Get ahead of the Xbox Ones’ learning curve

Microsoft’s new console is not the same beast as the last one, and with a change in behaviour comes a whole new way of interacting with the system. In some ways, it acts more like Windows 8, such as pinning tiles right to the main screen.

Larry Hyrb, AKA Microsoft’s Major Nelson has just put out a video showcasing some of the best ways to move around the system – and being a tech person myself and only discovering this very morning that double-tapping the big X button switches focus between the main screen and a snapped in app (2:40 in the video above), they really need to get this info out to people.

Using voice commands can be very helpful, and all commands issued to the Xbox itself (and not the game you’re playing or the app you’re in) are prefixed with “Xbox,”  it is easy to forget what commands do which things. Some are second nature to me at this point, and, as the video points out, the menu button offers you the equivalent to a “right-click”, or “what can I do with this?”.

There are certainly numerous improvements and enhancements to the Xbox One’s software, and given that all of these functions are separate applications now we’re hoping it will give Microsoft the agility to bring new features quicker without having to fully update the entire operating system with each minor update.