Ustream has been working on an iPhone application to enable viewing of live streaming content from Ustream.tv to the 3G iPhone. MobileCrunch posted a video and a photo of the app last month and now the application is almost ready for prime time. Ustream worked closely with President-elect Obama throughout his campaign, and yesterday John Ham, Ustream Founder announced that with the new app you will be able to watch the historic Inauguration LIVE on Ustream with chat.
As Michael Arrington of Techcrunch says, "The world is changing before our eyes" since this would be the the first live streaming application available in the iPhone App store if and when it's approved by Apple. He had an exclusive demonstration of the soon-to-be released application by Ustream's John Ham featured in the video below.
If you’d like to try out the application before it officially launches, Techcrunch has a handful of invitations to give away. Just follow the directions below.
Instructions for preview:
1) Plug the iPhone into your computer
2) Wait for the iPhone info to appear in iTunes
3) click on the words “Serial Number” to cause it to change to “Identifier”
4) double-click the identifier number (the long string of characters) and then press cmd-C (Mac) or ctrl-C (Windows) to copy it
5) email that identifier to iphone@ustream.tv so we can build a custom version for that phone using the iPhone SDK.
Chris Pirillo who also uses Ustream for his daily live streams recorded this demo. He says,"I’m relatively pissed that TechCrunch got an exclusive scoop (and yes, it was exclusive) on the upcoming Ustream application for the iPhone, all things considered. Still, I’m happy to say that pretty soon you’ll be able to watch me - and any other person who uses Ustream - on your iPhone or iPod Touch. The app is very much real. Why would you want to watch? Think about it this way: it’s much more interactive than traditional television."Watch Me Live on Your iPhone
Description: http://live.pirillo.com/ - Now you can watch me, and other live video feeds, no matter where you go! So long as you have a connection to the Internet, you can pull up our feed and participate vicariously with the community.
While Joost has an iPhone app that lets you watch their library of 46,000 videos it is limited to wi-fi network access and Ustream's application
Arrington followed up with this additional post, Ustream May Be First To Broadcast Video From Unhacked iPhone, which featured another demonstration of different Ustream application that lets users record and produce live mobile broadcasts from an iPhone. This is the first live streaming application to run on a non-jailbroken iPhone and is pending approval by Apple. Ustream is anticipating it will be approved and available in the iPhone app store soon. Both Qik and Flixwagon already have iPhone live streaming applications for jailbroken iPhones.
