snapdragon

This afternoon I received the following email from Arrow, regarding the Snapdragon Developer Kit for Windows:

Dear Valued Customer,

Please see this important message from Qualcomm:

”At Qualcomm, we are dedicated to pioneering leading technology and delivering premium experiences to our valued customers. The launch of 30+ Snapdragon X-series powered PC's is a testament to our ability to deliver leading technology and the PC industry's desire to move to our next-generation technology. However, the Developer Kit product comprehensively has not met our usual standards of excellence and so we are reaching out to let you know that unfortunately we have made the decision to pause this product and the support of it, indefinitely.

Update - October 17: Today Qualcomm cancelled all remaining orders, and will no longer support the Dev Kit.

I have mixed feelings publishing this post: many developers who are actively trying to port their Windows software to Arm are still awaiting shipment of their own Snapdragon Dev Kits, and I seem to be one of the first few people to receive one.

Everyone I've been in contact with also ordered the Dev Kit on July 16, but we've all been waiting for it to ship—for months.

Update - October 17: Today Qualcomm cancelled all remaining orders, and will no longer support the Dev Kit.

In late July, a week after ordering the Snapdragon Dev Kit, I wondered where it was. Arrow's website said 'Ships tomorrow' when I ordered, after all.

Many developers eager to test their code on Windows on Arm, on the premiere new 'CoPilot+' PCs that would revolutionize computing as we know it, were also wondering.

Update - September 26: Today my Dev Kit finally arrived! And of course, the first thing I did was tear it down—check out my teardown photos of the Snapdragon Dev Kit internals here.

Update 2 - October 17: Today Qualcomm cancelled all remaining orders, and will no longer support the Dev Kit.

I signed up to buy a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Dev Kit the second I found out about it. It's supposed to be the Mac mini killer for Windows.