Xbox Update - Twitter, Facebook, Last.fm, Zune, Halo: Waypoint (NSF56k)

FyreWulff

The New Xbox Update

(available currently to people who signed up for the preview)

Adds Facebook, Twitter, Last.fm, Zune, and a bunch of other misc features.


Facebook

The Facebook app is actually pretty decent. You access it via the new "My Community" heading on the dashboard.

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o165/fyrewulff/xboxupdate/TV2009102307481000.jpg

After supplying your email and password (it does not have to be the same as your gamertag email), you are presented with the home page. You can save your password for automatic login, by the way.

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o165/fyrewulff/xboxupdate/TV2009102307492500.jpg

That leftmost tile rotates through the most recent updates as you would see them in your browser, I think it's roughly the last 25.

You can quickly press X to update your status:

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o165/fyrewulff/xboxupdate/TV2009102307493600.jpg

Nothing fancy there. Chatpad/keyboard is highly recommended for anything longer than two sentences.

You can easily look at your photos. By the way, this is like.. the 3rd or 4th method of viewing pictures on your Xbox. Make up your damn mind, Microsoft. Anyway, you see them by album.

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o165/fyrewulff/xboxupdate/TV2009102307495600.jpg

After you click on an album, you get a thumbnail overview like so:

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o165/fyrewulff/xboxupdate/TV2009102307501300.jpg

By the way, yes you can read and leave comments on photos.

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o165/fyrewulff/xboxupdate/TV2009102307531300.jpg

Your custom news feeds are available from LIVE:

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o165/fyrewulff/xboxupdate/TV2009102307510100.jpg



Other people's status updates have a simple interface for like/commenting, and you can see the first comment or two under each:

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o165/fyrewulff/xboxupdate/TV2009102307522300.jpg

Status that I've already "liked":
http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o165/fyrewulff/xboxupdate/TV2009102307521300.jpg

Finally, there's a method to find friends list people to add to Facebook, and vice versa. But it doesn't work yet because I think I'm the only one on my FL that has the update at the moment.

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o165/fyrewulff/xboxupdate/TV2009102307504300.jpg


NOTES
- You can see photos that are attached to updates
- You can see thumbnails of Facebook video posts, but not actually watch the video
- You cannot see any Facebook Application updates (games like Farmville, etc)


All in all a pretty nice feature, well put together, although it'd be nice if we could at least watch Facebook videos, since Microsoft should be able to sandbox those.

Twitter

Twitter is the most simple update of all the new features, and you also don't need to download it like you do all the other ones. It launches directly from it's dashboard tab:

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o165/fyrewulff/xboxupdate/TV2009102307560600.jpg

Login screen. Of interesting note, all these new apps will all show the password field with a lot more asterisks than your password actually is. IE if you somehow have a 4 character password, it'll still show like, 12.

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o165/fyrewulff/xboxupdate/TV2009102307562400.jpg

This is what the home screen looks like. Plain and simple, but that's pretty much how Twitter rolls.

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o165/fyrewulff/xboxupdate/TV2009102307564000.jpg

The tweet update screen:

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o165/fyrewulff/xboxupdate/TV2009102307583800.jpg


You can easily view trending topics, like so:

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o165/fyrewulff/xboxupdate/TV2009102307570300.jpg

So I selected #Windows7 and got to this tweet:

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o165/fyrewulff/xboxupdate/TV2009102307575000.jpg

This is what happens when you hit Retweet. Note, it's kind of annoying that there's no character counter when inputting tweets.

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o165/fyrewulff/xboxupdate/TV2009102307582600.jpg

This is what you see when you look at the updater's profile. Full functionality here, pretty good.

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o165/fyrewulff/xboxupdate/TV2009102307581200.jpg

Notes
- You cannot have tweets pop up during gameplay/watching movies/etc. Honestly, I wish they would do this, because I know Messenger can do it. You have to go into the dashboard app to use it and view them.
- Twitter shows Xbox update as "from Xbox LIVE". Just if you wanted to know.


Last.fm

It's under "Music Marketplace" after you download it.

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o165/fyrewulff/xboxupdate/TV2009102307590800.jpg

Home screen. It's all dark and emo. And yes your eyes do not deceive you, ZELDA ON XBOX!!!11111one

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o165/fyrewulff/xboxupdate/TV2009102307593900.jpg

You get the same slideshows as the browser version, with the block, hearting, stopping and skipping. You press X to focus/unfocus the control bar.

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o165/fyrewulff/xboxupdate/TV2009102307595300.jpg

Information tab for currently playing music. If you go all the way to the right, there's "Similiar Artists" and tags, so you can easily jump around to other music.

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o165/fyrewulff/xboxupdate/TV2009102308001000.jpg

They have some predefined categories. Like "Gamer Music":

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o165/fyrewulff/xboxupdate/TV2009102308004100.jpg

Scroll over and they also feature some video game composers. For example, Marty O'Donnell/Salvotori (of Halo fame), and Koji Kondo (Zelda, Mario, etc) are featured over here. Selecting their tiles starts a station of similiar music.

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o165/fyrewulff/xboxupdate/TV2009102308005000.jpg

You can view your recent stations easily, and it updates immediately once you select a new tag/artist:

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o165/fyrewulff/xboxupdate/TV2009102308021600.jpg
http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o165/fyrewulff/xboxupdate/TV2009102308040800.jpg

Of note, it appears you can switch accounts in here, so in theory a family only needs one gold accounts to use all of their Last.fm profiles

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o165/fyrewulff/xboxupdate/TV2009102308011500.jpg

Notes
- stream quality is great, comes on in about 3-5 seconds.
- you cannot stream outside of this app. The music will shut off once you go back to dashboard. So if you wanna stream last.fm while playing Xbox, you still have to use your computer.
- this is a last.fm complaint in general, but I tried to find game specific songs and just got way too much OC Remixes. If I could ban all OCRemix songs from showing up, that'd be spectacular.
- it seems it cannot decide between showing japanese names in japanese characters or the english equivalents. So if you search for Koji Kondo, you're only going to get his stuff that has been tagged with the english version of his name, because you can't put in japanese characters.


Zune Marketplace

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o165/fyrewulff/xboxupdate/TV2009102308044600.jpg

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o165/fyrewulff/xboxupdate/TV2009102308052600.jpg

Honestly, not that much to write home about. It's pretty much the same interface as their previous video marketplace and Netflix, except now you can actually buy the movies, and now you have to download an app to do so. I wish Microsoft would choose a damn video solution and stick with it. Also it's kinda funny since the Netflix app directly competes with their own app, since you can just stream the TV shows via netflix instead of buying them with Zune.


News and More

I actually originally thought this wasn't available yet, but it is. I had a hard time finding it because it's buried way deep in Inside Xbox for some reason.

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o165/fyrewulff/xboxupdate/TV2009102308064100.jpg

Note, the Dilbert is clips from the cartoon, not actual strips. It's all video here.

Viewing MSNBC's selection:

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o165/fyrewulff/xboxupdate/TV2009102308064600.jpg

Watching a video clip from Brian William's show.

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o165/fyrewulff/xboxupdate/TV2009102308070200.jpg

Just showing you where I found it under Inside Xbox.

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o165/fyrewulff/xboxupdate/TV2009102308090400.jpg

So yeah, if this is supposed to be an answer to the Wii News and Weather channels, it hasn't been executed that well. It needs to be it's own top level option, they need to remove all the useless 'information' tiles from that section, and I didn't see weather anywhere. It's still easier to use Nintendo's channels than digging this stuff up out of the depths of Inside Xbox. Just my opinion.


Halo: Waypoint

Click here for my writeup on Waypoint.

Mr_Grinch

Thanks for that, I was actually quite interested to see what they'd done. Much appreciated.

Any idea how the HD quality is on streaming movies? I know they're trying to say that Streaming HD is how they're competing with Bluray but (being a picky videophile) I'm somewhat concerned about the bitrate. It's all very well having HD resolution but you need the bit rate to back it up.

FyreWulff

I don't have the points to try out HD movies, sorry. All other people seem to say it's pretty good. I would imagine they are using the Silverlight tech that lets them increase the bitrate as the movie buffers more. That'd be the way I'd pull off instant on 1080p anyway - since opening blackness for movies doesn't that need that much of a bitrate.

fragglefart

Great OP man.

Tried Facebook and Last.FM

Interesting, feels weird doing this stuff on my 360, but Last.FM especially will get a LOT of use.
Facebook needs some work, it's a bit clunky, but full-size photos is a refreshing change.

Last.FM though, I clicked the "ban song" button, and can't seem to find anywhere on the Last.FM website where I can see what I banned...

FyreWulff

fragglefart wrote: »

Great OP man.

Tried Facebook and Last.FM

Interesting, feels weird doing this stuff on my 360, but Last.FM especially will get a LOT of use.
Facebook needs some work, it's a bit clunky, but full-size photos is a refreshing change.

Last.FM though, I clicked the "ban song" button, and can't seem to find anywhere on the Last.FM website where I can see what I banned...

Yeah, I accidentally banned a song. This is the only answer they have about that:

http://www.last.fm/help/faq?category=Listening+to+Music+on+Last.fm#263

Analrapist

I'll probably use FB more on live than on my laptop now, thus rendering my laptop into strictly a porn machine. All because I won't see anymore updates or invites to shitty facebook apps.

And yeah, I don't want to joing your Mafia of vampire hunting farmers.

darleysam

Looking forward to trying this out tonight. Will probably have more to say once I've had a play with it.

deowolf

Analrapist wrote: »

I'll probably use FB more on live than on my laptop now, thus rendering my laptop into strictly a porn machine. All because I won't see anymore updates or invites to shitty facebook apps.

And yeah, I don't want to joing your Mafia of vampire hunting farmers.

So those things don't work on the 360? GREAT. I don't have to worry about my wife taking over once I show her the one more cool thing the xbox can do.

El Mucho

So does the Zune marketplace work in Canada or is it like Netflix?

fragglefart

FyreWulff wrote: »

fragglefart wrote: »

Great OP man.

Tried Facebook and Last.FM

Interesting, feels weird doing this stuff on my 360, but Last.FM especially will get a LOT of use.
Facebook needs some work, it's a bit clunky, but full-size photos is a refreshing change.

Last.FM though, I clicked the "ban song" button, and can't seem to find anywhere on the Last.FM website where I can see what I banned...

Yeah, I accidentally banned a song. This is the only answer they have about that:

http://www.last.fm/help/faq?category=Listening+to+Music+on+Last.fm#263

Yeah I checked that too, 'cept I couldn't find any songs with "banned" in the cog drop-down. I definitely clicked a couple, hope they haven't been blocked for good...

Also, us lot in the UK get the Sky Player next week, yay!

FyreWulff

El Mucho wrote: »

So does the Zune marketplace work in Canada or is it like Netflix?

I can't tell because I think this update isn't available for preview in Canada. I'd assume if you can use the web marketplace for Zune on your PC from Canada, the Xbox version will work.

Jubal77

I am not super excited about facebook and the like but that news update looks pretty nifty.

El Mucho

FyreWulff wrote: »

El Mucho wrote: »

So does the Zune marketplace work in Canada or is it like Netflix?

I can't tell because I think this update isn't available for preview in Canada. I'd assume if you can use the web marketplace for Zune on your PC from Canada, the Xbox version will work.

I got an email about joining the preview and filled all my info in and I didn't get any messages about not being able to take part in the preview. When did the preview go live?

I'm pretty sure the last time I checked I wasn't able to use the Zune marketplace on my PC. I was pretty excited about being able to use the Zune marketplace on my xbox now I will be sad

mantis23

I got accepted into this preview as well, except I don't have Xbox live gold. Which makes it all pretty much useless since I can't use any of the new stuff.

SilentCoconut

I'm really disappointed that you can't stream from Last.fm while in a game. All of this stuff looks nice, but my laptop sits right next to my 360 and is always on, so this update isn't really adding anything for me. At least in game music streaming would have saved me from having to swap AV cables around every so often.

Nimble Cat

Yeah, hopefully they add that in soon.

troublebrewing

shit guess I didn't get into the preview

fragglefart

troublebrewing wrote: »

shit guess I didn't get into the preview

They're sending out invites in "waves" so more people should get invites soon, I guess.

Bartholamue

So this is Gold only, eh?

troublebrewing

fragglefart wrote: »

troublebrewing wrote: »

shit guess I didn't get into the preview

They're sending out invites in "waves" so more people should get invites soon, I guess.

here's hopin'

Shady3011

I got the update yesterday and the first thing I did was go play Borderlands. ;-)

TubularLuggage

El Mucho wrote: »

So does the Zune marketplace work in Canada or is it like Netflix?

I'm going to assume it's not in Canada, because the CRTC doesn't want us to have nice things.

Also, some of these things, like Facebook and Twitter, seem pointless to have on the 360, and just seem like they're there as trendy bullshit.

Gyral

It's interesting to see what they're doing with Xbox Live to add more bang to the service. Awesome OP. The only thing I can say, though, is that I probably won't use any of these features, like ever. But for those that do, this looks like a cool integration.

darleysam

Well I'm in, but I turned my console on and no update. The email said to wait until Tuesday before complaining, so I shall do just that.

fragglefart

TubularLuggage wrote: »

Also, some of these things, like Facebook and Twitter, seem pointless to have on the 360, and just seem like they're there as trendy bullshit.

Kinda, I've never really used Twitter so I don't know much about that, but the 360-Facebook connection might be interesting. I'm not sure that I want the two to meet, personally. But might end up being quite cool in a "oh-shit-sweet-dude-didn't-know-you-had-a-360" kinda way.

The Wolfman

Yeah, I don't really see the big deal either. Looks neat I guess, but meh. However, I fully admit that I'm an old curmudgeon who doesn't even use Twitter or Facebook or understand their purpose, so it's quite obvious that this update is not for me.

Local H Jay

i'm pretty pumped for this update
thumbs up for listening to crystal castles fyre

Nimble Cat

I like that they list Crystal Castles as "Game Music" when they've said they hate that label and dislike games.

Frag Sinatra

Now theres twitter on live, no more pointless console gaming for me.

Good times.

Great OP though.

igamenekkid

The update installed for me fine, I installed Zune Marketplace, Last.fm, Facebook, then Twitter.

I posted a single tweet.

I turned off my console, had dinner.

I came back four hours later, powered it on, and... System Error E 74.

Goodbye Xbox 360 #2, it's been fun.

PS: Xbox LIVE support website says it'll cost $99.00 to repair, though I'm sure a call to their support lines tomorrow when they're open will get it done for free. Still, I imagine I'll be at Best Buy within a week.

Bartholamue

Damn, that sucks.

UnbreakableVow

I'm pretty happy about the Last.fm part of the update. It'll be cool having another outlet for my Last.fm, it's already linked to my Lala account.

Don't have a Facebook or Twitter. Or Zune (hahahaha)

cooljammer00

Damn, didn't the last Dashboard overhaul break 360's too?

darleysam

Managed to install the update last night and spent a couple of hours just tooling around in things. Twitter didn't seem to want to work properly, but I may have just been doing it wrong as I'm new to that.

troublebrewing

I got in the update last night, posted to facebook and twitter then listened to last.fm for at least an hour. Nice, if only you could have it playing while you did other stuff on xbox.

Daedalus

Hey, I heard this one makes third-party memory cards not work anymore, can anyone confirm?

darleysam

troublebrewing wrote: »

I got in the update last night, posted to facebook and twitter then listened to last.fm for at least an hour. Nice, if only you could have it playing while you did other stuff on xbox.

Everyone's calling for that. Since it seems to run as a separate application I'm not sure how easy it'd be, but it would absolutely rock if they could do it.

ChaosHat

Does anyone actually find these New Yorker or Dilbert Cartoons funny? I didn't realize the main target demographic of Xbox360 owners was yuppie upper middle class office workers with shitty senses of humor.

Edit: I don't mean anyone HERE. I mean like anyone ever.

Mr_Grinch

I like Dilbert.

deowolf

I like both.

UnbreakableVow

Whoa, just looked through the OP some more.

I can watch NBC Nightly News from my 360? Awesome!