Xbox 360 LIVE Beta enrollment now open for 2012 Fall update

[AWilliams87]

I thought you all agreed to a NDA when you signed up? Odd.

[LUTZIFER]

Hoping for Flash is bad, but understandable..

Hoping for ActiveX.. no.. just no..

Well without flash and active x the browser is pretty much useless.

[what]

Well without flash and active x the browser is pretty much useless.

Yeah it's impossible to find a website that doesn't entirely depend on either of them.

[MikeChipshop Member]

Plenty

Well without flash and active x the browser is pretty much useless.

Plenty of people browse the web on their iPhone/iPad without missing Flash.

Flash will NEVER make it to the XBOX browser in my opinion.

Although it's not something i'll really find myself doing, i'm glad the option to browse the web has been added to the XBOX.

[what]

I took the liberty to count just how many adverts I'm getting on this dashboard preview. I counted 31. Doesn't that seem a bit excessive for a console menu? You can't even say they're targeted - I don't play CoD or Halo anymore and I've never played Mass Effect 3.

[Lucas]

Is there any way to get in the beta of this at the moment? Or just wait for it to go public?

[DirtyLarry Veteran]

I took the liberty to count just how many adverts I'm getting on this dashboard preview. I counted 31. Doesn't that seem a bit excessive for a console menu? You can't even say they're targeted - I don't play CoD or Halo anymore and I've never played Mass Effect 3.

It is quite ridiculous. Not sure why I even bother paying for a Gold subscription honestly, you would think being a paid subscriber means not having to be bombarded by ads.

Including the ads, It really is incredibly quite cluttered when all is said and done. Not the most intuitive IMO either. If not for the ability to pin things, I would really dislike it. I much prefer the simplicity and minimalism of XMB, and even that has a little to many ads for my taste, but still nowhere near as much as this latest dashboard (if dashboard is indeed what it is still called).

Now keep in mind, I am pretty old school with my needs from gaming consoles. I need them to play games and stream videos, in that order. Any other additional functionality I either hardly ever use or do not use at all. So all this other **** like search and browse the web and be shown things I may also like based on what I have played, pretty much useless from my perspective. Really would have loved to see the ability to just have a streamlined simplified version of the interface just to fit my needs. Perhaps it is there and I have not discovered it yet. For now I have the pin ability which kind of resolves my issue with everything else.

[BajiRav]

It is quite ridiculous. Not sure why I even bother paying for a Gold subscription honestly, you would think being a paid subscriber means not having to be bombarded by ads.

Including the ads, It really is incredibly quite cluttered when all is said and done. Not the most intuitive IMO either. If not for the ability to pin things, I would really dislike it. I much prefer the simplicity and minimalism of XMB, and even that has a little to many ads for my taste, but still nowhere near as much as this latest dashboard (if dashboard is indeed what it is still called).

Now keep in mind, I am pretty old school with my needs from gaming consoles. I need them to play games and stream videos, in that order. Any other additional functionality I either hardly ever use or do not use at all. So all this other **** like search and browse the web and be shown things I may also like based on what I have played, pretty much useless from my perspective. Really would have loved to see the ability to just have a streamlined simplified version of the interface just to fit my needs. Perhaps it is there and I have not discovered it yet. For now I have the pin ability which kind of resolves my issue with everything else.

Pinning is a missed opportunity as it stands in the beta. If I pin a game and use that to launch it - the stupid thing opens the marketplace page of the game instead of launching it. It takes 3 "clicks" to launch a game i.e. home 1> my pins 2> game 3> play_now

That is just ridiculous and useless. There is also their continued neglect of system video/music/photo players :/ they can't be pinned (or show up in recent) for some arbitrary reasons. I use them extensively and it is just plain irritating.

[George P Global Moderator]

I don't count the "game suggestions" as ads. I guess some would but to me that's some useful information, taking the games I've played into account and showing me something that's the same that I might like. I'm all for that type of info on my dashboard.

[BajiRav]

I don't count the "game suggestions" as ads. I guess some would but to me that's some useful information, taking the games I've played into account and showing me something that's the same that I might like. I'm all for that type of info on my dashboard.

I thought I was never bothered by those gaming-related ads but I find my usage as jumping around ads(all kinds) to get to stuff that I need.

The very routine things I do such as start/join a party, read messages, check who is online etc. are buried behind multi-level menus (either the blade-guide or the social tab) and out of the 9 tiles on the Home screen only 3 are useful to me (one of them is stupid as I posted above).

They need to re-do the whole dashboard layout to improve navigation, the latest update is nothing but a mess.

One more example is that there are two kinds of music players to play music from a PC on the network depending on where you start. That is just bad design.

[DR3AMxCATCHER]

I've noticed a very laggy experience within the guide. My friends list usually is not playing the game that is listed. Also, joining a party seems to take forever to load the names. Not sure if anyone else has had those issues. I haven't seen the replicated gamertag glitch/error from the previous dashboard though.

[DR3AMxCATCHER]

Not to double post like a noob, but I got an update today when I signed in. Not sure what the changes were as I haven't really looked into what the update was about. Anyone else get it?

[George P Global Moderator]

I haven't managed to use my 360 much this past week or so but the last update I got was one related to IE mostly since it kicked on when I tried to use the app.

[Anthony Tosie Veteran]

I like the speed and functionality of the new dashboard, but I don't like a lot of the UI changes they've made. They've added a lot of gradients and junk that shouldn't be in a Metro interface. Somewhat disappointing from that regard.

[Roger H. Veteran]

Ok, figured i'd ask here, as you can see on the first page I was one of the first to sign up but never got around to putting the key in my Xbox (travelling, family stuff) now i'm checking on Connect and don't see the place for finding my key again. I look at where it supposed to be but I don't have the option anymore. Should have just saved my key in a notepad file but figured it would always be there. Anyone got a link to it to PM me? (obviously i'd need to be accepted in order for the link to work anyways).

[George P Global Moderator]

I like the speed and functionality of the new dashboard, but I don't like a lot of the UI changes they've made. They've added a lot of gradients and junk that shouldn't be in a Metro interface. Somewhat disappointing from that regard.

I agree with you for the most part, they should dump the gradients at least. Other than that I like the overall update, it feels faster and there's more info per group. Pinning is nice and I find the game suggestions handy as well. IE works to, and loads the pages I've tried so far fast though neowin is a bit funky when scrolling at this point. I just wish I could get more apps in my locale, it's all US for the most part with Canada and the UK having a few, maybe some other of the bigger EU nations as well, France and Germany. I'm out in the cold though and I hope at least the future Xbox Music and Video service doesn't leave me out as well.

[Anthony Tosie Veteran]

I agree with you for the most part, they should dump the gradients at least. Other than that I like the overall update, it feels faster and there's more info per group. Pinning is nice and I find the game suggestions handy as well. IE works to, and loads the pages I've tried so far fast though neowin is a bit funky when scrolling at this point. I just wish I could get more apps in my locale, it's all US for the most part with Canada and the UK having a few, maybe some other of the bigger EU nations as well, France and Germany. I'm out in the cold though and I hope at least the future Xbox Music and Video service doesn't leave me out as well.

Yup, pinning's fantastic, and Internet Explorer is decent enough. Can't see myself using it much, but hey, not gonna complain about having it.

Another UI quibble: I've noticed that they seem to be caching the box art and logos, so if your Internet goes out or you use your Xbox offline the interface becomes extremely ugly, with placeholder box art/logos. I do like how the tile icons are larger and bolder, however.

[Timan Veteran]

EVERYONE NEEDS TO BE PLAYING HAPPY WARS (in the beta)

[Jan Veteran]

EVERYONE NEEDS TO BE PLAYING HAPPY WARS (in the beta)

Is it any good?

[Timan Veteran]

Is it any good?

Yep, its under the Beta tab, then tap extras, and you can download it.

Its kinda like Fat Princess on ps3, free to play tho