The Xbox One’s Snap Mode is used to run multiple apps, including games, simultaneously on the same big screen. One Microsoft developer says it’s being removed in the next update. So far, we’re not entirely sure what, if anything, is replacing it.
The head of Xbox’s platform engineering team, Mike Ybarra, went to Twitter yesterday to announce the change.
We replaced Snap to improve multitasking, reduce memory use, improve overall speed, and free up resources going forward for bigger things.
— Mike Ybarra (@XboxQwik) January 24, 2017
Earlier this month, Polygon reported on the upcoming spring update for Xbox One. It’s supposed to feature a closer integration with Windows 10, a revised Guide, controls for background music, a redesigned Cortana digital assistant and enhanced social features among other things.
Most importantly, it’s supposed to be a lot faster than the status quo. Reducing memory and improving speed, as Ybarra says above, would go a long way in helping meet that goal.
Ybarra himself included a short clip of the new dashboard during a livestream, which you can see below.
A replacement for Snap wasn’t discussed during that stream, and we’re not entirely sure that one is on the way. Windows Central may know something we don’t, however. It’s got “trusted sources” that say a new “picture-in-picture multitasking implementation” is in the works.
We’ve reached out to Microsoft for more information.