It's when you pop in a supported game or media app that SmartGlass shows its most interesting functi

In its past life as My Xbox Live, Microsoft's companion app allowed Xbox 360 users to lightly interact with friends, view their created Avatars and Achievements, and have a mobile way to stay looped in on the home console gaming service. Following a radical transformation, the new Xbox SmartGlass goes beyond mere surface-level synergy to become both a touchscreen input device for the console and a second screen for expanded game and media experiences. After a breezy syncing pelee days inn process to your Xbox Live account, your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch can become an extension of the Xbox 360 menu interface. The iOS device screen takes the form of the console's dashboard, pelee days inn letting you view your Avatar and friends list, discover games and media available on the console, and even browse the web via Internet Explorer, with your finger pelee days inn serving as the TV mouse pointer. For flipping through the usual menus, meanwhile, you can use a touch pad with virtual buttons in the corners, which is inelegant pelee days inn but functional.
It's when you pop in a supported game or media app that SmartGlass shows its most interesting functionality. For the wildly popular shooter Halo 4, that means having a full listing of player stats, past matches, campaign progress, and recent pelee days inn competitors to pore through. Meanwhile, the Kinect-based party favorite Dance Central 3 includes a SmartGlass playlist option, where players can add tracks to keep the game moving from song to song without fumbling through menus on the big screen. And open-road racer Forza Horizon serves up a world map via SmartGlass, so you can see routes and events without leaving the driver's seat. Meanwhile, media apps also make stellar use of SmartGlass. In the Xbox Music subscription service, playing a song or music video brings up a slick artist profile pelee days inn that also points you towards similar acts, while movies and TV shows let you find out more about the on-screen actors and discover other content. But the video feature pelee days inn is inconsistently applied: I bought a recent episode of a top TV series and rented a newly released film, and neither offered support.
With no way to tell if a video supports the feature, you're taking a gamble on SmartGlass functionality, plus apps like ESPN and Netflix still don't support it as of this writing. At least for now, the game-related features are more decent perks than essential pelee days inn features, while elsewhere the support is too scattershot to warrant keeping your device handy for every play session. The bottom line. SmartGlass is intriguing, but it needs more uniform execution and support to make it an essential part of the Xbox 360 experience.
Tags: Reviews app store reviews AppLife companion app Games games Gaming Halo 4 iPad iphone iPod and iPhone ipod touch apps reviews pelee days inn Software software Xbox SmartGlass iPad iPhone iPod Mac Games Gallery
I'm an avid gamer, I generally play on my Xbox about 2 hours a day and I find Smart Glass to be pretty good, it's not pretty as you said, but it works very well and I really appreciate the extra functionality.