Microsoft is working on its own version of the Mac mini

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Microsoft just announced its first desktop mini-PC, and it’s powered by a surprising CPU. Project Volterra, as it’s known, is going to be powered by an ARM “flagship SoC.”

Announced during its annual Build developers conference, the mini-PC looks awesome. The space gray case reminds us of another Arm-based device, the M1-powered Mac mini. No aluminum here though, Microsoft made this case out of recycled ocean plastic.

Oh, and the mini-PC runs Windows 11. It’s not a consumer product, unfortunately, however much you want one. It’ll be sold, or maybe rented, to developers to build Arm apps and support Windows on Arm.

READ MORE: Apple Music and Apple TV apps appear on Windows 11

Maybe this could also mean Windows 11 support on the other well-known Arm-powered devices, that of Apple’s M1-powered Macs.

Apple ditched Boot Camp, which let you dual-boot into Windows when the M1 Macs arrived. Being able to develop Arm-native Windows apps might be what’s needed to bring it back.

Introducing Project Volterra… #Rad pic.twitter.com/llU73ih5A8

— Panos Panay (@panos_panay) May 24, 2022

Of course, development hardware is useless without the tools to run on it. Microsoft also announced a full end-to-end Arm-native toolchain, so developers can make native Arm apps. It includes:

• Full Visual Studio 2022 & VSCode
• Visual C++
• Modern .NET 6 and Java
• Classic .NET Framework
• Windows Terminal
• WSL and WSA for running Linux and Android apps

Microsoft says a preview of the devkit’s tools is coming “in the next few weeks.” That’s also when developers can find out how to get the Project Volterra development hardware.

Have any thoughts on this? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

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Joe Rice-Jones

Maker, meme-r, and unabashed geek with nearly half a decade of blogging experience at KnowTechie, SlashGear and XDA Developers. If it runs on electricity (or even if it doesn't), Joe probably has one around his office somewhere, with particular focus in gadgetry and handheld gaming. Shoot him an email at joe@knowtechie.com.