While the headline features of this preview wave are Xbox Clubs, Looking for Group and Arena, various other smaller tweaks are slipping through, occasionally unnoticed.
The latest update has brought changes to the main dashboard and additional features to the context menu. Here's a quick look.
Available on Xbox One Preview build 14393.2100, this update adds a ton of new information to the main tile. It adds a menu button prompt on the left, giving quick access to the selected title's Gamehub and description, as well as icons of friends currently active, and a run-down of sharable achievements, screenshots and game clips.
When you hit the start button, a brand new context menu appears, which is similar to the blade-style guide menu on the Xbox 360. Moving from left to right allows you to select the Gamehub, see which friends are playing in more detail, and also shows your most recent capture content.
Interestingly, it appears developers will be able to tap into this new feature, and it could work similarly to Windows 10's jump lists, only providing more visual content considering the implementations currently on offer. It could be a neat compromise for UWP apps that have rich Live Tile content or even apps with chase-able tiles, given that Live Tiles are currently unavailable on Xbox One.
I tested a few apps to see if they had the new context menu to no avail, save for the OneGuide app, which provided quick access to TV listings, as well as suggested movies from the Xbox Store. It's easy to envision how an app like Readit could provide quick access to different subreddits through this new context menu, or even Microsoft Edge giving quick access to favorites, and so on, bringing added intuitiveness to the dashboard.
Xbox One continues to evolve at breakneck speed, and there's every chance we could hear more future Xbox plans at next week's Microsoft event in New York. Stay tuned.
