One of the best third-party tools for Xbox is aiming to make it even easier to manage your clips and screenshots. XboxDVR is a resource to see all of your most recent video and image captures. It’s the quickest and most convenient way to manage that content because you can handle it seamlessly through a browser. Now, the XboxDVR team is launching a mobile app to make it even easier to find and share your best gaming moments.
The XboxDVR app is live now on iOS and Android for free. It includes the basic functionality that you would expect. If you take a screenshot or video clip on Xbox One or PC (and have default privacy settings), that content will feed into XboxDVR automatically. You can then share a link to the clip on XboxDVR. Alternatively, you can download the image or video to share it wherever you want.
XboxDVR, the website, has more features than the app. You can log into an account, see trending content from other people, and create GIFs. And the XboxDVR team is looking to bring more features to the mobile version soon. The idea is to get this initial release out and show people that it works, and then build on it from that point.
It works well
Taking screenshots on a console is simple. The Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch all make this process near-painless. But I find the act of finding and sharing my images and clips is much more frustrating.
On Switch and PS4, you have to manage your image and video sharing on the consoles themselves. You could take a USB stick between a console and a computer, but … c’mon. The Xbox One, however, automatically uploads everything into Microsoft’s cloud. Now, that isn’t necessarily wonderful either. I don’t use OneDrive very much (since I filled up my free space), and I think its web-based tool is confusing and slow.
But Microsoft doesn’t try to keep you in its ecosystem. It lets third parties like XboxDVR access all of that content. And being able to say, “Xbox, record that” (when I had my Kinect hooked up), and seeing it on XboxDVR.com a few minutes later was always great.
Having the app makes that entire process even smoother. Everything you record and capture shows up, and you get two big buttons for sharing or downloading. It’s also all laid out in a feed that you can scroll through quickly. It’s a well-designed app.
XboxDVR isn’t just a great experience, it’s an argument for platform holders to open up their walled gardens slightly. This app has no affiliation with Microsoft, but it makes Microsoft’s products better. And I know that the XboxDVR team wants to do something similar for PlayStation, but Sony hasn’t made the necessary APIs public.
So I’ll continue to suffer through gamepad-based keyboards and archaic interfaces on PS4 and Switch. But Sony and Nintendo should know that I’ll curse them each time I can’t use something like XboxDVR instead.