It’s still early in the evolution of Apple Silicon. You also have the luxury of using Parallels Toolbox – a suite of useful utilities – on both macOS and Windows. It runs quickly and there’s no need to reboot to log into the other operating systems. In case you find yourself needing Windows or Linux, your best bet will be to use Parallels Desktop 16.5 on an M1 Mac. Gamers find that there are many more great games available in the Windows world. Developers often need tools that run on a variety of operating systems. In the corporate world, it’s much more common for employees to have a need to run Windows applications. Many users are happy to use just one or two operating systems – macOS and iOS/iPadOS. Now that the 2021 iPad Pros are running on the M1 system-on-chip, I’d love to see Parallels create a version of Desktop to run on iPadOS. Sadly, there’s nothing that can be done about the slow update process that is a “feature” of Windows 10. There’s something magical about having macOS, Windows 10, and Ubuntu Linux running at the same time on one machine. To download and create an Ubuntu 20.04 VM under Parallels took two minutes. To launch Parallels and then bring up Windows 10 on my M1 MacBook Air took just 21 seconds. MacOS, Windows 10, and Ubuntu Linux running under Parallels Desktop 16.5 This short video from Parallels shows just how simple it is to set up virtual machines in Parallels Desktop 16.5. In Parallels Coherence mode, Windows “disappears,” and apps appear to be regular Mac apps – perfect for a person who has used Macs for 37 years!ĭirectX 11 performance is also enhanced on an M1 Mac, with up to 60 percent better performance than on an Intel-based MacBook Pro with a Radeon Pro 555X GPU. I can vouch for that – Windows apps that were slow to load and sluggish in operation load almost instantaneously now.

Parallels says that it offers 30 percent better virtual machine performance than a Windows 10 VM running on an Intel Core i9 MacBook Pro.

How fast? On an M1 MacBook Air, it’s the fastest Windows “machine” I’ve ever used. Running the Windows 10 ARM Insider Preview under Parallels Desktop 16.5 is fast. To be honest, I’ve never felt that Windows virtual machines have offered the type of performance needed to make the Windows experience less painful. My career has made it necessary to use both Mac (preferred!) and Windows applications.

Two virtual machines-Windows and Ubuntu-ready to power on in Parallels Desktop 16.5

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