The Windows transition to Arm just found its missing puzzle piece

By Willow Roberts Published June 14, 2024

The Windows transition to Arm has pushed forward at an impressive clip, with many of the most significant apps having built Arm64 versions. But there’s been one major holdout, even up until Microsoft’s recent Copilot+ announcement.

A little app called Slack.

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But good news — Slack has finally decided to release an Arm64 native client.

🆕 Slack is Windows on Arm ready! 🥳

Available now in beta, the ARM64 version of @SlackHQ lets you maximize performance on Arm-based hardware.

This creates the opportunity for new AI experiences running efficiently on Windows on Arm devices.

More: https://t.co/sugPixYOLr pic.twitter.com/JQqcY421FD

— Arm (@Arm) June 11, 2024

While the improvements to emulation in this new generation seem impressive, this is Slack we’re talking about. This might not sound like the end of the world, but Slack is an important communication and productivity app that people rely on every day to do their jobs, so you can bet not having a native version was annoying. The native version will hopefully deliver top-speed performance that will make the transition to Arm seamless. The beta is available now for anyone with a Windows on Arm device to try out.

The trigger that finally kicked Slack and so many others into action is the upcoming Copilot+ range of Windows on Arm products, which is set to begin the “true” Windows transition to Arm. With plenty of native apps lined up and a new emulation software that promises efficient performance, things are expected to go a lot smoother this time around.

That’s not to say there haven’t been any hiccups, though — one of the main AI features of the Copilot+ PCs, Recall, has been delayed in light of security concerns. But AI hype isn’t everything, and most people will be excited about these Windows on Arm laptops because they’ll have almost double the battery life of x64 and x86 versions. And now all the Slack addicts out there will be free to convert to Arm and enjoy those benefits too.

Computing Writer

Willow Roberts has been a Computing Writer at Digital Trends for a year and has been writing for about a decade. She has a…

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