Delphi apps on ARM CPU?

[PeterPanettone 167]

Is there a timeline from Embarcadero for natively supporting Windows applications on the latest ARM CPUs (e.g., Surface Pro 11)?

Edited April 9 by PeterPanettone

[Lajos Juhász 316]

Yes, they will support it ASAP when they think it is good idea.

[PeterPanettone 167]

From your humorous response, I gather that Embarcadero has no timetable for supporting Delphi Windows apps on ARM CPUs and that you don't consider Embarcadero to be a serious company.

[Sherlock 681]

You should rather read that as "they will open up the next major construction site as soon as there is money and manpower available, and it will take several releases until it is usable"...and even that should be taken with a grain of salt.

[PeterPanettone 167]

2 minutes ago, Sherlock said:

money

By the way, where does the money from the license fees of millions of Delphi users go?

[dummzeuch 1621]

17 hours ago, PeterPanettone said:

By the way, where does the money from the license fees of millions of Delphi users go?

As always: Into the pockets of the parent company Idera. It's called a "Gewinnabführungsvertrag" in Germany.

 

On the other hand how do you know that there are millions of Delphi users? And more importantly: Do you know that they have paid for a license recently? Maybe 99% of these supposed millions are still using Delphi 5 or 7?

Edited April 10 by dummzeuch

[Brian Evans 117]

Microsoft has done several attempts at Windows on ARM for over a decade and they have all been total failures. Anybody who targeted it ended up wasting a lot of time and money.

 

The most recent effort does have two things previous attempts didn't: full win32 API support and the ability to run x86 binaries. That alleviates the need for application developers to produce ARM binaries until Windows on ARM gains some traction as a platform. Adding support before the platform gains some traction is unwise. We are in fool me once, fool me twice, fool me three times territory for Windows on ARM. 

 

 

[PeterPanettone 167]

10 minutes ago, Brian Evans said:

total failures

 

But this 2025 Surface Pro 11 unboxing video looks very promising:

 

 

[PeterPanettone 167]

14 minutes ago, Brian Evans said:

ability to run x86 binaries

The Windows-on-ARM emulation layer is used to run Delphi applications on a Surface Pro with Snapdragon. This emulation makes it possible to run x86/x64 programs on ARM processors, albeit with potential performance losses.

[Lajos Juhász 316]

43 minutes ago, PeterPanettone said:

From your humorous response, I gather that Embarcadero has no timetable for supporting Delphi Windows apps on ARM CPUs and that you don't consider Embarcadero to be a serious company.

It was not humorous, that what Embarcadero did communicate about the platforms and the way they do releases. The same was with the 64-bit IDE. For years it was a side project that they were testing. Then when some databases stopped shipping 32-bit client libraries they have decided it is time to ship a half-baked solution....

[Brandon Staggs 377]

2 hours ago, PeterPanettone said:

From your humorous response, I gather that Embarcadero has no timetable for supporting Delphi Windows apps on ARM CPUs and that you don't consider Embarcadero to be a serious company.

Delphi is notoriously without any public timelines. They have on occasion published very vague outlooks, but AFAIK no public roadmaps of any reasonable detail exist. During their last release webinar it was Ian, I believe, who suggested this is entirely due to Idera's policies. The old excuse about different countries having different laws about forward-looking statements was mentioned in that context, if I am not mistaken. One wonders how other technology companies with far deeper pockets (hence, bigger targets for lawyers) are able to make all sorts of roadmaps and timelines. I wouldn't blame anyone working on Delphi for the lack of a roadmap, but it's still kind of a running joke for the last decade or more...

 

Prior attempts at Windows on ARM were complete failures, but this one is obviously going to stick, and has nothing in common with Microsoft's previous attempts. I have a Snapdragon Windows PC and it's definitely "for real this time." I don't see any reason why Delphi shouldn't offer Windows on ARM as a compiler target.

Edited April 9 by Brandon Staggs

[PeterPanettone 167]

3 minutes ago, Brandon Staggs said:

AFAIK no public roadmaps of any reasonable detail exist

That's my same knowledge. And that's why I asked in the first place.

[Brian Evans 117]

1 hour ago, Brandon Staggs said:

Prior attempts at Windows on ARM were complete failures, but this one is obviously going to stick, and has nothing in common with Microsoft's previous attempts. I have a Snapdragon Windows PC and it's definitely "for real this time." I don't see any reason why Delphi shouldn't offer Windows on ARM as a compiler target.

Windows phones were for real and some were really good. I still miss them as the Windows 8 tile UI I disliked on the desktop worked great on mobile especially the live tile screen and the application list screen. Didn't save the platform when Microsoft's attention shifted to other things. 

 

The YouTube unboxing video linked earlier in the thread is actually for the Intel version of the Surface Pro 11 and is described after some limited testing as the best Surface Pro they have ever used. Not exactly a ringing endorsement of the ARM based ones.

 

Windows 11 on ARM has potential but I think it still needs to show some sustained support and take up before its worth the effort. Bit of a chicken and egg but Delphi has been burned before adding platform support early - Kylix and Delphi.net being two examples that just drained away developer resources and then were abandoned.

[PeterPanettone 167]

7 minutes ago, Brian Evans said:

drained away developer resources

I'm sorry for that.

[PeterPanettone 167]

4 hours ago, Brandon Staggs said:

I have a Snapdragon Windows PC and it's definitely "for real this time."

How are Delphi apps performing on your Snapdragon Windows PC? Is the Windows-on-ARM emulation layer slowing Delphi apps down?

Does the Delphi IDE run on your Snapdragon Windows PC?

Edited April 9 by PeterPanettone

[PeterPanettone 167]

From the Microsoft website (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/surface-arm-faq😞  

• Emulated apps run via the Prism emulation engine, which minimizes performance loss and ensures that most x86/x64 applications operate seamlessly on Arm64 systems. Users shouldn't notice any significant difference between native and emulated apps apart from potential performance variations.

Can I run Windows programs that aren't in the Microsoft Store on my Windows 11 Arm-based device?

Yes, non-Store Windows apps can be installed and run on Windows 11 Arm-based devices. Most applications run natively or through Prism emulation, providing smooth performance.

Edited April 9 by PeterPanettone

[Brandon Staggs 377]

2 hours ago, Brian Evans said:

Windows phones were for real and some were really good. I still miss them as the Windows 8 tile UI I disliked on the desktop worked great on mobile especially the live tile screen and the application list screen. Didn't save the platform when Microsoft's attention shifted to other things. 

Windows on ARM does not need to unseat two entrenched ecosystems to be successful like Windows Phone did. There is no comparison. Most of the people buying a Windows computer do not need to care if the CPU is ARM or x64. 

 

On the flip side, however, since ARM-based Windows machines run x64 apps just fine, there is no real pressure on Embarcadero to rush offering a compiler. 

[Brandon Staggs 377]

1 hour ago, PeterPanettone said:

How are Delphi apps performing on your Snapdragon Windows PC? Is the Windows-on-ARM emulation layer slowing Delphi apps down?

Does the Delphi IDE run on your Snapdragon Windows PC?

Everything I have used on my Lenovo CoPilot+ notebook runs seamlessly, including my own compiled Delphi applications. I cannot perceive any difference between it and my other laptop when it comes to running Windows applications.

 

I have not installed Delphi on it (no reason for me to do that) but keep in mind Delphi has been working just fine on Apple Silicon in Parallels for years. I imagine that the Prism emulator in Windows would not be an issue for the Delphi IDE. But I am not testing that. 

[PeterPanettone 167]

5 minutes ago, Brandon Staggs said:

Everything I have used on my Lenovo CoPilot+ notebook runs seamlessly, including my own compiled Delphi applications

Have you ever tried GDI+ Win32 apps compiled by Delphi?

[Brandon Staggs 377]

We're not talking about some stripped-down WinRT "Windows store only" operating system that doesn't run 99.99% of the software made for Windows, like the previous Windows on ARM devices. The current offering from Microsoft runs both x86 and x64 binaries and does not require the Windows Store (unless someone buys a Windows-S version of the OS, but that is also shipped on x64 and has nothing to do with ARM). The Prism emulation layer is seamless. As long as you aren't expecting to run AAA games on one, or other software requiring that kind of hardware, ARM is a viable choice, and in fact a superior choice if you need portability with energy performance.

 

This is an expansion of the Windows ecosystem because vendors now have the ability to offer hardware with far better energy performance than what x64 CPUs allowed in the past. A hardware vendor does not have to take a bet that Microsoft will succeed with a new platform -- Microsoft has owned this market for 30 years. 

 

Of course Delphi needs to offer an ARM64 compiler for Windows. And why should that be a problem? Delphi has shipped with ARM compilers for years.

Edited April 9 by Brandon Staggs

[Joseph MItzen 254]

13 hours ago, PeterPanettone said:

By the way, where does the money from the license fees of millions of Delphi users go?

There were never millions of Delphi users. That was a mistaken belief that got out of hand.

[Joseph MItzen 254]

13 hours ago, Brian Evans said:

We are in fool me once, fool me twice, fool me three times territory for Windows on ARM. 

Who's "we" though?

 

Quote

Most popular and widely used programming languages, including C#, C++, Python, Java, JavaScript, TypeScript, .NET, and Go, are fully supported for native development on Windows on ARM (WoA)

 

This is going to be another thing where the entire rest of the world does something and Embarcadero becomes the last to follow suit five or more years later (see supporting DVCS, type inference, etc.). ARM is a thing now, and it's never not going to be a thing. Samsung, HP, Asus all offer ARM laptops now, not just Microsoft.

[Joseph MItzen 254]

11 hours ago, Brandon Staggs said:

The old excuse about different countries having different laws about forward-looking statements was mentioned in that context, if I am not mistaken.

Forward-looking statements relate to investors and profitability projections and have nothing to do with software feature roadmaps. More importantly, Idera is a privately-held company so no law about forward-looking statements would apply to them!

They don't make roadmaps because in the early days they were notoriously late with everything (long before Idera bought them). They took polls to decide on the top five most-desired features and then shipped a version of Delphi that included none of them. Other things slipped past deadlines and users rightly called them out on this. That's when the road maps dried up. They just didn't want to be embarrassed anymore when they failed to deliver on time.

[Joseph MItzen 254]

10 hours ago, Brian Evans said:

Bit of a chicken and egg but Delphi has been burned before adding platform support early - Kylix and Delphi.net being two examples that just drained away developer resources and then were abandoned.

When 100% of Delphi developers were Windows users who just wanted a button they could push to cross-compile their code to Linux, they gave us a new framework and attempted to get the IDE itself to run on Linux. Linux desktop was barely even a thing then.

 

In the modern era, when nothing cool starts on Windows anymore and according to Stack Overflow's survey less than 50% of developers develop on a Windows box, they give us a cross compiler and a Windows-only IDE.

 

Delphi wasn't burned... it set itself on fire, repeatedly. It's no different from their decision that you have to pay $4,000 to target a free operating system.

[dummzeuch 1621]

10 hours ago, Brandon Staggs said:

On the flip side, however, since ARM-based Windows machines run x64 apps just fine, there is no real pressure on Embarcadero to rush offering a compiler. 

Anybody remember OS/2? They had great support for running DOS and Windows 16 bit programs. So nobody bothered to write any native OS/2 programs. Guess what happened when Windows went 32 bits? (OK, that was not the only reason for OS/2's demise, but a big part of it.)