Enlarge / Did I pick a picture of a clock because the update was released late or because the update's biggest feature is Timeline? The world may never know. (credit: John Loach / Flickr)

After some delays, the newest major update to Windows 10, the April 2018 Update, has just scraped into April. It's available to download right now and will start distribution on Windows Update on May 8th.
Even with its extended development period—a blue screen of death crash was discovered late in the process, forcing Microsoft to delay the release by a few weeks—the new release feels very similar to its predecessor. While the last couple of updates have tried to push new directions—virtual and augmented reality in the Fall Creators Update, 3D graphics in the Creators Update—with Microsoft trying to promote them as being themed collections of features gathered together, the new update doesn't have any particular overarching theme. Instead, it's a bunch of improvements to various parts of Windows, along with one particularly notable new feature.
That big new feature is one that we thought we were going to get in the Fall Creators Update: Timeline. Timeline adds a new dimension to the Windows task switcher (the one shown when you press Win+Tab or click the "Task view" button on the taskbar): specifically, time. The default view when you first enter the switcher is the same as it ever was, showing all the windows you have open so that you can instantly pick between them. But it now has a scrollbar. Scroll the screen down and you'll see historic documents, browser tabs, and applications.

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