# Addons Framework, API, and Manager
* Added ability for all addons to provide their own web interface (and handling of multiple web interfaces)
* Added support for addons to save their setting values to their own settings.xml file before quitting
* Added support for multi-file selections in the (python) file browser dialog
* Extended Addons API to support adding extension points for Service Addons (xbmc.service)
* Added support for Addon Rollbacks, enabling users to choose previously installed addons over more recent revisions
* Added the ability to search Addons in the Addons-Manager
# GUI Engine
* Improve XBMC's GUI Engine / Skinning Framework making it even more flexible and powerful
* Added option for auto login of a specific selected user profile (good for kiosk mode)
* Added commands for xbmc.Player().getAvailableAudioStreams() and xbmc.Player().setAudioStream()
* Added support to identify DTS-HD (DTS-HD MA and DTS-HD HRA) profiles in audio stream list
* Add ability for skinners to show buffering progress for streamed/cached files (similar to YouTube)
* Improved mouse support, add better control for dragging of seek / slide / scroll bars, and click handling
* Improve touch interface API and gesture support for XBMC's GUI Engine for all platforms
* Added Dirty Region support to reduce CPU usage
* Added a custom JPEG decoder, at least 2x faster than the previous implementation (cximage)
# Playback:
* Added UDF 2.5 filesystem reading support to XBMC's VFS (Virtual File System)
* Added support for direct playback of ISO image files for Blu-ray Disc as well as video library integration
* Added an option for vertical shift of video image with slider setting
* Added support for color and font styles tag in MPL2 (MicroDVD) subtitles
* Added support for SSA/ASS subtitle tags; italics, bold, and color for SubRip (.srt) subtitles
* Added support for MP4 embedded subtitles
* Added support delay tag in vobsub subtitles
* Added support for a new extended version of MPlayer's EDL (Edit Decision List) format
* Added PlayerControl built in function to allow jumping to a percentage offset from a key mapping
* Added support for Slingbox
* Upgrade FFmpeg (libavformat and libavcodec) audio/video codec and demux library
* Improved Blu-ray Disc and harddrive playback support of unencrypted bdmv and mpls files without menus
* Removed subtitle caching (as it was only needed on Xbox because of the severe memory restrictions)
* Removed all dependencies of libmms libraries from XBMC's code in favour of FFmpeg native MMS support
* Remove all dependencies of liba52, libdts, and faac libraries from XBMC's code in favour of FFmpeg native
* Added support for NFS virtual file server (vfs) (all platforms)
* Added support for AFP (vfs) (all platforms aside from Windows)
* Added Airplay support for Videos/Pictures (all platforms)
* Added Airplay support for Music (all platforms aside from Windows)
* Improved UPnP Renderer
* Added a slider for volume amplification and dynamic range compression during video playback
* Added an option to pause video playback during refreshrate changes
* Extended PathSubstitution from playlists to all files for users of shared MySQL Databases
* Added the ability to adjust the display's refresh rate to match the video's frame rate in OSX (Feature already available in Windows and Linux)
* Improvements made to the adjust refresh rate feature to pick the "best" rate, rather than the closest multiple
* Added DXVA Deinterlacing support
# Library:
* Combined Files and Library mode for videos
* Add asynchronous threaded background loading of metadata to XBMC's VFS (Virtual File System)
* Added support for cleaning the music library via CleanLibrary(music) command
* Added a "Play from here" context menu button for TV Shows Episodes in the video library
* Added the option to specify the default select (Play, Resume, Show information, Choose) action on videos
* Changed "Set Content" to "Edit Content Settings" after being set
* Added disc stub support for cataloging DVDs, BluRays, etc.
# Scrapers:
* Improve TheMovieDB.org movie scraper by adding themoviedb.org posters scraping
* Improve TheTVDB.com (Multi-Lingual) TV Shows and Episode scraper
* Improve Freebase (English) music scraper
# Skins:
* Confluence: Home screen switched to horizontal layout
* Confluence: Greatly simplified the way FanArt works throughout the skin and the settings for it
* Confluence: Added ability for users to easily add / remove Add-ons as items on the home screen menu
* Confluence: Added codec flagging images for DTS-HD Master Audio and DTS-HD High Resolution Audio
# Other:
* Added ability to handle and allow access to multiple web interfaces at once
* Added option setting to play videos within picture slideshows
* Added dimming setting to the built-in picture slideshow screensaver
* Added support for sorting depending on current locale
* Added advancedsettings.xml option to disable the display of startup splash image (enabled by default)
* Added support for batch requests to the JSON-RPC API
* Added support for requests by notification to the JSON-RPC API
* Make JSON-RPC API compliant with JSON-RPC 2.0 specification ( details)
* Cleanup and improve JSON-RPC API
* Added advancedsettings.xml option to configure the TCP port used by JSON-RPC (default is 9090)
* Improve the features of the default web interface
* Removed Weather from XBMC core and switched to Weather Underground as the default weather provider addon
# Linux Specific:
* Add support for Texas Instruments OMAP4 (OMAP4430 and OMAP4440 with video decoding on IVA 3)
* Added dynamic runtime detection of CPU features (MMX, SSE, 3DNow, etc.) implementation for Linux
* Added proper timezone support for systems based on Slackware Linux
* Added altname (alternative name) support to LIRC mapping for linux-input-layer devices
* Added lircmap for Conexant's CX23885 IR (infrared) recievers
* Added lircmap to switch between subtitles with iMON Pad remote control
* Improved ARM processor architecture support for embedded devices and embedded system platforms
* Improved OpenGL ES and EGL support for embedded devices and embedded system platforms
* Improved OpenMAX Video Decoding Acceleration support
* Provide JSON-RPC server over Bluetooth
# iOS Specific:
* Ported XBMC to iOS 4.x (adding "XBMC for iOS" to XBMC's existing list of supported operating-systems)
* Added support for Apple A4 (ARM) iDevices, inc. Apple TV 2G, iPhone 4, iPod Touch 4G, and the iPad
* Added hardware accelerated video decoding support for H.264 decode on iOS via Apple's VideoToolBox API
* Added support for OpenGL ES hardware accelerated rendering of XBMC's graphical user interface on iOS
* Added initial iOS Touch / Gesture / Inertial Scrolling support for XBMC interface on iPhone 4, iPod Touch 4G, and the iPad
* Added a APT repository for Apple TV, and Cydia with packages for iPhone 4, iPod Touch 4G, and iPad
# Mac OS X Specific:
* Added dynamic runtime detection of CPU features (MMX, SSE, 3DNow, etc.) implementation for Mac OS X
* Improve Apple VDADecoder Video Acceleration support (requires Snow Leopard and NVIDIA 9400 or later)
* Improve XBMC's build system to make compiling XBMC much easier
# Windows Specific:
* Added support for NV12, UVYV, UYVY, and YUV2 rendering (software and ps)
* Added dynamic runtime detection of CPU features (MMX, SSE, 3DNow, etc.) implementation for Windows
* Added DXVA video rendering option
* Improve XBMC's build system to make compiling XBMC much easier