With every new build that Microsoft releases to Windows Insiders, we’re getting that much closer to Windows 10 Creators Update. While some sources maintain that the new update will only come in April, there’s evidence from Dell that it could come this month – on March 30, when the Dell Canvas is released.
Regardless of the date, we now know that the features lock-in is in place, so don’t expect anything new. These recent builds for PC and Mobile are merely meant for bug fixes, like Build 15048 for PC and Build 15047 for Mobile.
As usual, Windows and Devices Group software engineer Dona Sarkar outlines what these issues are.
Primary fixes on these builds were for UWP apps and Microsoft Edge, but there were several others that covered random items such as extensions, the power policy on laptops, Cortana search results, cross-device notifications and Outlook 2016.
Other builds released recently include 15042 and 15046 for PC and 15043 for Mobile.
It’s clear that Microsoft is on a very tight schedule for Windows 10 Creators Update because there have been a total of 5 builds (PC and Mobile) in the last one week alone, bringing the total number of builds for Redstone 2 to 39 (23 for PC and 16 for Mobile.)
All of them still show the version number as 1607, which refers to Windows 10 Anniversary Update. However, whatever’s been deployed, tested and fixed so far will be part of the new update when it comes out – hopefully, at the end of this month.
This is just the first of two major updates we can expect in 2017. Microsoft has already revealed its game plan for Windows 10 updates, and we know that the next major one is due in the fall. That’s expected to be Redstone 3, which we’ve been covering as part of our research into x86 app emulation on Surface Phone.
That’s one of the biggest things coming out this year, we hope. The update after Creators Update holds the key to desktop emulation on mobile devices, and ties in with Microsoft’s strategy for re-entry into the mobile space even as Windows Phone starts to disappear from the radar.
Several OEMs will be releasing Windows 10 Mobile smartphones this year, but we expect Surface Phone to be a revolutionary device in that it should be able to seamlessly run traditional desktop applications, a key to Microsoft’s push into the enterprise segment not only with SaaS applications, but devices as well.
Microsoft already has a device presence in the corporate world with products like Surface Hub, and the rise of BYOD (bring your own device) in the enterprise world means employees need more mobility – the kind of mobility we hope will be brought by Surface Phone.
Surface Phone appears to be the lynchpin of Microsoft’s enterprise strategy for devices. It is an extremely important piece of the puzzle that Nadella is putting together. Not that Microsoft won’t survive without it – they’ve got a lot invested in cloud – but we have to remember that his strategy is about ‘cloud first, mobile first.’
The cloud part of that plan is well underway. The mobile still remains.
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