Microsoft just teased its next big thing, but offered little clue as to what the company is about to reveal.
The event is scheduled for October 12, 2022 at 10AM ET. Other than that, there’s little else in the details, and we’ve reached out to Microsoft to clarify what the event will showcase. We’ll update this story with any news if we hear back from the company.
In the meantime, we can ruthlessly guess at Microsoft’s reserves, and we even have some clues in the announcement image itself.
The image is a stylized version of the Windows 11 desktop background, so it’s safe to say it might be Windows related. Since the image has a decidedly impressionistic vibe, we’d say it’ll be a new Microsoft Surface device, perhaps an update to the Microsoft Surface Studio line, or a new desktop or Surface Laptop Studio.
The latter device is only about a year old though, so it might be too early to see a major update to the device, but something along those lines is certainly possible.
What else can we see at Microsoft’s October event?
Microsoft doesn’t usually hold a lot of events (unlike Apple), but when they do, they squeeze in as many as they can, so if we’re going to see a new Surface device, it’s unlikely to show up on its own.
In particular, we’d like to see another product focused on accessibility, like last year’s Surface Adaptive Kit and this year’s Adaptive Accessories. We expect we’ll see more of this at the October event, and we’re excited to see it. For all of Microsoft’s shortcomings, and all big tech companies have them, Microsoft is without a doubt the best accessibility tech brand.
In addition to this, we can also see improvements in other peripherals such as the Surface Pen, HoloLens, and more. Given the emerging “post-pandemic” professional environment, we also can’t rule out a full refresh of the Surface lineup, as many of the products will require new hardware polishes and various other improvements to varying degrees.
We can’t sleep on Windows 11 on ARM either. Microsoft has been developing its own chips, similar to what Apple has done with its M-series chips, and while we highly doubt Microsoft will launch its own ARM processors, it’s been bubbling up in the background. Now slow cook for a while.
At this point, the last point is very likely, but if Microsoft is going to develop Windows on ARM then eventually something like this will have to be announced. Whether this is that time remains to be seen, but it will be an interesting twist to say the least.
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