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Posts tagged with "video"

Apple “Discussing” TV Subscription Service with “New Technology To Deliver Video”

As reported by The Wall Street Journal in an article detailing some of the challenges Apple’s new CEO Tim Cook will have to face in the post-Jobs era and many of the achievements of the company’s former chief executive, Apple is allegedly working on a new technology to deliver video to televisions:

An immediate challenge for Mr. Cook will be to advance Apple’s plans in what is expected to be a key market for growth: digital video. Apple is working on new technology to deliver video to televisions, and has been discussing whether to try to launch a subscription TV service, according to people familiar with the matter. Unlike the iPod and music, where Apple has a commanding position, the battle to rule online video remains wide open and the company faces fierce competition.

No additional details are provided in the report, although speculation of new TV products from Apple has increasingly suggested in the past months that, just like with the iPod, iPhone and iPad before, the company is now aiming to disrupt another market that’s long been dominated by services, corporations and standards that don’t make it easy for consumers to have an optimal user experience. Specifically, rumors of an HDTV from Apple have been circulating for years, pinpointing what turned out to be incorrect release dates, tech specs, and prices. However, these rumors have a reason to exist, as they’ve been subtly backed by Steve Jobs’ public criticism towards the current TV business model and cable companies, described as clumsy, complicated, and ultimately bad for consumers. At the D8 conference last year, when asked about whether Apple could get into the television business, Jobs replied:

The television industry fundamentally has a subsidized business model that gives everybody a set-top box for free, or for $10 a month, and that pretty much squashes any opportunity for innovation, because nobody’s willing to buy a set-top box. Ask TiVo, ask ReplayTV, ask Roku, ask Vudu, ask Google in a few months. So all you can do is add a box onto the TV system. […] The only way that’s ever going to change is if you can really go back to square one and tear up the set-top box, and redesign it from scratch with a consistent UI, across all these different functions, and get it to the consumer in a way that they’re willing to pay for it. Right now there’s no way to do that. So that’s the problem with the TV market.

The Wall Street Journal’s report doesn’t mention any new hardware from Apple, focusing on subscription services and technologies to stream video to televisions. However, as Apple is known for driving innovation by integrating software with their own hardware, it’s likely that when the company will find it “viable” to get into the TV market, they’ll do so by releasing their own hardware tightly integrated with a “new technology” and “subscription TV service”. Apple currently sells the Apple TV 2nd-gen – described multiple times by Jobs and Cook as a “hobby” – that runs a modified version of iOS and comes with a native Netflix app for instant movie streaming; recently the company added the possibility to stream any previously purchased content from the iTunes Store to the Apple Tv through their new iCloud platform. It was reported back in April that Apple added 12 petabytes of storage to their server farms for serving iTunes Store video, and a separate report mentioned Apple could soon launch a service similar to Netflix to stream movies and TV shows for a monthly fee.

Flipboard Considering TV Shows and Movies, iPhone Version Launching “In A Few Weeks”

According to a report by Reuters, the iPad app of the Year 2010, Flipboard, might add support for movies and TV shows by the end of the year. If the company and its CEO, Mike McCue, will manage to cut deals with studios and other content providers, Flipboard will expand beyond aggregating articles from social networks such as Twitter and Facebook or RSS services like Google Reader, becoming an all-in one solution to read, share, and watch.

Flipboard mixes articles from a growing list of brands like Oprah.com and the Economist with social media feeds from sites like Facebook into a personalized online magazine. It has received $60.5 million in venture capital funding and its app has been downloaded 3 million times.

Chairman and Chief Executive Mike McCue said he will tackle the video project at the end of the year. He declined to say which studio partners he has approached. He also hopes eventually to cut deals with publishers to sell electronic books through Flipboard.

Just when the concept of “consuming content” starts making less sense now that the iPad has turned into a full-featured platform and device capable of doing things like reading, writing, sharing news, and watching movies, the evolution of Flipboard towards broader audiences and media seems appropriate. The app was launched in 2010 featuring direct Twitter and Facebook integration to display stories from these networks, visualized through an elegant layout with beautiful typography that made great use of the iPad’s screen to present multiple stories at once, and allow readers to re-share them or comment of them without opening a separate client. The app went through a series of updates to further refine the interface, add more services like Google Reader for RSS feeds and Instagram for photos, recently receiving another major revamp to introduce visual search, a popular section, and a completely new UI to browse popular articles and get recommendations from the Flipboard team’s curated list of stories and sources.

We’re big fans of Flipboard here at MacStories, and I believe choosing to diversify the app’s offerings to include more content is step in the right direction. Obviously, as Reuters says, this may never materialize if deals aren’t reached with studios, but it’s reassuring to know Flipboard has been considering video as the next major addition to their social magazine. In the same report, Reuters also says the iPhone version of Flipboard is expected to hit the App Store in a few weeks, although no further details are available.

You can read more about Flipboard and our thoughts on it in our previous coverage, and check out the fantastic original promo video featuring Adam Lisagor below.
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VUDU Brings Its Video-On-Demand Service To The iPad Via A Web App

Amazon wasn’t the only content provider to launch an iPad web app today, with VUDU also bringing its video-on-demand service to the iPad via a web app. VUDU, which is owned by Walmart and claims to be “a leading subscription-free, video-on-demand movie service” chose to optimise the site for the iPad and now streams videos in h.264 - although unfortunately the videos are only in standard definition due to licensing restrictions (some Disney films are also missing from the catalogue).

VUDU, a leading subscription-free, video-on-demand movie service and wholly owned subsidiary of Walmart stores, has optimized the navigation experience of VUDU.com to enable millions of iPad owners to rent or buy entertainment content and then stream it easily through any iPad browser.

Edward Lichty, General Manager of VUDU, said of the iPad launch that it “plays into that vision as we’re committed to offering the VUDU experience on as many devices as possible so customers can shop for and access their favorite movies and TV shows however they want, whenever they want”. What this means in part is that any movie rented or purchased on the iPad VUDU website is also viewable on any other device that supports VUDU - which Walmart claims is more than 300 consumer electronic devices. According to Engadget, you can watch VUDU on the iPhone through this same web app despite the UI not yet being optimized for it - but don’t be disappointed if this doesn’t work well or if VUDU stops this soon.

Just head to the VUDU website on your iPad and follow the prompts to start using the VUDU iPad interface.

[Via Engadget]

Boxee Releases Their iPad App: Social Video Sharing & Streaming

Earlier this year at CES, Boxee announced it was developing an iPad companion app to complement the Boxee Box and Boxee installations on PC’s and Macs. Today Boxee has finally delivered and released their iPad app after postponing the initial release date from May.

The main screen of the Boxee iPad app will remind many of the familiar Boxee experience with three streams of videos shown, one is a collection of videos from friends, another is the featured video feed and the last is a stream of videos that you have selected to ‘Watch Later’. Beyond this however, the Boxee iPad app has some more interesting features including what Boxee has dubbed ‘PC to iPad’ and ‘Send to TV’. The former allows any PC/Mac to stream videos directly to the iPad without any syncing or converting (similar to Air Video or Plex) - this feature is enabled with the new Boxee Media Manager which is a lightweight app that allows the streaming from PCs and Macs.

The ‘Send to TV’ functionality incorporates the ability for the iPad to stream video directly to a Boxee Box. What is even cooler is that the Boxee Box (which is also receiving an update from today) now includes an experimental feature where it can now receive AirPlay streams from any iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch - just like an Apple TV can.

You can download Boxee’s iPad app for free on the App Store. Jump the break for the release notes of Boxee for iPad and for a selection of screenshots.

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BBC Rolls Out iPad iPlayer App To 11 Western Europe Countries, Coming To The US This Year

Last month we reported that the BBC was preparing to launch its iPad video-on-demand service iPlayer internationally for a fee under $10 by the end of the year. That day has come with the BBC today (Thursday, July 28) launching the iPlayer iPad app in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Ireland, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland.

Some iPlayer content will be available for free, but for full access users will need to pay either €6.99 a month or €49.99 a year. The program’s director spoke with The Guardian about the launch and reinforced previous statements by noting that the international version of iPlayer is a video-on-demand service, not a catch-up service as it is in the UK (primarily). The catalogue will include popular shows such as Top Gear and Doctor Who but will also offer a deep catalogue of shows that the BBC has aired over the past decades. At launch that catalogue is roughly contains roughly 1,500 hours of content – the BBC says it aims to add another 100 hours to that each week.

“What we’re trying to test in the pilot is the ability to drive exploration and discovery through a programming approach rather than an algorithm-based approach,” said Bradley-Jones. “We’re not trying to compete against a Netflix or a Hulu. This has to be tailored and hand-crafted, so we can create a tone of voice.”

Unlike the UK version of the app that was released earlier this year, the international version allows users to stream shows over 3G and even pre-download (cache) shows that they want to watch later, helpful for downloading a bunch of shows for a trip. For that feature they worked closely with Apple due to problems with iPad’s auto-sleep functionality interrupting downloads - ultimately Apple was happy with the app disabling the iPad’s ability to sleep whilst downloading shows.

If you don’t live in one of those 11 Western European countries that today got access, don’t stress because the BBC is going to continue to launch the iPlayer iPad app in further countries this year. In particular, Australia, Canada and the United States (the BBC notes it will probably charge around $7.99, roughly comparable with Hulu and Netflix) will see the iPlayer iPad app by the end of the year.

[The Guardian via The Next Web]

Ustream Releases iPad App with AirPlay Support

Ustream, the popular web service to broadcast and interact with live events, updated its iPhone app back in March to unify the broadcasting and chatting features in a single package that allowed users to record and engage in conversations in the chat room at the same time, providing additional social features for Facebook and Twitter sharing as well. With a new update released today and now available on the App Store, Ustream is bringing native support to iPad owners with a brand new app that’s been completely redesigned to take advantage of the iPad’s larger screen. The update is universal, so you’ll need to update your existing Ustream iPhone app to get the iPad version.

Just like the iPhone app, Ustream for iPad will let you broadcast and interact with your audience from a single interface that, on the iPad, lays out video, audio, chat and social controls in a semi-circular overlay control popup similar to Grazing’s slidepad. You can flip cameras and adjust audio, or if you want to see what’s happening online, head over the social stream to hear what people are saying on Twitter and Facebook about your show, or simply pop into the chat room dedicated to your broadcast. Obviously, you can also watch live shows and participate in the chat room – Ustream’s iPad app lets you check on popular, live and featured shows right from the homepage, so if you’re a heavy Ustream user you’ll always have something to tune into. Among the new features, Ustream also touts “Airplay support for true social interactive viewing of the chat and social stream”.

Ustream already had a very solid iPhone app, and this new iPad version contributes to making the service a complete solution that works on any web browser, and now iOS devices as well. Get the app here for free.

Lion’s QuickTime Player: Screen Recording Improvements and New Sharing Features

One of the built-in apps that received several interesting improvements in OS X Lion is QuickTime Player, Apple’s default video and music player based on the QuickTime framework that’s capable of handling a variety of audio, video, and picture codecs. Seemingly unchanged from version 10 of QuickTime Player that shipped with Mac OS X Snow Leopard, the new QuickTime Player 10.1 contains a number of changes under the hood, new sharing features, as well as screen recording enhancements built specifically for OS X Lion. Read more

Apple Posts New iPad 2 Commercial: “We’ll Always”

We’ll never stop sharing our memories. Or getting lost in a good book. We’ll always cook dinner, and cheer for our favorite team. We’ll still go to meetings, make home movies, and learn new things. But how do all this, we’ll never be the same.

Apple posted a new iPad 2 commercial on its website and YouTube channel, once again highlighting how the device is changing the way people do things in their lives. With the “We’ll always” ad, Apple wants to show how the iPad has changed, and perhaps improved, the most basic tasks like cooking dinner or editing a quick video in iMovie. Just like other commercials like “Now” and “If You Asked”, Apple’s focus is on apps – the software – rather than technical specifications and hardware features. In this latest video, the iPad is seen organizing photos in the native Photos app, streaming a baseball match and flipping pages of an iBook – among other things. The built-in iOS and the apps – not the screen or the thin form factor – are the real stars in Apple’s iPad commercials.

Apple’s previous iPad 2 commercials were called “We Believe”, “If You Asked” and “Now”. Check out the new video below. [YouTube via 9to5mac]
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Capture: The Fastest App To Record Video On Your iPhone

Released today at $0.99 on the App Store and created by the same developers of Canned, Capture is a minimal and simple utility for the iPhone that addresses a common issue with the iPhone’s Camera app: sometimes you need to capture a moment quickly, but the app takes too long to launch or switch to video recording. Brought to my attention by Ben Brooks, Capture is simply great at what it does: the developers describe it as “a record button for your home screen” and, really, that’s not too far from the truth. Capture starts recording a video as soon as you tap on its (beautiful) icon. You launch the app, and it starts recording after one second. No need to switch to the “video” tab as in Apple’s Camera, no need to wait because, and I don’t know how exactly, Capture is immediately available after you tap on it.

I can see why Capture could become an essential tool for many: by placing the app on the iPhone’s dock, you have quick access to video recording by pressing an icon. This is certainly useful for people who want to “capture” a particular moment in their kids’ life or, overall, users frustrated by the general slowness of Apple’s Camera when it comes to recording a video quickly. For reporters and citizen journalists, Capture might be exactly what they were looking for.

Capture is fast, elegant, lets you activate the iPhone’s Flash but has no support for switching between rear and front facing cameras yet. If you need an app to record video in seconds without waiting, get Capture at $0.99 on the App Store.