Aesthetically speaking, the Xbox One and Xbox One S controllers look more or less identical and you might be hard pressed to tell them apart. However one of the key differences between both controllers is how the Xbox One S version comes with Bluetooth, meaning that you don’t need to deal with adapters/dongles.
It also meant it could in theory connect to Bluetooth devices, like Android phones and tablets, but unfortunately it did not work out that way as buttons were assigned wrongly. The good news is that according to the folks at XDA, it appears that after a good two years, Google has finally addressed the issue in the Android 9.0 Pie update.
This was discovered in an issue tracker launched two years ago in which a Google engineer had finally marked it as “fixed”. This means that if you have an Android Pie handset or tablet and an Xbox One S controller, you can try taking it for a spin to see if it works the way it should. That being said, Android Pie has yet to be released for many Android phones.
To date the Pixel handsets have received their update along with the Essential Phone, but other manufacturers have yet to release it, so it could be a while before you can use your Xbox One S controller with your phone.
Filed in . Read more about Android, Android 9.0 Pie, Google, Microsoft and Xbox One.