3G-Enabled 'SlingPlayer Mobile' Appears in App Store

[MacRumors]

Sling Media today announced that an updated version of SlingPlayer Mobile adding the ability for users to stream media to their iPhones via 3G has appeared in the App Store. The update comes less than two weeks after AT&T announced that it would allow Sling Media's application to stream over the carrier's 3G networks.

"We're delighted the SlingPlayer Mobile App now has 3G capability," said John Gilmore, senior vice president and general manager at Sling Media. "Slingbox users in many countries around the globe, including the United States, can now enjoy their living room TV experience on their iPhone and iPod touch whether on a 3G or WiFi network."

AT&T's announcement earlier this month created a bit of controversy, as quotes from AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega stated that AT&T and Sling Media had worked together to "revise the app to make it more bandwidth sensitive", possibly appearing as a partial explanation for nine-month delay following AT&T's original refusal to allow the application on its network. Sling Media has denied that it worked with AT&T to revise the application, noting that the company "didn't change anything" regarding the application's 3G streaming capabilities between AT&T's initial denial last year and its recent change of heart.

Article Link: 3G-Enabled 'SlingPlayer Mobile' Appears in App Store

 

[tbobmccoy]

This app is great news- having 3g disabled essentially made the app worthless for travel. I bet AT&T also bowed out so they could avoid a future lawsuit... how would the slingplayer app be any more data hungry than youtube watching or any other vid on the 'net? Seems discriminatory, and since they're trying to play nice to avoid net neutrality legislation, this is a bullet dodged for them.

 

[stanswx]

Can anyone confirm if this works with the Slingbox AV? I know the description says it might work in some configurations, but that is somewhat vague. Thanks!

 

[Fafafoooey]

Works pretty well. I know a good 3G signal will be crucial, but it is a great start.

 

[coolbreeze]

Nice. Streaming via 3g right now. Wonderful for on the go watching.

This will sell a lotta slingboxes. Glad I have mine set up in PA as I'm slinging from Utah!

Oh and by the way...there goes the network

 

[libertyforall]

Great! Now just make the app FREE, like the Mac version!!!

$29.99 is way overpriced, IMHO.

 

[Vertical]

Even though I bought the app for the $30.00 I too think that is a bit over priced... but I went ahead and purchased it because there is no monthly fee, so a little higher one time fee is fine. I am so glad they finally enabled 3G access. I cant wait to try it out tonight at work. It would be really cool if when I hook it up to my JBL speakers at work that the audio will play over those. I could switch the app to audio only and be able to listen to TV shows at work. I wish the app would allow portrait mode as well though... small picture size or not, its better than trying to turn your head sideways when you have the think docked in your speaker system. And with as much batter as the app uses, more than likely you are going to have it docked anyway...

 

[hippo206]

If by announced you mean updated the website, it was actually updated yesterday.

 

[Hawkeye411]

Confirmed!

Can anyone confirm if this works with the Slingbox AV? I know the description says it might work in some configurations, but that is somewhat vague. Thanks!

I'm watching the olympics from my Slingbox AV over 3G right now. It looks great!!

Cheers.

 

[fronheiser]

I have an ancient Slingbox and it works just fine. I gotta say, this is one piece of equipment I bought in either 2004 or 2005 and it has just sat there, working. I have no intention of upgrading it unless I have trouble with the SlingPlayer app I just bought (via WiFi on my local network it works fine, but who knows how it will work over 3G when I'm in Cleveland tomorrow?).

 

[David R]

How is the battery life affected while watching a broadcast via 3G?

 

[scirica]

For me, the quality on 3G is now unwatchable. This is after having used Slingplayer on 3G for months with 3G Unrestrictor. I understand that Sling may have throttled down the bandwidth when streaming over 3G vs over wifi, but not to the degree that the program is unusable.

It would appear that I'm the only one experiencing this, so I'll play a little more and see what happens. In the meantime, I'm downgrading to the previous version of Slingplayer mobile and keeping 3G Unrestrictor active.

 

[elgray]

Mine works fine with AV

Can anyone confirm if this works with the Slingbox AV? I know the description says it might work in some configurations, but that is somewhat vague. Thanks!

They want it to be vague, in hopes you'll upgrade. But it's not my fault they made a dependable product, is it? My AV's worked just about flawlessly since Day 1 and won't be replacing it until I have to.

 

[scirica]

I was one of those that upgraded to the Slingplayer Solo from the AV. Perhaps it's time to put the AV on Craigslist. Seems like there could be some new demand!

 

[mgamber]

For me, the quality on 3G is now unwatchable. This is after having used Slingplayer on 3G for months with 3G Unrestrictor. I understand that Sling may have throttled down the bandwidth when streaming over 3G vs over wifi, but not to the degree that the program is unusable.

It would appear that I'm the only one experiencing this, so I'll play a little more and see what happens. In the meantime, I'm downgrading to the previous version of Slingplayer mobile and keeping 3G Unrestrictor active.

I upgraded and removed it from 3G Unrestrictor and it's a little rough starting but that's to be expected as it optimizes the stream for the connection speed. After 30 seconds or so it was quite watchable and the audio and video were a lot better I was expecting. Slingplayer via 3G was the only reason I bothered jailbreaking so I took the big leap and restored the phone and tried again with the same results. FYI, I was connecting to two "classic" Slingboxes. Boy is it nice to be rid of that half-assed "tethered jailbreak"!

 

[scirica]

Seems to have "settled in"

I upgraded and removed it from 3G Unrestrictor and it's a little rough starting but that's to be expected as it optimizes the stream for the connection speed. After 30 seconds or so it was quite watchable and the audio and video were a lot better I was expecting. Slingplayer via 3G was the only reason I bothered jailbreaking so I took the big leap and restored the phone and tried again with the same results. FYI, I was connecting to two "classic" Slingboxes. Boy is it nice to be rid of that half-assed "tethered jailbreak"!

I originally downloaded the Sling 1.3 direct to my phone via iTunes. Went ahead and downgraded to previous version, then upgraded via my pc after updating iTunes on my computer. 3G appears to be working fine without 3G Unrestrictor now. It does hesitate from time to time, but nothing like the first install. I'm curious if using 3G Unrestrictor will give me higher quality over 3G as it does on YouTube. Back to the testing grounds...

 

[forza1976]

Works great all... Using it over 3g on my original slingbox classic. Will be great for my weekly travels.

cheers

 

[muskratboy]

How is the battery life affected while watching a broadcast via 3G?

LOL... it makes it less.

 

[boss1]

Guess a lot of us are going to find out whether there really is a penalty for exceeding 5GB per month.

I'm guessing i'm going to exceed 20GB every month now.

And as soon as Blizzard releases Auction House for iPhone , I may never put my device down again.


btw, Sling Player is going to be great over wifi on the iPad , I wonder if the 3G data plan for the iPad is going to have the "not to exceed 5GB" verbiage in AT&T's TOS. Looking forward to it.


Edit: Oh and why is this story iPhone Blog and not Page 1 News?!!? The Sling vs AT&T vs Apple story is one of Thee biggest stories of "dev vs at&t vs apple"

 

[travismcn]

EDGE, too!

Although a bit painful to watch, it actually streams over Edge, too, for those of us still holding on to our original first-gen iPhones!

 

[mgamber]

I originally downloaded the Sling 1.3 direct to my phone via iTunes. Went ahead and downgraded to previous version, then upgraded via my pc after updating iTunes on my computer. 3G appears to be working fine without 3G Unrestrictor now. It does hesitate from time to time, but nothing like the first install. I'm curious if using 3G Unrestrictor will give me higher quality over 3G as it does on YouTube. Back to the testing grounds...

I'm sure it'll look better with 3G Unrestrictor simply because the 3G throttle is gone and 3G can carry a lot more data than throttled Slingplayer is pulling. I'm real happy with the upgrade because A) I can get rid of the tethered jailbreak and not have to be paranoid about the phone restarting and B) I can use Slingplayer as much as I'd like now....they approved it!

 

[Scooter22]

Even though I bought the app for the $30.00 I too think that is a bit over priced... but I went ahead and purchased it because there is no monthly fee, so a little higher one time fee is fine. I am so glad they finally enabled 3G access. I cant wait to try it out tonight at work. It would be really cool if when I hook it up to my JBL speakers at work that the audio will play over those. I could switch the app to audio only and be able to listen to TV shows at work. I wish the app would allow portrait mode as well though... small picture size or not, its better than trying to turn your head sideways when you have the think docked in your speaker system. And with as much batter as the app uses, more than likely you are going to have it docked anyway...

You probably can listen to it over those speakers. I don't know if you are talking about a computer or a stereo, but I'm guessing a PC. A typical 1/8" male/male connector should work, or if you have RCA inputs on a stereo, you can get a 1/8" to RCA output connector or get what I bought, a 30 pin (iPod output) adapter that has composite cables (red, white yellow) and a USB connector for power to charge it. I've let my daughter watch movies from my iPhone on our integrated DVD player in our car/van that way.

 

[fpnc]

Works pretty well. I know a good 3G signal will be crucial, but it is a great start.

The upload speed from your ISP may be a bigger factor unless you get well over 1Mbps from you home's internet connection. The average download speed for broadband in the U.S. is about 4Mbps, but upload speeds are generally much lower.

 

[fpnc]

I just updated my iPhone 3GS to the new, 3G-enabled version of SlingPlayer Mobile. It looks like they disable stereo and high quality audio over 3G. If you go into the options they show that both are only available over WiFi (when video is enabled, haven't checked with the options set to audio only).

The video quality over 3G looks pretty good from my SlingBox SOLO. You probably wouldn't want to watch a lot of sports or high-motion video since the display sometimes becomes fractured and pixelated with fast motion. Talking heads look very good, but high-motion and scene transitions are sometimes a little rough.

However, my upload speed from home is only 360Kbps so that's the real bottleneck, not my 3G connection. On that relatively slow connection I'd rate the video quality somewhere between good and fair (varies depending on subject). The audio quality I'd call only fair. Overall, however, I'd say the results are surprisingly good given my slow upload link.

I used the SpeedTest app to check the 3G speeds on my iPhone and below are the results (two trials):

3G (WiFi disabled on iPhone, shows 4 or 5 bars on the AT&T connection icon):
Download: 1.0Mbps, 1.4Mbps
Upload: 0.22Mbps, 0.22Mbps

Road Runner ISP direct from my cable modem:
Download: 20.5Mbps, 19.0Mbps
Upload: 0.36Mbps, 0.36Mbps

When operating over 3G the two most important rates are the upload speed from the ISP and the download speed over 3G. Thus, the limiting factor in my case is the approximately 360Kbps upload speed from my ISP at home (since the video stream has to be sent out over my cable modem and is received over the 3G's download link to the iPhone).

I just tried EDGE and it also works, although the video quality is lower and the video pauses fairly often. SpeedTest averages only 80Kbps on EDGE download so problems are to be expected.

 

[currentinterest]

I am looking forward to Sling on the iPad. That size screen will make it very worthwhile to stream. I will likely buy a Slingbox and an iPad on the same day.