Microsoft celebrates Windows 11 on Arm progress as users now spend the majority of their time in natively compiled apps — compatibility is no longer a concern

Windows 11 PCs powered by an Arm processor are thriving right now, with users spending 90% of their time on an Arm-based PC using natively compiled apps, a huge improvement over how things were just a short time ago.

Microsoft has published a new blog post detailing the progress that has been made when it comes to app developers supporting Windows 11 on Arm with natively compiled apps. Today, the company claims that 90% of the time on Arm-based PCs are now spent within natively compiled apps, a huge improvement over how things were just a few short years ago.

"The Arm app ecosystem continues to expand, with native Arm versions available for apps representing 90% of total user minutes, thus providing efficient, high-performance experiences across the scenarios that matter most to our customers" says Microsoft corporate vice president of customer experience engineering, Mike Adams.

Microsoft essentially rebooted Windows on Arm with the launch of Copilot+ PCs and Qualcomm's Snapdragon X range of PC chips in May last year. All the major OEMs were onboard to ship new Arm-based PCs with Qualcomm's new Snapdragon chips, with the promise that performance and efficiency was finally there and capable of competing with Apple Silicon.

That attempt to reboot Windows on Arm has seemingly been successful, as app developers across the ecosystem have finally taken the time to recompile their apps for the Arm architecture. Everything from small to major app developers have jumped on-board the Windows on Arm train, improving performance and efficiency of their apps for these Arm-based PCs.

Microsoft highlights several different categories of apps where developers have ported over to Arm, including VPN, productivity, creative, social, entertainment, and even endpoint protection and management tools.