Credit: Rita El Khoury / Android Authority

A Mac-running iPad has been a pipedream for Apple enthusiasts like me ever since the first iPad was announced. Why? It’s all about productivity — that often unquantifiable metric that can lead to a dog-headed pursuit of shoehorning software solutions as a bandage. But I digress. When I pitched this article to my editor a few months ago, I was excited at the possibility of running Windows on my M1-powered iPad Air. Finally, my reasonably productive machine would become a lot more productive. As the resident tinkerer, getting Windows virtualized on my iPad thrilled me. Moreover, the few videos floating around forums like Reddit showed me that like-minded enthusiasts had been successful at achieving it. It made it look worth the time and effort.

Running Windows on an iPad is a cautionary tale of trying to sidestep Apple’s carefully arranged garden.

Fast forward to today. After more than a dozen attempts at getting Windows running on my M1-powered iPad Air, I finally managed it. It’s taken way longer than it should have taken me to pen down this article. (Sorry, Rita.) But, what follows is a cautionary tale of what happens when you try to step out of Apple’s beautifully manicured walled garden. Follow at your own peril.