Windows 10 Creators Update Arrives In April, Hardware Set For Refresh

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This Creators update, which will bring new consumer and enterprise features to Windows 10 and is in the final stages of having new features added, is set to arrive in April. Microsoft had previously stated that the update would arrive in the spring and now we know the exact month.

I had been hearing for several weeks that April is the target and last week at CES, Dell told me that that April is the release month for the update. The exact date isn’t known but this OS release will come out several weeks before the company’s Build conference which sets the stage for that event to focus on future updates coming to Windows 10 beyond the Creators enhancements.

And then there is the hardware. For some time, we have been hearing that the company is planning on releasing new hardware in the spring of 2017 and the rumors and whispers behind closed doors seem to align to this strategy.

For starters, DigiTimes states that Microsoft is planning to launch the Surface Pro 5 in Q1, 2017 and while I do not know the exact date of the Pro 5 release, it would make sense if the company released it alongside the updated OS, which arrives in April.

Further, at CES last week, nearly every major PC vendor announced new hardware with Intel’s latest chips which means that Microsoft’s premium-priced and speced laptops/tablets, are now running on older silicon. Considering all the issues Microsoft has had with Skylake chips, it’s reasonable to expect that they will move quickly to Kaby Lake.

I can’t imagine Microsoft releasing brand new hardware with an older OS bit to only upgrade it a few weeks late with the Creators update, based on Digitimes Q1 release date. Logically, it would make sense to release both software and hardware at the same time. If this holds true, we could be seeing a Surface Pro 5 and Surface Book 2 alongside the Creators update sometime in April.

But wait, there’s more; Hololens is approaching two-years old. While the public release of the device happened several months after the first-showing of the device in January 2015, from a technology perspective, the hardware is getting a bit stale. I’m not saying that it’s a bad piece of hardware, but with an additional 18+ months of time of development under their belt, the HoloLens we know today is not the same one used internally.

I have heard that Hololens has re-entered into production which means that either a second iteration of the device is now in production, or they are building more of the first gen. Still poking around for more details but if Microsoft releases a new line of Surface devices and shows off an updated HoloLens while releasing the Creators update, that would make for one heck of a month of April.