The Xbox Store has a new Microsoft Photos app available for the Xbox One and it should go live soon.
Microsoft promised to deliver a unified software platform for its various devices and it aims to achieve that through Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps. These apps are designed with mainly the same code so they can run on multiple platforms, thus bridging the gap between different device categories from Microsoft.
UWP apps were initially designed for Windows 10, Windows 10 Mobile and the Microsoft Surface Hub, but the company has eventually extended the courtesy to the Xbox One as well.
The console got a number of UWP apps recently and Microsoft Photos is the next in line, allowing people who already use the app on Windows 10 or Windows 10 Mobile to sync up their photos or videos and fire them up on a big screen via the Xbox One.
Reddit user guilherme07 spotted the Microsoft Photos app in the Xbox Store, and it's already available for download. When trying to open the app, however, it will display a "coming soon" screen, which means it's not live just yet, points out another Reddit user.
Considering that downloads are already possible, however, it should not take long before the Microsoft Photos app goes live for the Xbox One.
"The best place to enjoy, organize, edit, and share all your digital memories," reads the app's description. "It brings together photos and videos from all your devices, enhances them to make great photos even better, and organizes them into beautiful albums for you."
As other redditors point out, this sort of pre-release (available for download but not usable yet) is similar to how Microsoft Groove made its debut on the Xbox. The app similarly popped up on the Xbox Store, but it took a couple of weeks to go live. Microsoft pulled a similar scheme with the Windows Maps app as well.
Bottom line, the Microsoft Photos UWP app is on its way to the Xbox One and should go live in the near future. It remains unclear why Microsoft makes apps available for download before they're actually usable, but perhaps that "coming soon" message aims to build up some hype ahead of the release, serving as a teaser of sorts.
Either way, we'll let you know as soon as the Microsoft Photos goes live for the Xbox One. Will you be using the UWP app once it's available?
