E3 may be in our rear view like a fall leaf in Forza Horizon 4, but we’ve been busy updating the Xbox experience and adding features that you’ve requested.  The July Xbox Update adds features that make finding content even easier and offers a host of improvements to Mixer. Here’s what’s new:

FastStart Enabled for Select Titles
Announced back at E3 2018, FastStart is a new innovation from our Xbox Platform team that allows you to jump into your games twice as fast and play after downloading just a fraction of it. FastStart works by identifying which files are needed to begin playing and prioritizes the download of those files first, enabling you to quickly jump into full-fidelity gameplay while the remainder of your title downloads in the background. Simply find the FastStart-enabled title you want to play in our catalog, hit ‘Download’ and your console will take care of the rest. It’s that simple. What’s more, it’s now enabled for select English language titles in our Xbox Game Pass catalog, and will expand to more games in more languages over time. You can learn more about FastStart here.

Group Your Games and Apps
With so much content available, fans have asked for more options to organize libraries of games and apps.  Today, we’re introducing a powerful new enhancement to Pins, which we call “Groups.” With Groups, you can create multiple collections of content made up of anything from within My Games & Apps. You can also assign custom names to each Group, organize and order them, and add individual Groups to Home. Groups will appear across My Games & Apps, Home and Guide, so you’ll be able to access your Groups at a moment’s notice. Best of all, Groups are tied to your Xbox Live account, so they will automatically sync across multiple Xbox One consoles. We’ve started you off with a Group that should look very familiar — your Pins!

More Search Options
Searching for content is now even easier!  Now pressing the Y button anywhere in the dashboard will bring up the search dialog, allowing you to easily launch your content, sift through Settings, or find products in the Store.  This process is found in many apps, but now you can do it anywhere within the dashboard.  Not seeing enough results for your search? Hit enter or click the “more results” button to view a full page for your search results.

Mixer Share Controller Improvements
We’ve made it easier to use Share Controller on the web. First, we’ve enabled full mouse and keyboard support for PC users, along with Share Controller Key Bindings.

Second, we’ve added multi-touch support for touch-enabled devices. This allows multiple controls to be used at the same time! For example, you can control the joystick and press A at the same time on your touch laptop.

And lastly, we’ve added a per-channel leaderboard that spotlights viewers who have contributed to a streamer’s channel the most during a Share Controller session.

Full Screen Broadcasting on Mixer
Mixer streamers can now go full screen with their webcam while broadcasting. You can switch to full screen webcam broadcasting at any time you want. While in this mode game audio is muted, making it perfect for talking to your audience while switching from game to game or setting up before you start playing. You can even do all IRL broadcasts!

For the best experience we recommend using one of these cameras:

• Microsoft LifeCam Studio
• Logitech HD Pro Webcam C922
• Logitech Webcam C930e
• Microsoft LifeCam HD-3000

Console broadcasting quality and stability improvements
We’ve made a number of changes and fixes to improve overall broadcast video quality.  You will now experience improved performance when broadcasting bandwidth-heavy multiplayer.

All of these updates are available because of the Xbox Insiders who have helped shape these features, so big thanks to all of you for your valuable input.  If you’d like to help create the future of Xbox and get access to early features, download the Xbox Insider Hub app on your Xbox One or Windows 10 PC.  You can also visit the Xbox Insider blog here for the latest release notes and to learn more. Happy gaming!

By Roger Fingas
Thursday, July 05, 2018, 11:22 am PT (02:22 pm ET)

Developers can now request access to an early version of Apple’s Shortcuts app, which lets iOS 12 owners create custom automations triggered through Siri.

Access is restricted to developers only, and people accepted for testing must install the app through TestFlight. In release notes, Apple cautions that “limited actions” are currently available, and won’t sync via iCloud.

In fact the Shortcuts beta has several known issues, others being that some actions won’t appear when running custom shortcuts in Siri, and it can’t yet open apps when a device is locked. Apple also notes that shortcuts provided to the INVoiceShortcutCenter suggested shortcuts API are not available when viewing an app’s actions in Shortcuts.

Apple issued a second public beta of iOS 12 earlier on Thursday.

The promise of Shortcuts is the expansion of automation beyond HomeKit to every aspect of iOS, so long as developers enable hooks in their own titles. During Apple’s WWDC keynote in June, the company used the example of a custom “I’m heading home” phrase for Siri, which automatically texted a contact with a preset message, adjusted a HomeKit thermostat, turned on a fan, presented estimated travel time, and started playing NPR. In iOS 11, this would require several separate commands.

The concept is similar to the skills and routines baked into Amazon’s Alexa. To develop its own equivalent Apple bought out Workflow, which allows automations akin to Shortcuts but more limited.

By Ian Boudreau 05 Jul 2018

Pokemon Quest has amassed $3 million in revenue during its first week on mobile, according to analytics outfit Sensor Tower.

An estimated 56 percent of that revenue was pulled in through the iOS App Store, with the remaining 44 percent being attributed to the Google Play marketplace.

The blocky free-to-play title made its way to smartphones on June 27 — having launched on the Switch back in May — and has since been installed around 3.5 million times on mobile. 

As you might expect, the largest chunk of Pokemon Quest’s first week revenue came from players in Japan, with the region’s Pokefans accounting for 31 percent of all spending — compared to 25 percent in the States, and 12 percent in South Korea. 

Although we don’t know how much revenue the title has brought in on the Switch, it had surpassed 2.5 million downloads on the console as of June 21.

It seems extremely unlikely that The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim will ever receive the Creation Club feature on Switch, despite it being present on other consoles.

The Creation Club feature, which was first introduced into Fallout 4 before making its way to Skyrim, essentially allows players to access mods for the game on consoles, as well as on PC. Despite being available on PS4 and Xbox One, the feature hasn’t made its way over to Switch, and it looks like it never will.

Todd Howard, director at the game’s developer and publisher Bethesda, recently made comments about owners of the game on Switch, saying “Skyrim Switch has a big community that we haven’t supported the way we’d like.” Eurogamer followed up on this statement to find out exactly what was meant, and Howard’s response wasn’t exactly reassuring.

“They asked for mods,” he replied, “they asked for Creation Club – ‘When are we getting more stuff?'”

When asked about what was being done about this, Howard said:

“Right now we’re doing nothing. People, they’re on other things. Our Switch group did Fallout Shelter … and that’s done really well. I’m surprised at how well it’s done…”

“We would love to see it happen but it’s not something we’re actively doing.”

To put it simply, Bethesda is aware that Switch fans want to see mods in their portable version of Skyrim, but it isn’t something that the studio is focusing on. Whether this will change in the future is unknown, but it certainly sounds like Bethesda is fully committed to other projects.

Are you fussed about having mods in Skyrim? Are you disappointed that it might never be a thing in Skyrim on Switch? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.