The preview for the next 360 dashboard update was sent out a couple of weeks ago and I was lucky enough to be in the first wave of the update, but too busy to get a review done until now 🙂 I have spent a bit of time checking out the new features and here are my impressions of Twitter, Facebook, Last.fm, Zune and an added bonus with Halo Waypoint.
Tweet Tweet
The Twitter application requires no download and is either built into the software or streamed to your xbox when run. It is quite basic in appearance with the familiar blue twitter colour theme throughout. Tweets are displayed in bubble like bars and show the persons avatar, name, the message and the time and date. It is easy to read the tweets, four are displayed on the screen at any time with up to fifty more in the archive, accessible once scrolled down.
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Other options include a search feature and trending topics browser which are nice additions. Text can be entered using the on screen keyboard or alternatively via the Chat Pad or a compatible USB keyboard if you have one. The whole point of Twitter is to be able to quickly post short messages and this application does not really fulfil the criteria. Built in twitter posting from the dashboard would have been ideal, having to load a separate program defeats the purpose.
Can I be your friend?
The Facebook application is as you would expect considerably more feature packed than Twitter. Upon logging in to your Facebook account you are presented with the Home tab which gives a quick overview of the latest posts of your friends. Clicking on this box will go into a more depth page which shows individual posts and comments for each of them. The navigation is fairly fast, intuitive and works well. The Photo browser is probably the best feature of this application and allows you to browse photos of your friends and yourself. These can be viewed in a slide show which works great and I found it much more enjoyable than viewing them on than on a web browser.
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Another useful feature is that you can now see if your Facebook friends have a 360 and if so you can send them a friend request. Only one of my friends was on the preview program and I already have him on my friends list so I was unable to try this feature, but once the application is released it should be useful instead of asking everyone if they have a 360. Overall the Facebook application is the most interesting for me out of the new applications in the update, I am not a massive Facebook user but I could see myself using it more often on the 360.
Save the last.fm dance for me
Last.fm is something that is new to me as a user and to be honest I never quite understood the point of it, which was the reason I never tried it until now. After using the application for a while I still don’t exactly get the point but I now understand what it does. Basically it learns the type of music you listen to and suggests similar bands or songs for you to check out. The 360 application links to your existing last.fm account (or create a new one like I did) and you are ready to start searching for bands or you can use the general suggestions which includes various popular bands in the UK (I live in UK so its likely different in US).
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There is a games tab which features a few game related radio stations so I spent some time listening to the songs. The audio quality is good and there was next to no buffering at the start. Related images of the song currently playing are displayed on the screen or you can continue browsing through the menus. Last.fm fans should find the application useful, a few of my mates have been using it over the past week and they like it. The only downside which everyone agreed on was you could not continue to listen to the music outside of the application.
Couldn’t make up any funny title for Zune!
Next up is the Zune video application. I have never purchased a video via the 360 and I do not intend to do so until they get rid of the silly purchasing with Microsoft Points. So I asked a friend who watched a film over the weekend for some feedback, he said the quality was comparable to that of HDDVD/BluRay and apart from some rare drops in download speed which resulted in a drop in quality for a second or two, it was fine. He was annoyed that once you purchase a film to stream you are not able to download it to the HDD, there could be some issues if for example your connection is not fast enough to stream at HD quality or there is network congestion which could result in a choppy playback.
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Other features includes a party room where you can invite your friends to watch a video together. Buy your mother a 360 for the best experience of her asking Who is that guy?, What is this film about? or her spoiling the ending! I did not get to try the party room but from what I saw on some videos it could be fun if you like chatting to friends during films, I don’t know…
No news is good news
The News & More feature is only available in US so I was unable to test this as I live in UK. According to the info on the site it will allow users to access videos, news and information about the Xbox Live community. The news is supplied by msnbc, The New Yorker Cartoons and Dilbert. I have not heard much feedback on it so I cant really comment on it much more,
Who stuck me?
Late last week a preview of Halo Waypoint was released, although it is not part of the dashboard update (Waypoint is released on November 5th) I thought I would include it as part of this article as it is a pretty cool application. Halo Waypoint is a portal of sorts which is updated with the latest Halo universe news delivered straight to your 360. The UI is fast, easy to use and looks great, keeping with the Halo theme. At the time of trying the preview there were two Destinations available; Intel and Career.
The Intel Destination displays the latest news and media. At the time of trying the application, the latest items were a photo album of fan made Halo costumes and a video interview on ODST. The video quality is based on your connection speed and if you have a good connection it will stream in HD quality which looked great. There were quite a few news items and articles available to view and if you are a Halo fan you should enjoy it a lot.
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The Career Destination will be popular with Halo stat fans as it allows you to track your Career Milestones, which are combination of all achievement points in the Halo series. There are 40 milestones to reach (I am on a respectable 30th milestone) which gives some bragging rights with mates to who is the best! In another section are the Waypoint Awards, these are 15 medals based on groups of achievements in the Halo series, for example the Vehicle Specialist award is a collection of vehicle based achievements such as Ghost Patrol on Halo 3.
Finally, depending on if you have unlocked certain achievements in Halo ODST you may unlock some free Avatar Awards, these include t-shirts, full ODST armour and a Monitor accessory for your avatar. The freebies are a nice addition and no doubt come November 5th everyone will be wearing them! Halo Waypoint is a nice application with loads of potential and providing it is regularly updated with new content it should be something that keeps people returning.
Fin
So that is my general impressions of the dashboard update which will be available sometime in November. Excluding Halo Waypoint, I did find the update a little disappointing as there was nothing that truly interested me, I think this update is a way for Microsoft to get a few brand names on the box to appeal to potential customers. This update does however lay the possible foundations for better integration into the dashboard for the future, being able to access Twitter from the Guide would be great as an example.
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