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March 5, 2008 12:07 AM

Categories: News, Rumors and Gossip General Sling Related Discussion Mac

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karpodiem

Member
Joined: 01/27/2008

Steve Jobs goes on stage tomorrow for the iPhone/iPod Tough SDK roadmap. I think my life would be more or less complete if he announces the release of a SlingPlayer client.

I can't even imagine how many Slingboxes this would sell. Yes, obviously it would only be usable with Wifi (Edge is too slow). The 3G iPhone will fix that.

Discussion:    Add a Comment | Comments 1-20 of 31 | Latest Comment | 1 2 Next »

NA9D Avatar
Moderator
March 5, 2008 6:29 AM

I doubt it. IMHO, if there is any initial/early software announcements it's going to be with a bigger player for enterprise type software like Exchange Server support. But one can always hope.

Also, EDGE is not too slow to Sling. It's not a super experience, but if you can get enough EDGE channels, you can get up to around 384 kbps. That would be rare if a carrier would give you all the channels, but even at 200 kbps you can Sling OK on a small device.

I agree that the 3G iPhone would solve the problem. Well, as long as it supports HSDPA (UMTS alone isn't all that fast). I expect a 3G iPhone will be announced. That is what I am looking for. I can wait for the SlingPlayer client to come out. But I do agree with you that a 3G iPhone would be the way to go...

Slinging with a Slingbox Pro, a Slingbox Solo and a Slingbox Classic. 3 Replay TV units, a Roku HD1000 Photobridge and a Roku M2000 Soundbridge, an AppleTV, a Vudu, and digital cable. www.na9d.net

DavidHood Avatar
Member
March 5, 2008 8:52 AM

An iPhone Slingplayer would be awesome! Why wait for iPhone2 or 3G when I can always find a WiFi signal. I hear rumor the iPod touch and iPhone1 (iPhone runs great on EDGE) may at least be fast enough for me to navigate a couple menus to remotely set my DVR to record something I forgot. I would like to shoot my Cupid arrow through the hearts of Apple and Sling. All my friends are waiting to jump ship from Windows Mobile and will purchase an iPhone when Sling uses the SDK to write a slingplayer client for iPhone. Slingboxes are going to fly off the shelf. Please let tomorrow be the day that someone at least gets started working on this! 

DavidHood Avatar
Member
March 5, 2008 8:58 AM

attention forum moderator. please move this thread to the News, Rumors and Gossip section. thanks!

Generic Member Avatar
Member
March 6, 2008 3:35 PM

Damn, no annoucement about a Slingplayer client today :(

That is unless the Sling wants to fill us in on their beta player, hint hint????

NA9D Avatar
Moderator
March 6, 2008 4:23 PM

And you thought this why??????????

Come on. Did you guys really believe the rumors that Sling had a beta version of the SDK? The SDK was just released in Beta...

Slinging with a Slingbox Pro, a Slingbox Solo and a Slingbox Classic. 3 Replay TV units, a Roku HD1000 Photobridge and a Roku M2000 Soundbridge, an AppleTV, a Vudu, and digital cable. www.na9d.net

Generic Member Avatar
Member
March 6, 2008 4:26 PM

Wouldn't it be in Apple's best interest to give a limited version of SDK code (prior to today) to help facilitate/fasttrack an application that truly would be a game changer and move more iPhones/Slingboxes by the tens of thousands (I even think that would be an underestimate)

Generic Member Avatar
Member
March 6, 2008 4:30 PM

I guess what I'm saying is, if Slingplayer announced/previewed a player for the iPhone, I would go out and buy a Slingplayer today, absolutely no hesitation. I don't own a laptop so, I'm waiting for this particular client.

NA9D Avatar
Moderator
March 6, 2008 4:31 PM

I really doubt that SlingPlayer for the iPhone would drive sales all that much. First of all, the EDGE network is too slow for a really good viewing experience.

Second, there is a lot more people out there who would play a video game from Sega on the iPhone than use SlingPlayer on it. Sega did do a demo. Third given SlingMedia's fantastic track record of hitting delivery schedules (ie: SP Mac 1.0, SlingCatcher, Clip and Sling, etc), do you really think they'd have a beta version developed so quickly? Apple announced the SDK when, October or something like that? The SDK would then have to be put together and then released and then software written.

Sorry, the schedule for something like SlingPlayer just wouldn't fit.

I can almost guarantee that Sling is going to get a beta SDK and start work on a Player. But it is likely going to be 3rd quarter at least before the player even hits beta. I wouldn't expect a release version until late this year or early next.

Slinging with a Slingbox Pro, a Slingbox Solo and a Slingbox Classic. 3 Replay TV units, a Roku HD1000 Photobridge and a Roku M2000 Soundbridge, an AppleTV, a Vudu, and digital cable. www.na9d.net

Generic Member Avatar
Member
March 6, 2008 4:35 PM

Ah man, don't say Q3, you're breaking my heart :(

 I would hope sometime around June, when the actual 2.0 firmware is released.

NA9D Avatar
Moderator
March 6, 2008 5:03 PM

I seriously doubt June. It's going to take much longer than 3 to 4 months for Sling to code and release a player than 3 months given all they have on their plate....

Slinging with a Slingbox Pro, a Slingbox Solo and a Slingbox Classic. 3 Replay TV units, a Roku HD1000 Photobridge and a Roku M2000 Soundbridge, an AppleTV, a Vudu, and digital cable. www.na9d.net

Generic Member Avatar
Member
March 6, 2008 10:08 PM

NA9D said: And you thought this why?????????? Come on. Did you guys really believe the rumors that Sling had a beta version of the SDK? The SDK was just released in Beta...
If the folks at EA could get spore running on it, there is no reason why Sling couldn't put together a player. I doubt it will take all that long. I am sure that there are more than a few hacked iphones in the sling arsenal and that there has already been some testing being done. I don't expect a player right away but I expect one sooner rather than later. It is the best mobile video device on the market. Sling wants a peice of that pie...

NA9D Avatar
Moderator
March 6, 2008 10:33 PM

First of all EA is a much larger company than SlingMedia. Second, I can see you've not been around to see how Sling never gets anything done fast. What they do, they do really well. I think you are making a large number of assumptions here. Just because they may even have something at an Alpha stage doesn't mean anything. They demoed the Mac player at MacWorld in 2006. It wasn't until a full year later that the Mac client was released.

Sling make a great product and I'm one of their biggest fan boys. But you also have to realize the limitations of the company. They have much bigger fish to fry than messing with hacked software for an unreleased SDK. We are still waiting for SlingCatcher, SlingPlayer 2.0 and Clip and Sling. We've been waiting over a year for these. On top of that, we have the Pro HD coming out later this year and who knows what else. These products are going to make a lot more revenue for Sling Media than the iPhone client. Don't get me wrong, an iPhone client would rock and I am almost willing to be my paycheck that they will make one. But it's going to take time. They aren't going to do it half-assed. I am sure that now that the SDK is out, they will start work.

But trying to do streaming video on a platform where the video codec is not native (WMV), is a lot harder than writing a game.

Slinging with a Slingbox Pro, a Slingbox Solo and a Slingbox Classic. 3 Replay TV units, a Roku HD1000 Photobridge and a Roku M2000 Soundbridge, an AppleTV, a Vudu, and digital cable. www.na9d.net

Generic Member Avatar
Member
March 6, 2008 10:56 PM

How long it takes to get a Slingplayer for iPhone using the new SDK will depend on how the current Mac app was built in the first place.  For example, if it was built with Xcode and uses Cocoa for its presentation layer, then that makes the rest a lot easier.  At that point you tweak the interface for touch instead of mouse clicks and tweak the video driver for iPhone, which shouldn't be too hard since the APIs are all the same from the Mac.

 What would make it harder to do would be the following things:

1.  If its a Carbon app

2.  If uses third party code (like video codecs)

3.  If it uses Codeweaver instead of Xcode for development (Codeweaver is obsolete now)

 The last problem is distribution.  Jobs said that Apple would not distribute certain "bad apps" and he put up a screen of possible candidate types include porn and malicious apps.  But also, I noticed that "Bandwidth hog" made the list too.  Doing streaming video is certainly a bandwidth hungry app, but Apple is doing Youtube videos and Slingboxes do adjust the stream rate based on the capabilities of the pipe.  Obviously that's an EDGE/3G issue only...I doubt they'd care regarding Wifi.

NA9D Avatar
Moderator
March 6, 2008 11:01 PM

AFAIK, most of SPM is a port from the Windoze version and it's a mess. Sling tried to develop it w/o Mac programmers originally. Finally they hired a couple of very good ones and they've been busy working to clean it up. The current version of SPM still has some siginifcant bugs in it and I don't think it would port well to the iPhone. It takes a lot of CPU cycles, depending on the platform.

Slinging with a Slingbox Pro, a Slingbox Solo and a Slingbox Classic. 3 Replay TV units, a Roku HD1000 Photobridge and a Roku M2000 Soundbridge, an AppleTV, a Vudu, and digital cable. www.na9d.net

StephenD Avatar
Member
March 7, 2008 3:38 AM

Sling on my iPod Touch would make life a lot easier. It would be so much more convenient than having to boot-up a laptop in a hotel room somewhere.

I don't for a minute want (or expect) it over anything other than WiFi.

And remember - no-one would expect it to be free...... would they?

NA9D Avatar
Moderator
March 7, 2008 6:21 AM

It would be great. I'm simply trying to set everyone's expectations: Don't get your hopes up for a "quick" iPhone/Touch client release. If Sling purchases the kit now and starts development now (or even if they had an advance copy) it's probably going to be at least the 4th quarter of this year before there is any public release with a beta in the third quarter. Look again at the track record. It took a long time for the Palm client to come out. It took a really long time for the Symbian client to come out.

I'm rootin' for it too but I try not to get my hopes up too much....

Slinging with a Slingbox Pro, a Slingbox Solo and a Slingbox Classic. 3 Replay TV units, a Roku HD1000 Photobridge and a Roku M2000 Soundbridge, an AppleTV, a Vudu, and digital cable. www.na9d.net

StephenD Avatar
Member
March 7, 2008 3:46 PM

You're not wrong. I waited the best part of a year for them to release a remote for my cable box (at the time, the ONLY cable PVR in the UK). Though perhaps they won't be able to resist the novelty and cache.

And then I woke up.

Brandon C. Avatar
  Moderator
March 8, 2008 9:44 AM

SvenOnTech has a little news regarding the iPhone and SDK

http://svenontech.com/2008/03/07/slingplayer-may-be-coming-to-the-iphone/

Have a Sansa device or MP3 player, then check out The latest!

View unverified member's comment - posted by BlackDragon

NA9D Avatar
Moderator
March 8, 2008 2:35 PM

Two comments:

1.) The arstechnica article is from Jan. 11.  It suggests that Sling already had the SDK and would release something around the time of the official release.  We all know the official release has come and gone now and no player.

2.) In Brandon's article they say this:

 "Sling Media already has a fully functioning Mac OS X client of SlingPlayer which would take little effort to add the CocoTouch interface to the SlingPlayers OS X client. Sling could either use streaming via Wi-Fi or EDGE or add the content right onto the iPhone itself using it’s newly announced SlingSync feature."

First of all this shows how little they know about the product.  The SlingSync feature is not for the player but for the SlingCatcher.  So yet another story is spread on the internet by someone who doesn't even have the facts correct on a product.  Second, I don't think it's going to take "little effort" to make the client.  The current client is a cleaned up port from Windows.  It takes up a lot of CPU cycles even on a CoreDuo Intel Mac.  On a phone, this just wouldn't work.  A lot of cleanup of the code needs to take place and from what I understand the entire client really needs to be re-written for the desktop and most definitely for a phone.

IMHO, there's no debate in my mind that a player is coming, it's just a matter of when....

Slinging with a Slingbox Pro, a Slingbox Solo and a Slingbox Classic. 3 Replay TV units, a Roku HD1000 Photobridge and a Roku M2000 Soundbridge, an AppleTV, a Vudu, and digital cable. www.na9d.net

Discussion:    Add a Comment | Back to Top | Comments 1-20 of 31 | Latest Comment | 1 2 Next »

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