SlingPlayer Mobile coming to iPhone/iPod Touch?
By Will Park on Monday, January 14th, 2008 at 4:52 PM PST In Apple, Applications, Mobile TV, Rumors, iPhone
The SlingPlayer Mobile client is a great way for SlingBox users to place–shift their TV programming right onto their mobile phone. With Palm (NSDQ: PALM) Treo and RIM BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) devices already rocking SlingPlayer Mobile clients in Palm OS as well as flavors, SlingMedia has their crosshairs set on the iPhone (and iPod Touch).
Senior sources at Sling told ElectricPig.tv that they are working on an iPhone-compatible version of their SlingPlayer Mobile client. The iPhone’s huge, multi-touch display are perfectly suited for viewing media, so SlingMedia’s push on the Apple (NSDQ: AAPL)-phone makes a lot of sense.
The iPhone-based SlingPlayer Mobile obviously won’t be working over the EDGE data connection, but a dose of WiFi goodness should bring place-shifted TV programming to iPhone-owning SlingBox customers. We should also see a 3G compatible version of the iPhone SlingPlayer Mobile client with release of the next-generation iPhone.
Now, we’ve heard that SlingMedia was one of the select few developers that were lucky enough to score an early copy of the iPhone SDK from Apple - which bodes well for this rumor. We’ll probably know more at Macworld San Francisco 2008, so stay tuned.
Update: It seems SlingMedia did not get an early copy of the iPhone SDK. BGR has it from “sources” that SlingMedia is considering iPhone development, but hasn’t confirmed any plans to bring SlingPlayer to the iPhone. We’re going to hold off on confirming or killing this rumor until we hear more at Macworld.
[Via: 9to5mac]
Didn’t BGR already bust this one?
It will work over Edge. I run Slingmedia on my Palm Treo over edge and it works fine. Sure, wifi is better but the picture is so small that it doesn’t need to stream at high speed.
Burtx: I too have been using my mobile Slingplayer on my Cingular 8125 then 8525 for about a year and a half on Edge and it has worked well. I also have been using it on my Vaio SZ-370 with the built in Edge card and it works well there too (much larger screen). True, it’s not in Hi-Def, but we FINALLY got 3G in December in our area and I could really not tell a night and day difference in the quality of the picture. It is still fast enough to catch a news broadcast or, more importantly, schedule a recording on my DVR when I forget to do that before leaving the house. I have been guilty of watching TV when driving on a long trip and when traveling between 3g and Edge I have not noticed a problem at all with either one. (I also stream the Audio portion to my bluetooth receiver via the A2DP Profile, Hint Hint).
Bottom line is, Edge will definitely SUPPORT the Slingplayer for Mobile, and it is completely unacceptable for the iPhone to not be allowed to have the software installed. Others have said that it is because of the format of the Slingplayer that the iPhone will not support… that too is false, because while the iPhone is designed to support H.264 for the YouTube video, Sling Media is a propriatery format and should have NO problem playing on the iPhone once it is installed.
PLEASE STEVE, ALLOW US SLINGPLAYER FOR IPHONE !!!
Wait - is there a player that works on the Blackberry? I can’t find it….