We knew it was coming, but that it was pushed out now is certainly a surprise. The Kodi team has released its first alpha client of v18 Leia in UWP form to the Xbox One and it's available to download right now for anyone.
It's a very early look at the app, and while the fit and finish looks pretty great (and on par with the current stable version on Windows 10), the developers have been quick to point out where the current limitations are. And may always be.
What you should really understand and keep remembering is that it is still in early stages of development and has very rough edges, might not be as stable as the regular version and may even be missing some functions. Due to the nature of how UWP works our hands are tied in some areas. Some parts are not even finished yet and our developers are still working on getting it up to the regular standard. As of this writing there's limited access to only what's part of your Video and Music folders. Network support is limited to only NFS:// shares. No access to the Blu-ray drive to start the disc or even an attached storage drive. There might still be problems with certain general python modules that are used by add-ons and we are finding and reporting them to the developers as testing progresses. I'm sure there's more that might not work as intended yet as there are so many features it just will take a while to go over them. We cannot promise to what extend we can get every feature working as it all depends on what is available to us developers.
Rewriting Kodi in UWP form comes alongside finally updating the desktop app for Windows to 64-bit, and eventually, this same version on the Xbox will be available through the Microsoft Store for Windows 10 as well.
It's going to be rough around the edges for a while, but the developer team has detailed everything about the Xbox launch over on the Kodi blog. The best thing we can do is use it, experience it, and feedback where things aren't quite right through the Kodi forums.
We've come full circle. What was born on the Xbox can once again be found there. Welcome home.
