14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has announced that it's rolling out the October firmware update for the Xbox One computer entertainment system, delivering a slew of improvements and fixes.
The company has been steadily releasing new updates for the home console, improving and expanding the experience greatly since launch last year. There are still many things that the community requested and still aren't here, but Microsoft is constantly working on adding the features that its customers are demanding.
You can check out the video below for a quick summary of the update's contents, delivered by none other than Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb. In a nutshell, the firmware update enhances the Xbox One's multitasking abilities and makes connecting with your friends easier than ever.
Smooth social integration
The new Snap and Friends functions enable you to stay in your game and get in touch with your friends more easily. The Snap Center has been updated to include quick access to Friends, Messages, Game DVR, clock, and now has a neat battery indicator.
It's now easier to close and open new snaps while gaming, through a double tap of the Xbox button on your controller, that will bring up a menu that allows you to open new apps in snap mode, close the currently open one, or seamlessly switch focus between your apps and game.
The Friends Snap App and Messages Snap App have been especially optimized for Snap mode, enabling you to quickly check your friends list and see who is online and take relevant actions such as sending messages, inviting them or joining their sessions.
More improvements to apps
The Achievements app has been updated to allow for the sharing of specific achievements you've unlocked, complete with captions. You can also see a list of friends who have unlocked various achievements, and you can access an updated Achievemens Snap landing page that shows recent information.
The Friends section now enables you to see what's going on with your friends at a glance, keeping you up to date with their current activities, popular games, and Gamerscore leaderboards, showing who has improved their score over the last 30 days.
The new SmartGlass features let you see a list of your top games in your profile and also enables you to see a list of your friends' most popular games, in the Friends section of the app.
A better TV and video experience
The October firmware update also improves Xbox One users' viewing experience, with added support for DLNA streaming allowing you to easily access and play music, movies and photos stored on home media servers and devices, as well as to play MKV files stored on USB devices or other devices on your home network, that support DLNA streaming.
Live TV listings and schedules will be made available in a new number of countries, and apps with live TV channels can now include their TV listings within OneGuide.
Additionally, you'll also be able to use your mobile device to control your Xbox, TV, Cable and Satelite box through the SmartGlass app.
More neat features
The latest update also packs in some exciting features such as the ability to assign different accessories to specific users, update the firmware for individual devices, and find or identify controllers more easily by making them vibrate from the Xbox One Settings menu.
You can also hide games and apps in the Ready to install list under My Games and Apps on your console, in order to prevent clutter.
