Our sources have told us that Microsoft has tested a new tab for the Guide menu that will provide instant access to recently accessed games, apps, and other system features. Additionally, this new menu will display your pins, allowing you to customize what apps and games appear in the new tab for easy access. Microsoft has also been testing a single button press to access the Guide menu, as opposed to the double-tap implementation available today.
The idea is to reduce the number of steps required to navigate the dashboard, by putting more of the dash directly into the Guide. The full dashboard will remain, of course, but future Xbox One builds could be giving us access to more features in a single Guide tab, dramatically improving the speed and accessibility of important features in the process.
Another aspect of the Xbox dashboard that could be seeing significant changes is the current implementation of app multitasking. Snap Mode allows users to "snap" an app to the right side of the screen, to access a stripped-down version. This is most prevalent in media apps like OneGuide and YouTube, which allow you to view video feeds without leaving your game.
The current Snap Mode is a relic of the original Windows 8-based dashboard from 2013, back when Kinect was intrinsic to the navigation of the console. Using Snap Mode with a controller isn't the most pleasant experience, and even then, you lose a huge portion of your screen real estate for what you get in return.
I've been told that Snap Mode could be getting removed completely. Indeed, Universal Windows Platform apps are currently completely unable to utilize Snap Mode, and denying UWP apps access to the feature could be evidence enough of its impending removal.
Instead, Xbox looks to be exploring the possibility of a picture-in-picture multitasking implementation, where "snapped" app would simply hover in the corner of your game, rather than wiping out a quarter of your screen with a largely empty bar.