News · 5 Oct 2011 · MTW Editorial Team
Microsoft has just announced the Xbox companion application for Windows Phone 7 (Mango) today enabling users to wireless control their home console via their handset. The application will also act as a DLNA remote so users can playback videos, songs on the TV. Here’s a short description:
– Finding Content: Just like on your Xbox, the Xbox Companion gives you instant access to the Xbox LIVE Marketplace catalog of games, movies, music and TV shows. I used it to search “Featured Content” and pulled up the X-Men: First Class.
– Learn more about what you’re watching, listening to, or playing: Once I found the movie and touched the movie tile, the Xbox companion app took me to an info page that has all the related details about. And the content is really rich, too – for example, when I swiped to the “cast” page and touched an actor’s name, like star James McAvoy, I was taken to other movies starring him. From there, I could easily learn more about the other movies, their cast, etc. It’s an infinite road of interactive content.
– Control & Play: Once I selected the content and hit play, the Xbox Companion flips into “controller mode” in which I could navigate my Xbox, or control video playback of your video. The best part here is that controls are virtually instantaneous – easily as fast as using my controller or a TV remote.
Pretty cool right ? Well I’m personally wondering why there isn’t such an app for the Zune PC client so we don’t have rely on dodgy OEM applications. Anyway, the Xbox companion application app will available shortly in the Windows Phone Marketplace
source: Microsoft
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