According to a new report from The Verge, Microsoft has added touch controls to the latest beta versions of the Xbox applications for Android and iOS that allow people to not only control Xbox gaming consoles from their smartphones but also play games from those gaming consoles on their smartphones using Xbox remote play without using a physical (Bluetooth) controller.
These touch controls are in the form of an on-screen overlay, offering controls for D-pad, joysticks, action buttons, and bumper buttons among other things. The publication says that these controls are similar to the ones found in the Xbox Game Pass apps for Android and iOS which allow people to stream games on their smartphones using Xbox Cloud Gaming. Microsoft has also mentioned this feature on a support page.
You can get the beta version of the Xbox app on Android by downloading the Xbox beta app, whereas, you can get that on iOS by joining the Xbox beta on Test Flight. Unfortunately, the Xbox beta on Test Flight is full at the moment. Currently, there’s no information about when Microsoft will bring touch controls to the stable version of the Xbox apps for Android and iOS.