Filed under: App Store
SlingPlayer Mobile 1.1 to have 16:9 support, 3G streaming in non-U.S. markets
The iTunes App Store has been more than a little embattled in the last couple of months, but at least one app developer is soldiering on: according to Engadget, the maker of Slingbox, Sling Media, has recently submitted SlingPlayer Mobile 1.1 to Apple for approval.
The most significant changes involve true 16:9 widescreen support that utilizes all 3.5 glorious inches of the iPhone or iPod touch screen, and a new browser for Dish Network users that has touch support and is native to iPhone OS, as opposed to pushing through the standard browsing screen used on TVs. There is no mention of other cable providers, so presumably they are not in on the scheme for now.
The browser announcement primarily concerns only U.S. customers, and is dwarfed by one concerning carriers that are not AT&T: the non-U.S. version of SlingPlayer Mobile 1.1 will support streaming video over a 3G connection (the current version requires a Wi-Fi connection).
Again, this is only what Slingbox has put out for approval, and the mighty mercurial temperament of Apple's app approvers still stands in the way. These are changes that Sling Media needs to happen: as of this writing, SlingPlayer Mobile 1.0 (priced at $29.99 and requiring the purchase of a Slingbox unit) is struggling a bit with customer satisfaction, and has an equal number of five star and one star reviews. Ideally, the native browser and 3G support will cross borders in both directions, which will make the application very desirable. Here's hoping Apple lets SlingPlayer take these steps.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
thezonie said 11:15PM on 8-10-2009
Streaming video over non-AT&T 3G? If they are able to get away with it then we will most likely be following suit with iCam and iVid ... Throttling down the data stream to such a small percentage of what 3G is capable of is just annoying to both us developers and our customers.
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Ben the Dog said 11:41PM on 8-10-2009
"the non-U.S. version of SlingPlayer Mobile 1.1 will support streaming video over a 3G connection (the current version requires a Wi-Fi connection)."
I have accounts with both iTunes stores in Hong Kong and in New Zealand, and neither store has Slingplayer 1.0 in them. Is there a list of countries available that shows where Slingplayer 1.0 can be purchased through the store?
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Virtuous said 12:31AM on 8-11-2009
More evidence of AT&T incompetence!
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Squid7085 said 12:38AM on 8-11-2009
Are you F(*&*(& kidding me? Well, AT&T, thanks for giving me another reason to Jailbreak and do the things you tell me I can't do.
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Esteban said 12:56AM on 8-11-2009
As far as I'm concerned, SlingPlayer for iPhone already works over 3G... (as I open up voipover3g.plist).
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nosken said 2:57AM on 8-11-2009
If they won't allow streaming, at least make it so that recordings can be scheduled via 3G
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toke said 4:36AM on 8-14-2009
iPhone's screen isn't 16:9, so does SP crop or distort?
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Joanna D said 6:24AM on 8-11-2009
"The most significant changes involve true 16:9 widescreen support that utilizes all 3.5 glorious inches of the iPhone or iPod touch screen"
No, it doesn't. Because despite Apple's claims that the devices are "widescreen" they simply are not - they're a strange useless aspect ratio which requires "black bars" on both 16:9 and 4:3 content.
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Eideard said 8:11AM on 8-11-2009
You don't know that [for whatever reason] the "standard" for computer widescreens is 16:10 instead of the video 16:9...?
laura said 7:16AM on 8-11-2009
Does anyone know about the issues surrounding the AT&T Uverse dvr's? It will not allow coding to the RF's, making it unusable with Sling. I have heard it's because AT&T wants to come up with their own Slingbox type service.
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jober14 said 8:23AM on 8-11-2009
I use SlingBox with Uverse and it works just fine for me.
ejking89 said 9:51PM on 8-17-2009
well if the uverse remote is in fact RF (i know nothing of those boxes) there are adapters out there that will transcode from infrared to RF, although will the slingbox be able to output the correct IR code? who knows.... a workaround i can think of is to have some small computer sitting alongside your slingbox with software such as WinLIRC to recieve the IR commands (say from the comcast dvr IR set) and have it transcode to some RF output device that sends the corresponding UVerse RF codes.... thats how i'd do it..... sounds complicated but once u get familiar with it its not that scary.
Eideard said 8:08AM on 8-11-2009
Embattled? Har!
When will geeks ever realize that their petty concerns are irrelevant to the real world at least 99% of the time?
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Bloobie said 11:14AM on 8-11-2009
And yet AT&T slyly tried to say that they do not influence what does and what does not get approved on the App Store. This, coupled with their recently changed TOS/Legal Terms as well as their lack of MMS and tethering support under iPhone 3.x, just shows what a terrible company they really are.
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Dave Eyler said 2:18PM on 8-11-2009
Hi I'm with Sling, and just to clarify, we submitted two versions of the application to Apple. One is wifi only everywhere, and one would stream over 3G outside the US. We are not sure which one they will accept, so just because 1.1 is approved doesn't necessarily mean it will have wifi outside the US.
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Dave Eyler said 2:21PM on 8-11-2009
sorry meant '3G outside the US' at the end there