Most applications are/can be compiled for arm. You just need the right repo or to compile from source.

Maybe the essentials like browsers and CMD tools are available for ARM, but I’m talking about applications in general. Almost all of Flatpak won’t work, not everyone will bother compiling for ARM and those that do probably won’t do so as soon as these laptops release. You’d have to be a real poweruser to compile stuff from source and not suffer. Not to mention proprietary stuff that are already reluctant to support Linux, imagine how long it’ll take for things like Zoom and Discord to get official support. Before anyone hits me with the “those don’t matter”, it does to a lot of people.

You don’t need a translation layer unless the software is proprietary and the vendor isn’t willing to compile for arm.

Even then, there will be tons of legacy apps people will want to run.