This is exciting. Yesterday, Microsoft released SkyDrive for the Xbox 360. Our primary Xbox 360 is in the family room and is on most of the day. It’s what we use to watch TV (Netflix, Hulu Plus, and Xbox Video), listen to music (Xbox Music) and now, thanks to the new SkyDrive app, browse our photos and home videos.
Media Center Swan Song
A few years back, when we first got married, I built a Windows Media Center PC to handle all of our media needs. It did everything and, initially, did it all with aplomb. But overtime, that machine started to fail and let’s be honest: I’m a developer. I want to write code! Maintaining computers is not what I enjoy doing and it gutted me to have my wife call up and ask how to get the TV on. Over time, as the Xbox improved its feature set, our media consumption started switching to the Xbox because it didn’t break down! Plus, all the same content is available on any of the Xboxes without the need to setup a Media Center Extender.
Pics Or It Didn’t Happen
Until today, the biggest thing we missed was an easy way to view our photos and home videos on the TV. Recently, I moved all of our photos from a server in the house over to SkyDrive (a full post on that process is coming). That was a great move and let us view them from any computer. But if guests came over, say for Thanksgiving, the only way to bore them with photos of our kids was to have them huddle around a computer.
Now we can bore them from the comfort of the couch!!
Okay, I’m exaggerating. Grandparents usually love to look at photos of their grandkids. Except when they’re mug shots. Unless it’s a photo ON a mug. They love those.
Couch Potato Photos?
The new SkyDrive app for Xbox 360 gives us super quick access to all of the photos in SkyDrive. Photos shared from other people are visible as well. For example, my father-in-law shared a series of photos of my older daughter playing under a magnolia tree. I was able to pull that photo set up easily and smile at how much she’s grown.
SkyDrive for Xbox 360 naturally has a slide show feature that we can point at a photos folder and show us photos all day long. And, since everything is synched up, as soon as I take a photo on my Windows Phone (with auto-upload to SkyDrive), the photos show up on the Xbox for all to see.
And that’s reason enough to keep your clothes on when taking cell phone pictures.
To get the SkyDrive app on your Xbox 360, go to the “Apps” tab and browse apps. It’s in there. Xbox 360 Gold subscription required. But you already had that, didn’t you?
I’m a SkyDrive Insider, ask me about SkyDrive or learn more about the SkyDrive Insiders program.