Xbox One

The Xbox One is a device that is so chuck full of potential, that seems to be setting itself up for a failure. One that is of its own doing, and is one Microsoft as a company likes to repeat. That is not to say that it is all bad, but could have been so much better right off that bat.

One of the main problems is that Microsoft is moving to a single OS for all devices. Their computers, phones, tablets, and video game consoles all run the same OS. This is actually a good thing. This means that all improvements to any one product can be applied to all their products. The problem is that they had to make a clean break from their existing code for the 360.

Seamless Interface

One of the main taking points of the Xbox One is it’s seamless interface. You can switch between games, live tv and Netflix extremely quickly; provided that it was already running in the background. You can even snap(tm) stuff to the left side of the screen. And it works fairly well.

But its hardly seamless. Transitions are just quick.

If an application isn’t already running, your looking at a minium of a 20 second load time. If your listening to music or watching tv, and you want see who is online everything cuts out.

Snapped applications pretty much require the use of voice commands, because your controller gets locked into either the left or right part of the screen. Without a mouse, you can’t “seamlessly” switch between parts of the screen.

Lets Talk Friends

Friends are something that seem basic and inconsequential, but really are the life blood of a modern console.

The 360 was really good at keeping you connected. Someone comes on line, you get a ping. Start a game, it tells you who else is playing it. All of this currently doesn’t exist.

Simply checking who is currently online is a massive chore. You click the xbox button, find the friends app, launch it, and the click on friends inside the friends app. A few failures of this process:

• Launching the friends app takes over 20 seconds
• While in a different app, you don’t hear ANY audio from the game. So there is no feedback the the round is starting.
• The default screen is the activity feed, which is a shit indicator of who is online.

No Console Cross Talk

While it is possible to see who is online, even if they are online on a different console, you have NO WAY to communicate with them. You can’t even send them a text message. The message just gets lost in the either.

Imagine how useful it would be to be able to chat with some.