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Rumor: Apple to Bid For English Premier League Streaming Rights

Administrator — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 06:01:51 +0000

Apple is rumored to be bidding for streaming rights for the English Premier League (EPL) football matches.
The Daily Mail reports that Apple is throwing its hat in the ring for streaming TV rights for one of the world’s most popular sports: football (or soccer, if you’re American). The competition is fierce billion-pound endeavor, but would definitely give Apple some exclusive content for
.
“The three certain bidders will be Sky, who paid £1.6billion for their current packages, ESPN, who say they are determined to buy more PL content, and Middle East network Al Jezeera, who also have the resources to break the Rupert Murdoch stranglehold on the Premier League.”
Google is also rumored to be looking at bidding for streaming rights as well. Apple ‘s interest, as well as those of these other companies, is likely to help give the English Premier League a competitive market and generate billions in revenue for the league and its teams. This would be especially welcome in a time when other professional sports are seeing a decline in prices.
, analyst Shaw Wu mentioned that Apple would have to really change the programming game to make their TV attractive for potential customers. This kind of exclusive content would definitely make Apple products more popular in the UK and elsewhere in Europe, not to mention help boost
sales.
Will this make the Apple TV or the rumored Apple Television more viable at least in UK?

Apple Removes iCloud Music Streaming In iOS 5 Beta 7

Administrator — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 00:59:26 +0000

earlier in the week, there has been a lot of debate about whether iTunes in the Cloud supports music streaming as even though a video walkthrough of the feature suggested that it supported streaming, Apple insisted that
.
According to Apple , what appears to be streaming is actually a simultaneous listen and download. But we still felt that it was streaming based on how it worked, though a lot more superior than a true streaming service.
that was seeded to developers yesterday, Apple has made some changes to the iTunes in the Cloud feature, which makes it a listen and download service rather than a streaming service.
have published a video, which highlights the changes in iOS 5 beta 7:
With iOS 5 beta 7, when you play a song, it first gets downloaded to the iTunes music library on your device. Even if you skip a song, it downloads and stores the song on the iOS device. Previously, when you hit play, instead of tapping on the iCloud icon, the song didn’t get downloaded to the music library and instead seemed to get downloaded to a temporary cache on the iOS device. In fact, this is exactly how it still works on iTunes for Mac, even with iTunes 10.5 beta, which was released yesterday along with iOS 5 beta 7. Users need to explicitly click on the iCloud icon to download the song to the Mac.
If the song is downloaded to the device, it probably makes sense to download it to the music library rather than to a temporary cache, so that it doesn’t have to downloaded again if it a user wants to play it again. It remains to be seen if Apple will make more changes in future iOS 5 beta updates.
What do you think about Apple ‘s iTunes in the Cloud service? Please share your views in the comments below.

iCloud: iTunes In The Cloud Also Supports Music Streaming On iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Mac And PC

Administrator — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 07:15:55 +0000

in the U.S. It allows users to store their entire music collection (up to 25,000 songs), including songs that they’ve ripped from CDs or purchased from anywhere else in iCloud.
Folks at InsanelyMac have created a video walkthrough of Apple ‘s new iTunes Match service, which reveals that you will not only be able to download but you can also stream music from your iTunes music library in iCloud on your
,
, iPod touch, Mac and PC. Until now, iTunes in iCloud was perceived as a download only service.
iTunes determines which songs in your collection are available in the iTunes Store. Any music with a match is automatically added to your iCloud library for you to listen to anytime, on any device. Since there are more than 18 million songs in the iTunes Store, most of your music is probably already in iCloud. All you have to upload is what iTunes can’t match. Which is much faster than starting from scratch. And all the music iTunes matches plays back at 256-Kbps iTunes Plus quality — even if your original copy was of lower quality.
So with the iTunes Match service, the process of uploading your GBs of iTunes music library to iCloud is a lot quicker, which can take days, if not weeks in case of competing services like
(depending on your internet connection).
launch later this fall. As of now, Apple has only announced the service in the US. It is not clear when it will be available to international users.
Even though iTunes costs $24.99 per year, we feel its worth it and one of the killer features of iCloud. We wonder if this increases the possibility of Apple launching a
.

CNN App For iPhone and iPad Gets Updated; Adds Live Streaming For Select Cable TV Subscribers

Administrator — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 04:42:08 +0000

have been updated to version number 1.2 and 1.1 respectively. The updated apps bring live streaming of CNN TV to iPad and iPhone .
The cable channel claims to be the first news organisation to stream its content on the web and mobile devices.
The feature, although free, isn’t available to everyone. Only subscribers of a select few cable operators in the United States can access the live stream. The initial list of cable operators CNN has partnered with include AT&T, Comcast, Cox, DISH Network, Suddenlink and Verizon. Time Warner Cable, a major cable provider in the US doesn’t feature on the list.
The app uses the login credentials of your cable TV account to authenticate and deliver the live stream. The live stream would be available for two channels, CNN and Headline News (HLN). Streaming works over Wi-Fi as well as 3G networks on devices with
and up. The update also squashes bugs and improves stability.
Along with iOS apps, CNN has also made the live stream available to the same select subscribers over the web. An interesting thing to note is that CNN didn’t introduce a streaming only subscription plan, but chose to take the free path with a catch.
CNN is the latest to join the league of apps like Hulu and Netflix that make your iOS devices an effective second television screen, the irony being that you would need a cable TV subscription.
for the iPad, and tell us what you think about the live streaming feature.

Spotify Finally Launches Streaming Music Service In U.S; iPhone App Also Available In U.S. App Store

Administrator — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 15:51:33 +0000

Spotify has finally launched its streaming music service in the U.S. During the invite-only beta phase, Spotify will be offering three options: Spotify Free, Spotify Unlimited and Spotify Premium.
Spotify is popular in Europe and has received glowing reviews, even from the likes of Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerburg.
app that has been available in some of the European App Stores for quite sometime is also finally available in the U.S.
. Users who opt for the Spotify Premium plan will be able to access Spotify’s music streaming service on the iPhone .
During our invite-only beta phase, we’ll be offering three great services – from absolutely free to paid subscriptions. The services we’re launching today are:
– the unsurpassed free music service. With an invite, enjoy on-demand, buffer-free access to over 15 million songs on your computer and great social features. Manage your own music files through Spotify, and sync with your cellphone or iPod . Features occasional advertising.
– all the special features of our free service, but with uninterrupted, ad-free access to Spotify on your computer. All for only $4.99 a month.
– the top-of-the-range Spotify experience. Premium gives you access to all the music, all the time. Listen online or offline, on your computer, your cellphone and a whole heap of other devices. Enjoy enhanced sound quality and access to exclusive content, competitions and special offers. Premium costs just $9.99 a month. (That’s the equivalent of a couple of fancy coffees.)
Stream millions of tracks from thousands of albums and artists to your iPhone , iPod Touch and iPad. Take your existing Spotify playlists with you on the go – listen to them during your commute, in the gym or on a flight. With ‘Offline mode’ you can listen even when no connection is available. Wirelessly sync your local files to your phone to merge your catalogue with ours, no cables required!
Download and get started directly from your mobile.
• Scrobble tracks to Last.fm
to checkout the free option or you can directly signup for Spotify Premium or Unlimited for $4.99 or $9.99 a month respectively. You can download Spotify for iPhone using this
.
Will you switch to Spotify or will you stick to Apple ’s iTunes? Do you think Apple should be worried?

Google Launches Streaming Music Service – Music Beta; Works On iPhone, iPad & iPod Touch (Sort Of)

Administrator — Tue, 10 May 2011 09:42:15 +0000

, which is expected to be unveiled at
.
As the name suggests, Google’s new music service is currently in beta and is available to U.S users by invitation.
We also launched Music Beta by Google, a new service that lets you upload your personal music collection to the cloud for streaming to your computer and Android devices. With the new service, your music and playlists are automatically kept in sync, so if you create a new playlist on your phone, it’s instantly available on your computer or tablet. You can use a feature called Instant Mix to create a playlist of songs that go well together. You can even listen to music when you’re offline: we automatically store your most recently played music on your Android device and you can choose to make specific albums or playlists available when you’re not connected.
Users will be able to upload 20,000 songs to Google servers for free while in beta.
Google apparently hasn’t signed deals with music labels just like Amazon, which means that it will have to store individual copies for every user rather than storing a single master copy of a song.
According to reports,
). By signing deals with music labels, Apple will be able to store a single master copy of a song, which will save significant upload time for the user and storage requirements for Apple .
, Google’s music streaming service (sort of) works on iOS devices.
,
recently but the web app is still not optimized for the iOS device. It’s a pity that native apps for Google and Amazon’s digital music locker are not available in the
and even if Google and Amazon want to launch a native app, we wonder if Apple will approve them.
They say competition is always good for customers, but when we see
for services like Amazon Cloud Player and Google Music missing from the App Store, we can’t help but question that argument. We hope that Apple out-innovates Amazon and Google in this space so that we don’t miss these services.

iOS 4.3 To Bring Photo Streaming And Social Features To iPhone

Administrator — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 09:57:19 +0000

was released to developers, people have been able to find a bunch of unreleased features deep inside the
file system. It started with the revelation of the
and has now moved on to a couple of new social features.
In the earlier release, (
), there was evidence of Apple planning to include “Find My Friends” feature that would provide MobileMe users with real-time location data of their friends. Subsequently, folks at 9to5Mac have come across evidences of two new features called “Media Stream” and “Photo Stream” in iOS 4.3 Beta 2.
Media Stream seems to be a feature that is connected to the Find My Friends feature revealed earlier. As for Photo Stream, it looks to be a feature on the lines of Microsoft’s Kin Studio, which lets users upload and store the multimedia content on their phones to a cloud based storage service.
According to a description found inside the iOS 4.3 file system;
Photo Stream uploads and stores the last thirty days of your photos on MobileMe and downloads them to all of your devices.
From the looks of different alerts and plists, it appears that Apple will let iPhone users set up “Photo Streams” that friends could “subscribe” to. Also, it looks like there will be some privacy preferences related to this, so you can choose who is allowed to view your “Streams.” With Photo Streams, you will also be allowed to “invite” other users to view your pictures as you take them and upload them to a service. This service looks like it is connected to MobileMe, and we speculate that “Media Stream” can be directly connected to “Find my Friends.”
There is also speculation that these social features would be part of a cloud based service that would be tied to Apple ’s massive North Carolina based data center. What is currently not known is whether these features would make it to the final version of iOS 4.3.
in 2011.
Do you think he was talking about the arrival of these features on MobileMe back then? Let us know in the comments section below!

Hacks Brings AirPlay Streaming To Linux and Windows; Enables Streaming Of AVI Files, DVD Content To Apple TV

Administrator — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 08:23:37 +0000

.
It was simply put, a custom Bonjour service that lets a Mac identify itself as an Apple TV to the AirPlay app and trick it into playing stuff on the Mac. As you might be already aware, while AirPlay is a cool feature, the sad part about it was that it only works with the
.
Back then we had also reported that Erica and a bunch of other hackers were already working on porting the functionality to Linux and Windows based systems. That effort seems to have borne fruition earlier this week with Erica reporting that they have managed to successfully port AirPlay to Linux and Windows.
The video below shows an XBMC install on a Ubuntu Linux box running an AirPlay client service. As with the AirPlayer solution I wrote for the Mac, the XBMC application advertises on Bonjour and can be played to directly from the built-in iOS video menus. In addition, several people have contacted me to mention that they’re working on Windows adaptations as well.
Apart from porting AirPlay support to Linux and Windows, Erica Sadun and others are working on a number of things such as:
: Sadun has managed to successfully stream files from a Mac to the new Apple TV. This process was a painful one earlier with users required to convert their avi files to a format that iTunes recognises.
Erick van Rijk and Sadun have demoed how to stream DVD content from a Mac to Apple TV.
It would be great if Apple can unlock these features in future software updates as AirPlay seems to have tremendous potential. Let us know your views in the comments section below.

AirMediaPlayer: Hack Enables AirPlay Video Streaming From iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch To Windows PC

Administrator — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 17:24:17 +0000

JailbreakMe 2.0 Released To Jailbreak iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 3G On iOS 4, iOS 4.0.1 And iPad On iOS 3.2.1, iOS 3.2 Using Mobile Safari [Updated]
Dev Team Will Release Redsn0w For iOS 4.2.1 Untethered Jailbreak Over Christmas Weekend; Looking For Testers
AirMediaPlayer: Hack Enables AirPlay Video Streaming From iPhone , iPad, iPod Touch To Windows PC
How To Jailbreak iPod Touch 3G, iPod Touch 4G Using Limera1n [Windows]
Google Brings 3D View & Offline Access To Maps App For Android – Is iPhone Next?
Untethered Jailbreak For iOS 4.2.1 May Not Be Released Before Christmas
Hacks Brings AirPlay Streaming To Linux and Windows; Enables Streaming Of AVI Files, DVD Content To Apple TV
Redsn0w To Jailbreak iOS 4.2.1 For iPhone , iPad, iPod Touch Released
How To Downgrade iPhone 3G From iOS 4 To iPhone OS 3.1.3

AirPlayer: Hack Enables AirPlay Streaming From iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch To Mac

Administrator — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 02:15:10 +0000

The latest version of iOS,
gives users the ability to stream and watch videos from any iDevice to a television. While this is without doubt one of the coolest offerings in the new update, the
.
,
, you cannot enjoy this service.
has now developed a new application that will enable users to stream media content from an iDevice to a Mac computer using AirPlay. The software, called AirPlayer, is basically a custom Bonjour service that lets a Mac identify itself as an Apple TV to the AirPlay app. Bonjour, as you may already know, is a service that lets Apple devices communicate with one another in a network. Erica explains that AirPlay is a Bonjour service in itself where communication is restricted between an Apple TV and an iDevice. By letting a Mac identify itself as an Apple TV, the AirPlay functionality can now be extended beyond Apple ‘s set top box.
. The application does not require users to
. However, do note that the native AirPlay service is limited to sanctioned applications like YouTube and iPod app. You may hence need a jailbroken iPhone or iPad that has
installed to access AirPlay from the other apps including Mobile Safari browser.
Erica notes that it is possible to port the AirPlayer software to the Windows and Linux platforms as well but is currently not planning to release applications that are compatible on these platforms. Meanwhile, if you are a Mac user, check out the application from Erica’s website and let us know how it works in the comments below.