You can now stream Xbox games to your iPhone with the Xbox app

Microsoft was going to find a way eventually.

A recent update to the Xbox app for iOS added remote play functionality for iPhone and iPad users, meaning you can now stream games from your console to your iOS device, wherever a steady internet connection may be found. It’s also Microsoft’s cunning way of getting around Apple’s rules about game streaming apps in the App Store.

It’s not xCloud, but it’s not nothing. While xCloud lets you stream games direct from servers (it’ll get to South Africa eventually), the remote play feature lets you stream games from your console; like super-long distance casting. You just need a compatible device (iOS 10+) and controller (wireless with Bluetooth) and a steady internet connection (5 GHz WiFi/mobile with 10 Mbps down).

Your console also has to be on or in Instant-On mode so that the app can access it. But once you’ve got all that set up, you can stream games to your device from home, even when you’re not there (which happens sometimes). As long as they’re Xbox One or Xbox Series X/S games – older ones won’t work.

The Xbox app is also just generally faster now and has had the same Series X/S UI update you may have noticed on your console dashboard. This isn’t a terrible compromise to use until Xbox Game Pass comes to iOS.

This article was brought to you by NAG