Recently, Apple approved a new emulation app called UTM SE that allows your iPhone or iPad (or Vision Pro!) to impersonate PC hardware and run genuine computer desktop operating systems. Some of you asked in the comments section of my last article how it works, a fair question that I wasn’t able to answer at the time. But now that I’ve tried it out a bit, I have answers, and I can say this: it’s better than I expected, but I wouldn’t count on it too much.
This is because it doesn't use a just-in-time (JIT) compiler, which translates software into code your device understands before running it. JIT compilers go against Apple's software guidelines for the App Store, so you'd have to jailbreak your phone to install an app. UTM version that uses the technique.
UTM SE will generally be slow on an iPad for anything other than running older operating systems on older hardware, but XP runs surprisingly well, and UTM offers Lots of documentation For a start.
I tried it on my M1 iPad Pro, a device I always wished could do more than it does. Creating a virtual machine to run Windows on is especially easy if you use one of the UTMs pre-built machinesthat you can download and modify. I grabbed this one and gave it more RAM and storage, but otherwise used it as it came. Then, I pointed it to a Windows XP .iso file from the IDE Drives option in that machine's settings and booted it. And waited. For a long time.
My iPad took two and a half hours to complete the installation. But in the end, I was able to enjoy the old “bliss” desktop background and the Windows XP startup sound (which I didn’t know I was nostalgic for). Things were slow after everything finished loading; new windows took a few seconds to open; nested Start menu items did, too. None of this was outrageous, though, and I really do think it’s faster than the Compaq machine we had when I was a teenager. (Those old spinning hard drives really took their toll.)
Performance and nostalgia aside, using Windows XP on an iPad really drives home how much further iPadOS has to go when it comes to multitasking. And despite some improvements to Home screen customization in iPadOS 18, it still lags far behind Windows XP when it comes to customizing things. XP doesn’t care at all if I want my title bar to be pink and the text inside it neon green, or different fonts for every button, menu, or window. The world is my terrible oyster! I miss messing up my computer; that was the dream.
The fact that Apple allows emulators on iPhones and iPads has made a huge difference for my iPad Pro. I've always enjoyed using my iPad, but I rarely use it. sought So far, I don't think I've grasped it any further.
