Ever wanted to control your Xbox from your iPhone or iPad? Now you can with the new SmartGlass app for the iOS platform. Control you Dashboard, Xbox Music, Internet Explorer & more right from you touch screen. You know, if you don’t feel like getting off the couch to get the controller. More below.
The interface for Xbox SmartGlass, Microsoft’s new second-screen initiative for the Xbox, also just makes more sense. There are five different screens you can swipe through, including a Bing search, home, social, recent, and discover. It’s also much easier to connect with your Xbox shortly after launching the app. Having used my Xbox almost exclusively for the past few months to stream video, I can say that the old app took up to 30 seconds before connecting. And this would happen every time my iPhone screen would sleep.
The biggest addition, and something that should have been in previous versions of the iOS app, is the ability to use the app’s keyboard to input text on the Xbox. Granted, I rarely have need of a full keyboard, but it should come in handy the next time I need to retype my email address, type in a wi-fi user name/password, or sign in to future Xbox Live third-party apps.
(VentureBeat)
