March 20, 2026
Arm day drama, monkey memes
Delphi 13.1 Released, with ARM64 support
Delphi 13.1 hits Arm day: fans rave speed, critics gasp price
TLDR: Delphi 13.1 now builds apps that run natively on new Windows‑on‑Arm PCs and updates Android/iOS support. Devs are split: some praise its speed and one‑codebase convenience, others balk at the price and tout free alternatives—while everyone snickers about the “FireMonkey” name.
Delphi just flexed with native support for new Windows-on-Arm laptops (think the latest chip architecture many PCs are switching to), and the old-school favorite lit up the comments like it’s 1999. The update promises your existing Windows apps can be recompiled to run on those machines—no emulator needed—plus refreshed Android and iOS support. Embarcadero’s pitch: one codebase, more devices. The crowd’s reaction: equal parts nostalgia, speed-bragging, and sticker shock. Official post
The loudest cheer? Speed. One fan swore Delphi is still the “absolute fastest” for classic Windows apps, with others adding that it’s still great for rapidly cranking out cross‑platform projects. But a rival camp pushed back with open‑source vibes: if Lazarus (the free alternative) can do most of this, why shell out nearly a grand up front and hundreds a year to renew? Meanwhile, someone tried Lazarus and called the IDE slow, pouring lighter fluid on the tool‑war bonfire.
Then came the branding roast: “FireMonkey” (Delphi’s UI toolkit) got clowned for sounding like a circus act, even as people fondly name‑dropped Borland’s bygone era and Kylix for Linux. Bottom line: Delphi’s new Arm muscles are real, the mobile updates keep it store‑compliant, but the community is split between “still the GOAT” and “great, but pricey”—with a few banana jokes tossed at FireMonkey for good measure.
Key Points
- •RAD Studio 13.1 (Florence) released with Delphi 13.1 and C++Builder 13.1, delivering IDE, UI, and quality enhancements.
- •Delphi adds a native Windows on Arm (Arm64EC) compiler, enabling Arm binaries without Intel emulation and multi-target builds from one codebase.
- •The Windows on Arm toolchain uses LLVM 20, LLDB, and Microsoft’s UCRT, and targets the native Windows 64-bit Arm API.
- •Android support updated to API level 36.1 with build system updates, Jetpack Core upgrade, improved SDK detection, .so builds, and predictive back navigation opt-out.
- •Official support added for iOS 26 and the default minimum supported iOS version is raised.