The Windows Forecast is a look at the future of Windows that comments on the latest news for Windows Insiders, as well as other major announcements in the Windows space each and every week. My name is João Carrasqueira, and I've been covering the world of Windows professionally since 2018. If there's something you'd like to see covered, you can reach me at [email protected].
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Welcome to yet another edition of The Windows Forecast! This week has been extremely slow when it comes to news for Windows Insiders, but that doesn't mean we don't have things to discuss. Namely, the fact that Copilot+ PCs are finally starting to get interesting. Also, Microsoft is making Windows Update better, it seems.
Copilot+ PCs are finally getting some useful AI features
Well, kind of...
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When Microsoft introduced Copilot+ PCs on May 20th, we were all pretty jazzed about what was to come, but really, it was all because of Recall and the prospect of Windows on Arm being good. So when Microsoft announced Recall wasn't coming anytime soon, well, that deflated all the interest in Copilot+. I mean, I loved my first Copilot+ PC review unit, the Asus Vivobook S 15, but again, it was all about that processor -- never about the AI features.
Well, it took a few months, but Microsoft is finally starting to deliver some value for Copilot+ PCs. This week, Windows Insiders on Windows 11 version 24H2 and with a Snapdragon X PC got a big update for the Photos app with a new feature called Super Resolution. This can basically take one of your images and increase its size and resolution, using AI to make sure that things actually scale properly rather than just stretching out the existing pixels.
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I wouldn't go so far as to say this is a very cool feature because I feel like we live in an age where everyone has decent cameras, and the problem with a photo is rarely the effective resolution. Personally, I would much rather have something like Google's Photo Unblur. That's a truly ingenious use of AI to improve pictures, especially for someone like me who has fairly shaky hands when holding a camera.
Regardless, this is just the beginning of the interesting AI features that Microsoft is working on. A few weeks ago, the company announced a slew of capabilities like Click To Do (one of the most interesting features to me) and the return of Recall. So even though I'd say we're still waiting for the best uses of AI in Windows, I'm just happy to see these features starting to appear. Recall is also supposed to roll out to Insiders this month, so there's less than a week left for that to happen. My (somewhat cynical) expectation is that Recall will land on the last day of October, just in time for us to not be able to say Microsoft lied.
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Related
Microsoft details the second wave of Copilot+ -- 5 new features that are coming
Recall is finally arriving, plus a lot more
Windows Update sucks a little less now
Not that I ever hated it, honestly
I know it's a common trend to complain about Windows Update for one reason or another, but personally, I'm not really in that boat. I do my Windows updates as soon as I can and it never really gets in the way of my work unless I want it to. If you plan around it, I don't think it's that much of a problem.
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But Microsoft recognizes that a lot of people hate it, and apparently Windows 11 version 24H2 makes the whole update process way better. This new version of Windows comes with a new update stack, which is the platform that's responsible for handling updates to Windows itself, and Microsoft shared some tests that show some pretty major improvements. Compared to Windows 11 version 22H2, updates are now up to 45% faster to install, and the restart period is nearly 40% faster, too, all while using a lot (up to 25%) less CPU resources, too. That's a lot of time and energy saved when you add it all up for all the updates you do in a year.
Related
Microsoft may have finally made Windows updates painless to install
The test results look good, but will they hold up when the new Windows Update technology is released to the public?
Interestingly enough, Microsoft's tests involved backporting the Windows Update stack to Windows 11 version 22H2, so I have to wonder why Microsoft didn't just release that new update stack for current versions of Windows. I guess version 24H2 needs all the extra selling points it can get considering it's a pretty small update outside of Copilot+ features for supported PCs.
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Windows on Arm just keeps getting more exciting
I'm already hyped for the next generation
As a little addendum this week, I'd also like to touch on some of the stuff we saw come out of Qualcomm's Snapdragon Summit. The company gave us a peek at the single-core performance of its new second-gen Oryon CPUs, and it's extremely exciting. The first-generation Oryon processors already did laps around Intel in terms of efficiency, and even Intel Core Ultra Series 2 couldn't fully catch up.
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But the second-generation Oryon CPUs have way faster single-core performance and even more efficiency. They can hit the peak performance level of the first generation while using 57% less power, which is kind of insane when you think about how big of a leap that processor already was compared to everything else on the market.
I'm just kind of sad we didn't get to see information about actual PC products that will use these CPUs, since Qualcomm focused on phones for this year's Snapdragon Summit. But it's going to be so exciting to see when we eventually get the second-generation Snapdragon X processors next year, and I can't wait. I just hope software developers start targetting Arm sooner rather than later. We're making good progress, but I wish it was that much faster.
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See you next week
It's been an extremely slow week for Windows Insider-specific news, but that doesn't mean there's a shortage of things to be excited about. For me, the highlight is actually the news about Snapdragon. I'm already all in on these processors and I want them everywhere, so to see such a major leap in performance is truly exciting.
That being said, I'm also hoping to see more of the cool Copilot+ features Microsoft has promised, starting with Super Resolution. Here's hoping they keep coming at a steady pace.