What you need to know
- Qualcomm has announced during its IFA 2024 press conference that another big gap has been plugged with support for Windows on Arm.
- Later this year, Google Drive will be updated for native ARM64 support on Windows, allowing Snapdragon X series laptops access for the first time.
- This follows Google’s recent update of the Chrome browser to support Snapdragon-powered laptops.
It’s another big news day for Windows on Arm, as during the same event as the new 8-core Snapdragon X Plus was announced, another big holdout app was confirmed to be on the way.
No, it isn’t the long awaited arrival of Adobe Premiere Pro, but it’s probably more useful to more people.
Google Drive will be updated to support Windows on Arm later this year, as confirmed by our man on the ground, Zac Bowden.
This is a pretty big deal, and comes off the back of Google’s recent update of the Chrome browser to support ARM64 natively on Windows. Google Drive can, of course, be accessed through a web browser, but the desktop app is far more useful for heavy users.
Once installed it integrates into the system as OneDrive does, allowing you to access files, back up folders, set offline access and such, all from within the stock Windows File Explorer. It’s just better, so major thanks to Google for finally getting it done. Personally, I prefer to use Google Drive over OneDrive, so I’m glad to see another roadblock to an ARM future is out of the way.
This isn’t the only news from Qualcomm today, of course. Besides the announcement of the new Snapdragon X Plus variant, we’ve got the first devices with it inside from ASUS and Dell. We’re also teased that it will be coming to “high performance” desktop PCs at some point soon™.
Given how good the first generation of Snapdragon X series chips are, the future really is bright for Windows PCs right now. A third player means added competition, and with competition comes innovation. And I’m here for it.