It's been a long time coming, but Valve has finally made a major update to the Steam app and standalone APK (opens in new tab) for Android and iOS. The changes include improvements to the UI and underlying framework, as well as some cool new features.

"We completely revamped the Steam Mobile app. It adds QR code scanning for PC sign-in, smarter notifications, a new library view with remote downloads, customizable tabs, and more."

Users can now log in to multiple accounts in the mobile app and manage access to their devices.

The app also allows users to remotely initiate Steam downloads on their PCs, customize the tabs that appear at the bottom of the UI, and personalize the page that appears as the home page.

I took a look at the app myself this morning, and the UI is much better than before; it has less of a "made in the 90s with HTML" feel; like Discord or WhatsApp, where you can point your phone at your PC and log in with a QR code, usability It's a big win for usability. This is especially useful if, like me, your partner's machine, which requires intermittent logins to share libraries, uses an unfamiliar keyboard layout (opens in new tab).

One of the main problems with the app, however, is that when I'm scrolling through a long list of games and decide to click on one, using the phone's back button takes me back to the top of the list again, or to an entirely different section... Valve's Steam Deck has a similar case, with Steam OS coming back to the top almost randomly, making it very cumbersome to scroll down to get back to where you were on the list.

The ability to jump back to where you were when scrolling through the store is something that is missing through all iterations and annoys me. But overall, the updates are great.

Yesterday's Steam News Hub post (opens in new tab) has more details on how to get the most out of app refreshes.

Next, Valve says it will work on bringing QR sign-in to Steam Deck, teasing a new kind of notification, and allowing users to change device authentication in the Steam Client as well as the browser.