In advance of the "official" October 18, 2013 release, the first looks at Windows 8.1 have been seen as it's been sent off to manufacturers.
Following several betas, a modestly well received preview led to a very brief five month lag to completion which Microsoft is touting as an "unparalleled level of collaboration" between customers and Windows product teams.
Current Windows 8 owners will get the update for free, but all end users will have to hang on until the official October 18th release date.