a fan fiction in which a Continuum feature that never made sense in the first place would rise up and save the platform. After all, Windows phone and Continuum is the nexus of a mobile apps platform that does not exist combined with a PC apps platform that, wait for it, also does not exist. The worst of both worlds, if you will.

But the arrival of Windows 10 on ARM—full Windows 10 on ARM, mind you, not the Mobile version that no one uses—changes everything.

First, as noted above, Windows phone is dead. And if you’re one of the few remaining holdouts of this once-great platform, I salute you. Seriously. But it’s time to at least start thinking about the future. I personally recommend the iPhone, which I find to be superior to Android in most of the ways that really matter in day-to-day use. That said, Android is also an excellent choice, if only because you have so many options and price points. As I’ve noted in the past, Android really is the smartphone equivalent of Windows in those regards, and I can see why someone firmly invested in the Microsoft ecosystem would choose Android over iPhone. Whichever you choose, you’ll find rich app and content ecosystems, modern features and services, better performance, and other improvements. You’ll maybe even wonder why you held out so long. Trust me, I get it: I went through the same thing.

Second, and as important, I am legitimately excited by Microsoft’s ongoing embrace of the PC platform. And this move to ARM is perhaps the most exciting step yet.

Think back to my original Windows 10 review. As I wrote at the time, the most exciting thing about Windows 10 is that it signaled—still signals—Microsoft’s recalibration around traditional PC users, who make up the vast bulk of the 1.5 billion strong audience that still uses these supposedly-dead devices.

That is, with Windows 8, Microsoft had created a system that worked well with touch-first devices like tablets after a bit of training, but completely ignored and infuriated the base. And instead of over-reacting to that problem in Windows 10, Microsoft instead struck a balance and created a system that works well on all PC form factors.

“Windows 10 is ideally suited for every PC form factor imaginable: traditional PCs, yes, but also touch-first devices and, most decisively, the 2-in-1 PCs that can move between these usage modes,” I wrote at the time. “Windows 10 will make any PC—desktops, laptops, 2-in-1s, tablets, and mini-tablets, whatever—better, and that’s not something that could be said of Windows 8. I honestly didn’t think it was even possible.”

A year and a half after first shipping Windows 10, we’ve clearly had some ups and some downs. Microsoft is correctly faulted for being overly aggressive in trying to upgrade the Windows user base to this new version, for example. And they’ve likewise been a bit pushy inside of Windows 10 in trying to convince users to adopt their in-box apps over the applications customers already use and like.

But the net gains of Windows 10 are inescapable. And as Microsoft has upgraded this platform with two major updates, versions 1511 and 1607, Windows 10 has only gotten better. For everyone.

The move to ARM is another major step forward.

As Microsoft tells it, ARM has two major advantages over the Intel and compatible chipsets that have formed the basis for mainstream PCs for over 30 years: Battery life/power management and pervasive and efficient cellular connectivity, both of which are obviously key to the mobile future of the PC.

For those wondering why we can’t achieve these goals on Intel, I’ll just point to the facts: We can’t. Intel has failed and failed again trying to move its performance-focused x86-compatible chipsets into the mobile world, most notably in mid-2016 when they finally gave up on an Atom processor that was designed for smartphones and tablets. Intel, like Microsoft with Windows phone, simply ceded the market at that time, in this case to ARM, the chipset family that powers all viable mobile platforms today. And in August, Intel accepted their fate in this market by—gasp—licensing ARM.

Of course, ARM has historically had a major issue preventing it from competing in the PC space: These chipsets are completely incompatible with Intel x86, meaning that porting Windows to the platform would be a non-starter since the millions of Win32 desktop apps out there wouldn’t work. This is what sunk Windows RT, Microsoft’s first foray into porting desktop Windows to ARM. It looked like Windows. It behaved like Windows. But it could not run desktop applications, at least beyond the handful that Microsoft bundled with the system.

Well, they’re back baby. And the secret sauce to this resurgence is two-fold: The steadily-improving nature of ARM chips means that modern designs, like the upcoming Snapdragon 835, are now as powerful as Intel’s Core CPUs. And a newly developed Microsoft emulation solution allows Win32 apps and games to run—at full speed and without modification—-on this platform. It’s the Peanut Butter Cup principle, two great tastes that go together. Assuming it works as expected, this is what no compromises computing looks like.

The move to ARM won’t happen overnight. The first devices won’t appear in market until one year from now, in late 2017, and it will likely be 2018 before we see any truly viable designs. The first devices will be ultra-mobile portable PCs, which is to say notebook PCs.

That said, Mary Jo Foley reports that Microsoft will be offering Windows 10 on Qualcomm to device makers “across a variety of categories, including 6-, 10- and 14-inch categories.” So it won’t be only PCs. It will be mini-tablets, traditional tablets, 2-in-1s, and notebook/portable PCs of all kinds. Fanless PCs. Silent PCs. PCs that get hours and hours of battery life. PCs that can compete with both iPad Pro and traditional laptops.

What they won’t be is phones. But that 6-inch form factor must have some wondering. After all, the Nokia Lumia 1520 was a 6-inch design, and that did run on Windows Phone OS back in the day. Could Win32 app compatibility come to phones too?

I doubt Microsoft will deny hardware makers this opportunity, but they’ll need to use full Windows 10 on those devices, at least for the foreseeable future, and not Windows 10 Mobile. So we should now look out for any plans that Microsoft may have to bring phone features to full Windows 10. For example, the firm is going to offer cellular data access through Windows Store, and that means that ARM-based Windows 10 PCs are going to include SIM slots. Can’t they make phone calls? Why not?

This is a nice out for those of us still in mourning for Windows phone. There is a future there, a way forward, a platform that combines the best of what we love with this best of what we need. And that platform is not Windows phone. It is Windows 10.

Huzzah.