The next Windows 11 feature drop is coming in early 2024 — here's what to expect

[Windows Central]

The brakes don't stop when it comes to new Windows 11 features. Microsoft is gearing up to ship its next feature drop as soon as February 2024, so here's what to expect.

The next Windows 11 feature drop is coming in early 2024 — here's what to expect : Read more

 

[nop]

not two steps forward & one back I hope

 

[Arun Topez]

Every update, including the 'major' ones, feels like a minor/miniscule update. I'm sure there's lots of behind the scenes fixes, but as former MS fan boy, it's disappointing how boring Windows and their updates are now. There's so many years worth of user feedback in the Feedback Hub, and none of that has been implemented yet. They don't seem to care about power users. I remember when Windows used to be exciting, and as a community it was fun to see brand new improvements and changes that the community wanted or was actually innovative compared to the competition, especially when applied across multiple form factors. I wish there was a new player in town, because macOS/iOS and Android are boring too now.

 

[wojtek]

Every update, including the 'major' ones, feels like a minor/miniscule update. I'm sure there's lots of behind the scenes fixes, but as former MS fan boy, it's disappointing how boring Windows and their updates are now. There's so many years worth of user feedback in the Feedback Hub, and none of that has been implemented yet. They don't seem to care about power users. I remember when Windows used to be exciting, and as a community it was fun to see brand new improvements and changes that the community wanted or was actually innovative compared to the competition, especially when applied across multiple form factors. I wish there was a new player in town, because macOS/iOS and Android are boring too now.

I was reading your commend and was meaning to say that this happens to all systems - recent macos update had basically no features (only some apps, that coupe be shipped apart), not to mention android...

There is still Linux, but even there feature wise there is no that much commotion. Even new KDE 6,that will be released in a couple of months, it will be mostly an update of underlying technologies (and switch to wayland).

 

[naddy69]

"I remember when Windows used to be exciting, and as a community it was fun to see brand new improvements and changes that the community wanted or was actually innovative compared to the competition, especially when applied across multiple form factors."

The era of "multiple form factors" for Windows is long gone. There is only desktop Windows now. There is not much left to "innovate" in Windows (or MacOS). Both are quite mature at this point.

iOS and Android are a different story. And Linux is STILL about as exciting as an AM radio.

But in general Operating Systems ARE boring. Only OS geeks buy a computer to run the OS. It was only "exciting" because you USED to be a fan boy. I was too. But at some point you grow up and realize there are more important things to be excited about besides computer software.

"There's so many years worth of user feedback in the Feedback Hub, and none of that has been implemented yet. They don't seem to care about power users."

Why should they? Again, you and I and everyone reading this are not the customers that MS is trying to keep happy. It is businesses who spend millions of dollars each year with MS. MS is desperately trying to make Windows and Office easy to use and looking pretty for corporate users (who may be seeing Windows and Office for the first time in their lives) and easy for corporate IT departments to maintain.

Which explains all of the "use your phone as an accessory on Windows" and Windows looking more like MacOS and Windows being able to run Linux. This is "innovation" to keep Windows relevant.

It may indeed be boring, but it all needs to happen. I still believe that Windows will become Linux at some point, perhaps sooner rather than later. The recent story here about Linux being required for AI development on Windows only strengthens my belief.

 

[joshcsmith13]

Can someone explain to me why these "What's Next" articles keep saying this?

"Tablet users can now ink directly into any text box. (Image credit: Microsoft)
The Moment 5 update for Windows 11 brings with it a number of quality of life improvements, such as the ability to ink directly into text boxes across the OS."

I recently purchased a used Surface Pro X, running Windows 11 Home 23H2 and have been inking in text boxes for weeks now.

I suspect it's because the author (and maybe everybody at Windows Central) doesn't actually ever use a pen or touch. I suspect I am the odd one, having used my Surface Go almost exclusively as a touch tablet for the past 4 years, but I wish that more of the Microsoft in-crowd would do the same to apply more pressure to MS for updates. It seems that headlines like that above are just parroting MS talking points without any kind of validation. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[taynjack]

There's so many improvements that feel like they are slow walked for years! Phone integration using Your Phone could be so amazing. Yet you still can't do things as simple as download to your computer more than one picture from your phone at a time. Connecting anything to Bluetooth is still a chore. They still haven't finished migrating and updating UI elements they started clear back at the start of Windows 10. It has all gotten boring. There's no excitement at Microsoft anymore.