By the time you read this, Microsoft will be shipping its spring dashboard update - the first of two major Xbox 360 software upgrades expected this year. It's practically a whole-new console with 125 new features and improvements. The patch includes the already ballyhooed background downloads, boot to dashboard and many more tweaks, fixing so many bugs and clear oversights:
- The music player now remembers your settings, including Shuffle and Repeat, and even continues after booting in or out of a game or the console itself
- If an in-game cinematic overrides your custom soundtrack, it pauses and resumes as soon as the scene ends
- Downloaded videos have fast-forward and rewind controls
- The DVD player offers bookmarking and many other improvements, including better playback, picture quality and fast-forward/rewind smoothness
- Dashboard sound effects can be turned off
- Marketplace downloads are faster
- Personal gamer pictures can be added, but they'll only be seen by members of your friends list - everyone else will see only "approved" gamer pictures
- After downloading a new theme, you'll be given the choice to display it immediately; themes can also be selected from the System blade
- Memory units are identified on screen by the slot they're in (A or B)
- Memory card access is faster and has fewer steps to manage
- After a few minutes of inactivity, when your screen dims you'll automatically be marked as Away in Xbox Live
- Improved music player performance, music data, organization, controls and error messages
- A slideshow can be started from any photo
- Better handling of Friends requests when a Gamertag changes
- Improved voice quality when using a headset with a wired controller
- Upsell information for Gold membership whenever free Silver members are invited or try to join an online match
- A better initial setup experience, particularly for users with only a memory card instead of a hard drive
- Improved USB keyboard support
- Countless glitches, UI tweaks and usability improvements
- Better support for Xbox 360 disc recognition (huh?)
- Downloaded videos now appear in the Video section of the Media blade (duh)
- Wireless controllers stay on after a system-initiated restart (gee, thanks)
- Selecting an Achievement now shows specific Achievement details (what else would it do?)
- You're no longer asked to "Exit to Dash?" when switching between Dashboard areas (I'm there, dude!)
- After a backward compatibility update, the system reboots to the Xbox game instead of the Dashboard (cha)
- The system won't wait forever when trying to use Windows Media Connect (we're not getting any younger)
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