When Microsoft originally launched the new Xbox One, TV was a huge focus for the company. Over the last few years, though, that has changed rapidly, with the company removing features like Snap for multitasking while watching TV, and slowly phasing out Kinect.
And now, the company is removing another TV-related feature. As spotted by Ars Technica on Reddit, Microsoft has started sending out a notification to Xbox One users who have used a USB TV Tuner in the past.
The company is now killing support for the ability to stream TV content from your Xbox to the Xbox app on iOS and Android. “You may have streamed TV content using a USB TV tuner from your Xbox console to the Xbox app. In 30 days, the Xbox app on iOS and Android will no longer support this functionality. You will still be able to watch TV content on your Xbox One console and via streaming to the Xbox app on Windows 10,” the company said in the notification.
USB TV Tuners allowed the Xbox One to receive over-the-air antenna TV signals, which users could stream to their phone via the Xbox app. The feature obviously isn’t used widely, and that’s likely the reason behind Microsoft taking the feature away.
Microsoft probably doesn’t want to deal with maintaining code for such features. Plus, not a lot of people are likely going to be annoyed with the feature’s removal, but those who are still using the feature will likely be quite displeased