Best Windows on Mac Options

[Turboladdade]

That's a good point about VirtualBox, which I find to be nice for free software but can be buggy and not very user-friendly.

For what it's worth Apple is now warning Catalina users that kernel extensions will soon be disabled in the next version of macOS (this is the same message they gave 32bit apps before they phased those out).

[chasm]

So now that we know that Intel Macs are to be slowly phased out, this subject is worth revisiting.

In the time since this thread was first posted, many of the most commonly used windows apps have already found their way into native Mac apps including most of the important Microsoft apps and all Google apps. In other cases, equal and sometimes superior alternatives exist on the Mac or iOS platform, but there are still some notable exceptions, such as (proper) Quicken.

Over the years, Parallels has developed into a really terrific program for allowing people to run Windows apps seamlessly in a Mac environment without having to switch over to Boot Camp. For most uses outside hard-core gaming, this more than suffices.

There is zero doubt in my mind that companies like parallels will develop Windows virtualization for Apple Macs. Microsoft already has Windows running on ARM chips for its surface line, so it’s not impossible. Plus, Apple Macs have a path for virtualization, as seen demonstrated for Linux in the developer videos from WWDC. The core of macOS in Apple Max is still UNIX, just as it has been, and Apple will be including a technology called “Rosetta 2“ that appears to emulate Intel’s chips well enough that existing solutions will likely be able to run for years to come with only minor tweaking.

There is also the possibility that the vastly increased speed and graphics of Apple Macs with future Apple Silicon chips in them may lure more Windows developers to the Mac platform, just as the last transition to Intel did.

In short, I don’t think there’s too much to worry about regarding Windows apps on Macs, even though the audience that requires this is diminishing.

[Turboladdade]

These days I think it's best to just avoid virtualization all together from an end-user standpoint. It only makes sense these days in a development environment, using something like Vagrant.

The most common app I hear requested that has no Mac version is Visio. I use OmniGraffle instead whenever I need to create flowcharts (rare).

[chasm]

These days I think it's best to just avoid virtualization all together from an end-user standpoint. It only makes sense these days in a development environment, using something like Vagrant.

The most common app I hear requested that has no Mac version is Visio. I use OmniGraffle instead whenever I need to create flowcharts (rare).

Some great suggestions there. Omni is a great software company with loads of useful stuff.

I concur that the vast, vast majority of people not trying to do serious gaming (and this is an area that may change under Apple (Silicon) Macs in the future) can find what they need (outside of a handful of notable apps) without having to go the virtualization route. If Intuit would ever grow three brain cells, they’d make a mint off Mac users who feel that they “need” Quicken or some other specialized accounting program that the Mac platform currently lacks, but as with office-type needs there isn’t as much of a disparity as there used to be (YMMV on that, I’m not an accountant).

In the past 10 years, I have personally not needed to go into Windows virtualization at all (though there were a few occasions where it would have been a bit more convenient, just to “see” where the tools I need to help Windows users are located for example). My company issued me a Lenovo Thinkpad so I could be up-to-speed on Win 10 and the major programs thereof, but I actually prefer Office and Outlook (on the rare occasions I need to use them) on my iPad or Mac, since they take advantage of Apple technologies that in some cases the Windows version doesn’t have or implements differently. The Thinkpad is a decent machine and Win 10 is certainly my favourite version of Windows, but ... anything complex still takes more steps in Windows than Mac IME, and while I am proficient in both environments the “system management” of Windows still requires more time than it does on a Mac, and relies more heavily on third-party solutions to achieve peak efficiency. Again, YMMV but that’s my experience.