New Xbox One version 1904 preview includes a new onscreen keyboard

Microsoft will be releasing another Xbox Insider Preview build for those on the Preview Alpha ring today. The news comes after the Alpha ring got its first preview of version 1904 earlier this week; previously, it was only in the Skip Ahead subset of the ring.

What's notable is that it actually contains a new feature, something that wasn't really seen while 1904, also known by its codename of 19H1, was being tested in Skip Ahead. That's because minor feature updates were also being tested in the lower rings, so the only new features showing up in 1904 were those that were actually for other updates, which shipped were designed to ship before 1904 does.

Today's build, 19h1_release_xbox_dev_1904.190114-1920, comes with a new mini keyboard, which is designed to float around textboxes, taking up less screen real estate than the current larger keyboard. If you still want the old one, you can turn it on through Ease of Access settings. Microsoft also pointed out that if there are issues with the placement of the keyboard, you should file a bug in the Insider Hub, as the firm has minimal telemetry around keyboards for privacy reasons.

There are also some fixes in this build:

Dashboard – Blank Tabs

• We have fixed the issue in which some users were seeing Dashboard tabs not loading console on boot.

Movies and TV

• Fixed the issue with 4k UHD “The Martian Extended Edition” playback losing audio sync with video repeatedly in audio passthrough mode

My Games and Apps

• Improved the installation of FastStart titles and more titles added. The title list of titles is located here: https://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-one/faststart

System – Home

• Fixed Home crashes that some users would experience when system sounds played.

And there are also some known issues:

Profile Color

• Sometimes users may encounter the incorrect Profile color when powering on the console.

My Games and Apps

• We are tracking an issue in which certain apps are displaying the error code 0xD0000189 when launching. Workaround reboot the console and launch the app.

Skype

• We are aware of an issue with skype that when a user clicks on a conversation and/or pressing X to start a video call seem to freeze and eventually crash skype.

As the version number indicates, Xbox One version 1904 should be available to the general public in April, although other rings of the Insider Program will get it sooner.