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OnLive Claims it Can Run its Live Gaming Service on the iPhone

Florence Ion — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:18:23 -0600

OnLive caused rifts earlier this year with its plans to release “cloud gaming” software, which would allow users and gamer aficionados to use software to play video games, instead of piecing together often-expensive hardware to run the latest gaming titles.

However, without even determining an actual release date, OnLive claims that it’ll be possible to stream games and play them live on your iPhone. AppleInsider reports that at a recent even in New York, the company touted that its software could run on two separate phones, a television, and a computer simultaneously, with gamers on all devices able to communicate back and forth with each other.

CEO Steve Perlman admits that it’s just a “tech demo”, but doesn’t elaborate on how accurate the demo really is.
Though OnLive’s service sounds like a plausible advancement in gaming, we agree that we’ll have to see this service in action to believe that it’s really that powerful.

EyeTV App Pulled, New Version Submitted to Apple

Cory Bohon — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 14:11:51 -0500

Yesterday many people discovered that the EyeTV application from Elgato allowed anyone with an EyeTV to stream live television from their Mac to the iPhone over the AT&T 3G network. Apple later pulled the application from the App Store, but a new version is already in the works.

Elgato released a statement early this morning saying, "Some test code that enabled live TV streaming over the cellular network was accidentally left in the the EyeTV App. Apple requested that we remove the code since their agreement with AT&T does not allow redirecting TV signals over the cellular network. The code was removed and a 1.0.1 version of the EyeTV app was submitted. We expect EyeTV to return to the App Store when the 1.0.1 version is approved."

Unfortunately for the people who purchased this application, they are unable to download it again at the present time, but for those that own the 1.0 version, you now have access to live streaming over AT&T's network. However, due to AT&T's stance on live streaming video over the network, we're unsure of what consequences might arise from continued use of this application on their network.

via Elgato PR

Netflix: iPhone Streaming Coming... In The Future

Cory Bohon — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 18:41:26 -0500

In a recent interview with Reuters, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said that iPhone streaming could be coming eventually.

Netflix is a great resource for watching completely legal movies online streaming to your Mac, Xbox, and some Blu-ray players, but the mobile audiences have mainly been left out of the streamy-goodness.

When asked if Netflix is currently working to bring their movie streaming service to iPhone, Hastings replied, "It’s something that’s likely to come over time. But nothing in the short term. (With) movie watching, we are not focused on mobile yet, but (instead) on the TV, on Blu-ray and on the video game consoles. We will get to mobile eventually, including the iPhone."

Of course AT&T's video streaming terms on the cell network could stop this idea cold just like it did with Slingbox. So, if we even got this application, you'd probably have to connect to a Wi-Fi network. That is, unless the FCC has its way.

via Ars Technica

iPhone To Gain Netflix Streaming?

Cory Bohon — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 19:09:55 -0500

Netflix might not have the best catalog when it comes to instantly viewable movies, but when it comes to devices it works with, they have you covered. That is unless you're on an iPhone or Apple TV. You can get Netflix on your Xbox 360, TiVo, Mac/PC web browser, and certain other setop boxes.

A new rumor sparked by an unknown industry executive believes that Netflix may soon be making its way to iPhone. Perhaps the application would take advantage of the built-in HTTP streaming, but one thing that's almost certain is that AT&T may get upset over possible bandwidth surges just as they did with the SlingPlayer mobile app.

Of course, this is just a rumor, but it would be nice to watch movies from Netflix (or Hulu?) without paying outrageous fees for iTunes movies/TV shows.

via AppleInsider

Simplify Media

Jason Whong — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 10:56:46 -0500

Simplify Media connects your iPhone to your friends' music libraries.

One of the features of iTunes that comes in handy on large networks is the ability to share music libraries with other iTunes users. Simplify Media extended this functionality in iTunes back in 2007 by allowing sharing with up to 30 other people outside of the local network. Its new mobile app enables streaming over Wi-Fi or over the cellular network, to allow even more portable access to friends’ music libraries.

The app won’t work without an account on Simplify Media’s network. Account creation requires downloading the desktop app for Mac, Windows or Linux and agreement to their terms of service. Once the account is created, you’ll have access to your own iTunes library over the network, which should please people with music libraries so large, they don’t fit on the iPhone. When sharing with other users, Simplify Media lets you see their libraries, though the mobile app won’t let you see files protected by FairPlay digital rights management technology used by the iTunes store. Sharing can’t be set up, or achieved, in the mobile app; rather, it requires the desktop app.

With access to a few friends’ libraries, Simplify Media becomes an on-demand streaming jukebox. It also allows shuffling of playlists (but not of libraries), effectively turning a friend’s computer into a one listener radio station. Playback is possible over Wi-Fi, 3G, or, EDGE, and Simplify Media is smart enough to try to compress the sound for congested or slow networks.

Simplify Media suggests that most users’ machines will be able to serve two streams at a time without difficulty; we didn’t have any friends whose computers were busy, but there are no status indicators on the mobile app; we had to look at the desktop app to come to this conclusion. There’s also no way to delete friends without using the desktop app. Because it’s not one of the core apps, it needs to stay active to keep playing, unlike the iPod app, which can run in the background.

When playing a song, buttons at the top allow three views. Song view shows the artist name, song title, album title, and year of release, and a space that would be ideal for album art, though right now that space is blank. Artist view pulls a band photo and bio from Last.fm, and lyrics view grabs lyrics from lyricwiki.org. In all three views, a volume slider is visible, but it does not respond to swipes; fortunately, the hardware volume control worked without problems.

The company says that the streaming it enables is legal because it is private and limited. But just because the streaming isn’t criminal, doesn’t mean that the recording industry won’t try to file civil suits against users, alleging that their digital audio transmission public performance rights guaranteed in 17 USC 106(6) have been violated; indeed, the Simplify Media license requires users to make sure their sharing doesn’t result in copyright infringement. Because only friends can "perform" the work digitally for others, most reasonable people would consider Simplify Media's use of streaming to be private performance. If the record companies wanted to challenge that in court, it would be difficult to litigate because of how limited friend networks are.

When adding a new friend’s library, it may take the mobile app a few minutes to download the list of songs before the library becomes accessible. We also had one crash in a few hours of listening, but that was less frequent than the crashes we get from Apple’s Hold' Em app, so we weren’t upset by it.

App Streams Your Entire Music Collection to Your iPhone

Roberto Baldwin — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 16:09:40 -0500

Lets face it, you have way more than 16GB of music at home. You've set up a Smart playlist to shuffle your songs, but when you got a hankering to listen to Minor Threat and the closest thing you got on your iPhone at the moment is Avril Lavigne. Well, it's a pain.

Developer Dmitry Dolinsky hopes to solve this issue with Simplify Media. The app will stream your music collection from your home computer to your iPhone and iPod touch. It's like your own personal Pandora service, without all the voting down of lame songs. You can also stream music from up to 30 friends.

That last feature has us worried that the app may become a victim of Apple's post-release app yanks. It's free to the first 100,000 users, so why not take it for a test drive, just in case.

Check back with MacLife.com for a full review of the app.