by Gregory Gay - 10.23.09
Ah, it’s that time of the year again. The trees are turning orange, kids are slipping on vampire teeth, and the Xbox is about to recieve a healthy dump of functionality tweaks. Yep, it’s time for the Fall Dashboard Update, and in that tradition, Microsoft is holding a preview program for a few lucky participants.
Actually, a lot of lucky participants. This is supposed to be the biggest preview yet, which makes sense. This update is structured around social media. While there have been all sorts of under-the-surface tweaks, the real point of this update is to get you to use your Xbox for more than just gaming. If you’re anything like me, you’ve become hopelessly addicted to the Netflix streaming. This year’s update adds similar apps for Facebook, Twitter, Last.fm, and a new video marketplace.
I’m sure that a bunch of you are already playing with the update as you read this, but for the rest of you, I’ve put together a little preview of what to expect. Read on!
Honestly, I have a few issues with the “New Xbox Experience” layout style. Microsoft took a functional, if ugly, user interface and pushed it completely to the other end of the scale. Oh, the huge squares and colorful pictures are lovely, to be sure, but the thing is a mess to navigate and it takes four times as long to do anything. In small, logical environments, it works perfectly well. The Netflix and Last.fm applications are fine. Unfortunately, Facebook really doesn’t fit into the Netflix-shaped hole.
Alright, I may be exaggerating a bit. The navigation isn’t that confusing, but is seems downright counter-intuitive at times. The NXE layout looks alright when every row is stuffed with boxes, but some of those rows in the Facebook application look downright barren. When there are only two or three options per “row,” you begin to wonder why they didn’t consolidate things down a little bit. It’s amazing that the news feed, the central cornerstone of Facebook, requires you to scroll to the right row and click on an icon.
Facebook is a concept that depends entirely on the Internet. The two are inseparable, and the Xbox application pretty much proves that to be the case. I spend half of my time on the site clicking the links that people have posted, something that you can’t do on the Xbox. I may have issues with forcing the site into the confusing NXE layout, but the most fundamental problem is entirely unrelated - Why would you even want to use Facebook in isolation, severed from any sort of web browser?
The Twitter application is pretty straightforward, it simply displays your timeline, with your latest update in bold at the top. A menu along the left side lists your options, including posting an update, searching, or looking at the trending topics. If you click on a tweet, you can reply, look over that user’s profile, or send a direct message.
And… That’s about it. Since I can’t really rant about the layout - in fact, I quite like it - I don’t have much to say. It’s Twitter, on your television. The application is kind of barebones, it doesn’t have any of the features that full-fledged Twitter clients sport. Then again, I’m not sure that I’d need them. I’m not going to sit there in front of my tv and do any in-depth Twitter research. The sole point of the application seems to be to post quick updates, maybe some impressions after beating a game or a prod to a friend to sign on to Xbox Live.
My sole complaint about the Twitter app - There is no way to display how many characters you have left. If you type something longer than 140 characters, the rest just gets cut off.
Last.fm
Let’s be honest here, I’m not the type of person that this update is aimed at. I don’t really have any interest in pouring over Facebook or Twitter on my television when I have a perfectly good laptop sitting nearby; in fact, it kind of baffles me that anyone would want to. I also know perfectly well that some people will eat both of those apps up. Last.fm, on the other hand, absolutely makes perfect sense. I can definitely see it becoming a fixture at any party where we aren’t just playing actual games the whole time.
Heck, I could see this app getting use on a daily basis. I’m pretty much always listening to music. If I’m not explicitly watching a video or playing a game, there is probably some form of music playing. While I spend most of my time on my desktop, I like to write in front of the tv on a laptop. Usually, I’ll flip to some random show on Netflix for background noise (I’m digging Leverage right now, if you were curious), but I can easily see Last.fm replacing it.
Like the Netflix app, Last.fm actually works in the NXE layout. Your streaming stations are segmented into rows for your favorite bands (determined by your past listening habits), recommended stations, stations for popular bands, tag-based stations, and a row for “gamer” stations (game soundtracks, Minibosses, Hayzee, Nullsleep, Martin O’Donnell, crystal Castles, and Koji Kondo showed up on my list). Once you pick a station, pictures related to the current band will stream in the background. The current station will continue to play when you go back to the Last.fm menu, but sadly will stop if you return to the Xbox dashboard.
