Rumors have until now been few and far between regarding an eventual Surface Pro 5 launch by the end of the year, not to mention a Surface Book sequel, while the Surface Phone remains a definite but distant prospect.

On the software update front, Microsoft wants the whole world to know already that the Windows 10 Anniversary, aka Redstone 1, rollout will begin for both PCs and mobile devices early next month.

Still, you shouldn’t rule out a slew of fall 2016 hardware announcements. Extremely credible sources tell us “minor Surface configuration updates” are indeed also in the pipeline, which won’t mark the introduction of a “major new form factor” or processing power transition from Intel Skylake to Kaby Lake.

It’s possible the slowly flagging Atom-based Surface 3 shall finally get a successor sometime in October, alongside the Surface Pro 4 and Microsoft Band 2. Afterwards, Redmond is believed to be cooking up a “big bang Windows 10 hardware launch featuring new Kaby Lake devices running Redstone 2” later next year.

In the meantime, of course, the Redstone 2 OS makeover needs to come to light, which should happen in the spring. Bottom line, 2017 is when things are supposed to take a turn for the exciting.

Sources: ZDNet, Windows Central