In addition to Microsoft's other big announcement today -- it's bringing a great deal of new on-demand video content from a variety of providers to Xbox 360, in addition to a selection of live TV -- it also teased the ability to control your 360 with a Windows Phone. This can be seen briefly right at the 1-minute mark of the video below, and we now have some additional details on that functionality.
This is possible with the new Xbox Companion app for Windows Phone devices. It's not available yet and is currently without an official release date ("coming soon" is the best date we've got to go on). A Microsoft blog post explains some of what's possible with the app. You can browse Xbox Live Marketplace content (games, movies, TV shows, and music) and get additional information about any of it. A specific example of this is seeing the cast for a movie and then being able to select an actor or actress to view other movies he or she has been in.
The main attraction with the app is the ability to use the phone in controller mode. It can be used to navigate things on Xbox 360 as if it were a remote and control video playback. This is said to be "virtually instantaneous" and "easily as fast as using my controller or a TV remote," but that's coming from a Microsoft employee so it's what you'd expect to hear.
A big focus of the upcoming dashboard update has been on enhanced Kinect navigation. While the peripheral is not required, your voice and hand gestures can be used to navigate the dashboard and search for content. Using your phone as a remote doesn't sound as great in a press release as the hands-free stuff and may be why this hasn't been more heavily touted, but it's still pretty neat for those without Kinect who would rather not reach for a controller.
Source: http://www.1up.com/news/windows-phone-app-xbox-36-remote
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