In what will be good news for early-adopters of Windows 10 on ARM PCs, Microsoft is now accepting 64-bit ARM apps (ARM64) on its Microsoft Store. This means that developers can now recompile their existing UWP or Win32 apps as ARM64 by using the freshly released Visual Studio 15.9.
Windows 10 on ARM, which is a 64-bit OS (unlike Windows 10 Mobile) couldn’t really reach its full potential by running 32-bit ARM apps or emulated Win32 apps. As you may know, the first generation of Windows 10 on ARM PCs have been criticized for their performance issues, especially when running popular apps like Google Chrome. Fortunately, a Qualcomm exec recently revealed that Google Chrome could be recompiled for the ARM architecture around the second half of next year.
It’s now up to developers to recompile their apps so that they can run natively on Windows 10 on ARM, and that could take some time depending on the demand for Windows 10 on ARM PCs. HP, Asus and Lenovo were the first PC manufacturers to launch Windows 10 on ARM PCs earlier this year, but newer devices have been released this Fall, such as the Samsung Galaxy Book2.
“This news comes at a great time, as this holiday season, our partners Lenovo and Samsung are offering new Windows 10 on ARM devices featuring the Qualcomm Snapdragon 850 processor, emphasized Marc Sweetgall, Senior Program Manager, Windows Kernel Team. “These second-generation ARM64 devices provide even more computing power for developers to tap into while continuing to deliver the beyond-all-day battery life customers expect from Windows 10 on ARM,” he added.
