Unofficial Xbox Live app for iPhone

By Tom Bramwell Published 11 August, 2008

Watch a few of your friends.

Enterprising developers have been flooding the new iTunes App Store with games over the past month, and now developer Nicholas Pike has introduced an application for tracking your Xbox Live friends on iPhone and iPod touch.

IXboxLive costs GBP 0.59 / USD 0.99 and allows you to add around a dozen gamertags to its friends list before loading times reach an unacceptable level, according to its author, but due to limitations with the Xbox Community Developer SDK it does not allow you to keep an eye on your entire friends list.

For those players you do track, however, you will be able to see what they are playing, their gamer picture, their current gamerscore, reputation and location, and a list of their most recent games, including scores and when they last played.

Since its launch late last week, Pike has updated his site to acknowledge a few bugs likely to be fixed in the next version, and promises more updates soon.

If you're lucky enough to have found an iPhone 3G in the UK (or wherever) since its launch, and can't wait for the next version or for Microsoft to do something official, you can grab iXboxLive from the App Store now.

Look out for our thoughts on the iPhone's gaming performance and reviews of some of the system's best-selling games in the next few days. Yes, we had to queue as well.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (16) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Shrui #1 4 years ago

    If I had a 360 (very tempting atm) and i got this I think the big problem I'd have is seeing what people are playing while I'm stuck at work! As if work isn't depressing enough!
    Edited by 1 at 11/08/08 @ 08:15

  • mazzl #2 4 years ago

    why would you want to know who is playing what and when....

  • Darren #3 4 years ago

    Eh... GBP 0.59 / USD 9.99... you mean GBP 5.90?

  • m0thr4 #4 4 years ago

    No, they meant GBP 0.59 / USD 0.99

  • m0thr4 #5 4 years ago

    If you're lucky enough to have found an iPhone 3G in the UK (or wherever) since its launch

    Luck had absolutely nothing to do with it; I just went into Carphone Warehouse 5 days beforehand and asked them to reserve one for me. Didn't have to queue on launch day or anything.

  • snick #6 4 years ago

    For a moment there I thought this was a case of rip-off America. Maybe next time.

  • Xerx3s #7 4 years ago

    Preordering a phone. heh.

  • rob230 #8 4 years ago

    59p seems to be replacing FREE quite rapidly on the App Store.

  • thesombrerokid #9 4 years ago

    it's a cheating way to get your app to the top of the most downloaded payed apps list

  • lennon #10 4 years ago

    Had one and took it back reverting to my old iphone. Not worth the upgrade price IMO. Also they really are not hard to get hold of. You just need to be able to get out of bed for opening time. :)

  • rob230 #11 4 years ago

    I love my 2G iphone, except for the fact that it always has a weak signal inside buildings

  • daz_john_smith #12 4 years ago

    Errrr... couldn't you just log into Xbox.com anywhere on an iPhone 3G and see what all your friends are doing without any limitations?
    I bet Xbox.com gives you more detail too, I remember logging in and it not only told me my friend was playing Rock Band, but exactly what song he was playing at that moment. He was a little freaked out when I txted him asking how he just did on the Killers.

  • andromeda #13 4 years ago

    @mazzl

    +1

    my sentiments exactly. Utterly pointless application - like i give a monkeys about about whether a friend is playign a game and what his score is. Christ social networking is the new reality TV.
    Help us.

  • Floppy #14 4 years ago

    For those moments on the move, when you ABSOLUTELY must know what your mate's gamer score is at any given time.

    This is quite pointless. As if you're like me and many of my mates, you tend to keep your profile status at a minimum so your boss can't see what you're playing when you're on a sickie.

  • rob230 #15 4 years ago

    I had this on my iphone before 2.0 came out, was kinda handy, as I'd be watching some shit on tv, and would check to see if anyone was online worth ditching the show for and jumping on Live. That's about it though.

  • T4RG4 #16 4 years ago

    Above - exactly.

    Especially useful to know when my brother, who is famous for being late, actually turns up for that online game we were meant to start an hour ago.