As has been the case for several months now, Microsoft has provided a list of new features and changes coming in next month's System Update for Xbox One. There is no single major new feature, but there a bunch of excellent changes coming, including mobile purchases, low controller battery notifications, support for 3D Blu-Ray movies, some activity feed updates, and more.
Here's a breakdown of the coming changes, courtesy of Larry "Major Nelson" Hyrb.
Activity feed updates. The activity feed, which is currently two columns in the Friends view, will change to a one-column view that apparently scrolls automatically and contains more content. You will be able to post text on your feed, "like" comments, and comment on feed items. You will be able to share game clips on the feed, and do so privately (with friends) or publicly. And you'll be able to do all this from SmartGlass too.
New Friends area on Dashboard. The currently-useless Friends tile in the Home section of the Dashboard is apparently morphing into a bigger Friends area and will display your friends' activities, top trending games your friends are playing, and a leaderboard. This feature will apparently be rolled out in a staged fashion, so that some people get it sooner and others will get it later in August.
Mobile purchases. This is apparently one of the most requested features: Users will be able to remotely purchase Xbox One games and add-on content from Xbox.com on the web or from Xbox SmartGlass. (I'm pretty sure I've done this with free Games with Gold games, however. Hm.) But the best bit is that if your console is set to automatically download updates, it will begin downloading your purchase immediately.
Low battery notification. If the battery on your controller is getting low, the console will display a notification. This was another big requested feature.
Disable notifications while watching video. A new setting lets you turn off notifications while you're watching videos.
3D Blu-Ray. With this update, Xbox One will be able to play 3D Blu-Ray video discs.
OneGuide market expansion. The OneGuide will now be available in in Brazil, Mexico, Austria and Ireland.
Last seen time in Friends list. In another new feature culled from feedback, the Friends list will now show how long it's been since a friend has been online, and what they were doing at that time.
It's not clear exactly when this update will roll-out. Preview users will see it soon, of course, and for a while there it seemed like Xbox One System Updates were always happening on Patch Tuesday. That would be August 12, but I'm not sure things are quite that orderly. So we'll leave it at "some time in August" for now.
