“Microsoft’s lazy and complacent relationship with Intel has finally come home to roost”

When you buy into a new technology, there’s often an initial frisson of excitement. I call it the “new shiny toy syndrome” and it’s akin to unwrapping presents to see what’s inside. Is this thing going to be as good as I hoped? Will it deliver what I wanted?

All too often, the initial euphoria is replaced by a sense of disappointment. The timescale for this depends on how significant the issues are, while the depth is defined by the magnitude of the problem or limitations. It’s very rare for a product not to have the “trough of despair” after the initial rush of excitement.

I’m pleased to report that the M1 Apple MacBook Air falls into the rarefied group where there has been no post-purchase regret. It’s a storming device, and I’m struck by its speed and responsiveness every time I switch to it from my 16in MacBook Pro replete with Core i9 processor and 64GB of RAM.

But one key item was missing. Parallels allows me to run Windows 10 for Intel in virtual machines, and I use it all the time on my MacBook Pro and my aged 2013 “trash can” Mac Pro. It’s an ideal environment for testing Windows software in a safe, contained fashion.

Back at the announcement of the M1, Apple mentioned that Parallels would have a new version of its product for the M1 platform. Just before Christmas, the early beta arrived with those those who had signed up for testing it.

As soon as the notification arrived, I downloaded the product and installed it. Since then there has been one major