Larry Kless' Weblog: iPhone

Showing posts with label iPhone. Show all posts

Thursday, December 30, 2010

Skype Makes Our Dreams Come True with Skype for iPhone 3.0, Video Chat Now Available!

After much waiting and anticipation, just like that – Skype for iPhone now comes with video. There had been rumors and sightings online about a possible release at CES next week, but Skype finally made our dreams come true with the release of Skype iPhone app. Skype has been no stranger to the news lately with an IPO next year and on the heels of its major outage – Skype "gave the people what they want," by enabling video chat chat capability across the Apple iDevice line, including the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, and 4th generation iPod touch with i0S 4.0 or above. Like its previous iPhone apps, Skype for iPhone 3.0 is free.

Mobile video has been considered one of the biggest trends that will explode in 2011, and now Skype's impending dominance of the two-way video chat market is apparent. With its global and mainstream reach of approximately 25 million people signed into Skype at any given time, along with its recent integration with Facebook, Skype has become the biggest disruptor of the live video space. Ironically, among the list of competitors includes Apple's FaceTime, along with Google voice and video chat, Fring, ooVoo, Qik and other live video mobile apps.

Techcrunch's Leena Rao spoke with Rick Osterloh, VP of Consumer Products for Skype, who said that the company had been working on developing video capability in the app for some time and that Apple has been a "great partner" and that “mobile is going to be big for Skype."

In Skype's press release today, Neil Stevens, general manager of Skype’s consumer business said:

"With video calling representing approximately 40% of all Skype-to-Skype minutes for the first six months of 2010, our users have been eager to get Skype video calling on their mobile phones. By bringing video to mainstream users at their home or work via their desktops, on the go with their mobiles, or into their living room via their TV, Skype has made it possible for millions of people to share video moments wherever they are.”

With this new software, users will be able to:

Make free Skype-to-Skype voice and video calls over 3G and WiFi.*
Share video calls on Skype with people on specified iPhones, PC or Mac.
Talk face-to-face or show what you're seeing with front- and rear-facing cameras.

* Additional data charges may apply. Skype recommends a strong WiFi connection for video calling to get the best quality.

Check out this bizarre Skype ad introducing the new iPhone app. (Friendly warning: Don't watch this if you are creeped out by guys dancing around their underwear, as evidence of the the video thumbnail. It seems that the producers wanted to show that you can "share the moment, anywhere.)

The application works in both portrait and landscape mode, but the downside with the iPhone 3GS and iPad is that neither have a front-facing camera, which makes it less ideal for video chat – but you can receive video on the iPad and chat with a compatible headset and use the rear-facing camera on the iPhone 3GS. However, that may change if the iPad2 comes equipped with a camera.

Your device will need to be running iOS 4.0 or above and that you are using Skype for iPhone 3.0 or above. The contacts you are calling must be using one of the following Skype clients:

Skype for Windows version 4.2 and above
Skype for Mac OS X version 2.8 and above
Skype for iPhone 3.0 and above

There are many hands-on reviews of the the app on Engadget, GigaOm, 9 to 5 Mac, TMCnet and others, and the reports are that the video quality is clear but not as clear as FaceTime. 9 to 5 Mac estimated that video calls over 3G will use around 3.4 MB of data per minute.

Skype has been growing steadily with 560 million users and 8.1 million of those users pay an average of $96 a year for premium services. Skype generated $13 million in profit on net revenues of $406 million in the first half of 2010. Skype's Android app doesn't yet support video calling, but Skype may have more releases set for CES and ooVoo just released their Android version.

Related:

About Skype
Skype is a communications platform provider whose purpose is to break down barriers to communication. With an Internet-connected device, families, friends and colleagues can get together for free with messaging, voice and video. At low cost, they can also call landlines or mobiles virtually anywhere in the world. Skype has recently introduced group video, allowing groups of more than two people to do things together whenever they're apart.

Founded in 2003 and based in Luxembourg. Skype can be downloaded onto computers, mobile phones and other connected devices for free at www.skype.com.

You can get news and updates from Skype on its blog: blogs.skype.com Twitter: twitter.com/skype or Facebook: www.facebook.com/skype.

Saturday, December 20, 2008

12seconds.tv Rolls Out iPhone App and Open Registration

12seconds.tv has been referred to as the "video Twitter" since you can record and post a 12 second video status message with its online video service. This past week they made several big announcements to help broaden their user base by moving from an invitation-only alpha to public beta and by releasing a new iPhone application available now in the App Store for $0.99. The new application allows users to create 12 second videos with photos and audio and doesn't violate Apple's restriction of no video recording on the iPhone. Video recording and live streaming is only available on jailbroken iPhones.

Many see the new app as a clever workaround to getting a legitimate video application on the iPhone. Here's what they had to say on the 12second blog:

"With the 12seconds iPhone app you take 3 pictures, record some audio and post it. We’ll turn it into a video and post it for your friends to see. There’s no other app in the app store that outputs video so we’re pretty excited about it. It will cost only 99 cents. It’s a great value and a great way to support your friends at 12seconds. Here’s a short video demonstration."

12seconds iPhone App Demonstration from Sol Lipman on Vimeo.

Regarding the open registration the 12second also had to say:

"The time has come to open up and share 12seconds with the rest of the world. Now anyone can register and join our beta program. So, please, invite your friends and let’s build a rich community of people 12ing all over the world. 12seconds is easy, fun and engaging. We’ve got the best community on the Internet."

Here are a few related posts that offer more background and detail:

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Watch Blip.tv Videos On iPhone With New "Magic Embed"

It's no secret that the iPhone doesn't support the Flash Player and many speculate that it will never happen. This limits the availability of online video content mainly to YouTube which encodes their videos in the advanced H.264 format. But Blip.tv has created a "magic" workaround that embeds the .m4v QuickTime movie within code that makes their videos viewable on the device.

This video by Blip.tv CTO and co-founder Justin Day below that demonstrates how to create a "magic iPhone embed."

The only catch is that the original video file needs to be in the Quicktime movie format. Blip.tv will not convert Flash videos to Quicktime. See the Apple Developer web site Technical Note TN2188: Exporting Movies for iPod, Apple TV and iPhone on for the optimal settings.

As Blip CEO Mike Hudack told Wired.com, "We think it's very important that iPhone users be able to enjoy a full Web experience, including video playback. Just as important, show creators should be able to distribute video everywhere that people watch video. This is a meaningful step forward."

Ryan Lawler of Contentinople notes that, "With the new iPhone embed, Blip.tv producers will still be able to cash in on advertising that runs against their content. In addition to their videos, all ads that are sold to run up against Blip.tv video content will also be iPhone-friendly."

Thanks Blip.tv!

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Weekly Review: NY Times Goes HD with Brightcove, Blip.TV and Other Funding Updates, Hulu, CBS, Ooyala, iPhone, G1 Google Phone, Netflix, Qik

Here's another weekly review of some of the significant online video events from this past week. While I don't intend this to be an ongoing feature on this blog and I do think that these stories are of interest. I've only listed a few links to some of the sources to save time and energy. While there was a lot of news of layoffs at companies big and small I didn't cover any of that here.

Beet.TV has a two-part post on the New York Times story below which you see here and here.

NY Times Implements HD video with Brightcove 3

From Reel SEO
"NYTimes.com launched a new video platform today powered by Brightcove 3 (check out our interview with Brightcove) that allows for video content to be more easily integrated into their content sections and provides an overall enhanced user experience. Apart from the complete redesign of the video library page, the new platform offers several other benefits over the previous platform powered by TheFeedRoom."

Here is the company press release.

New York Times Video - NYTimes Relaunches Online Video Platform with Brightcove 3

Funding updates

Blip.TV Gets has raised an undisclosed sum of new funding from Bain Capital Ventures

Online Video News

Gadget news

Stay tuned, I have several draft posts that I'm working on which will be published soon.

Saturday, July 12, 2008

iPhone 3G - Will it Blend?

This one was too good to pass up. Cringe or enjoy...

From: Blendtec

Added: July 11, 2008 (More info)

Tom use his new iPhone 3G to stay organized. Watch what happens when he tries to blend his old iPhone.

Friday, July 11, 2008

iPhone Mania Sweeps the Globe

The tech geeks are out in full force blogging, Twittering, singing songs, having online discussions, live streaming, camping out overnight waiting in line and doing everything they can to pass the time until the release of the new iPhone 3G.

It's not just the device that will be released in a few short hours in the US but all the new applications from the App Store like the Facebook application that people are loving.

I've been tuning into Leo Laporte's 24 hour iPhone live stream and thinking about how I can get one of these babies in my hands. I want one but I'll have to wait for now. So in the immortal words of Mike Myers' character Wayne,"You will be mine, oh yes, you will be mine..."

In the meantime, here's Duncan Riley unboxing a white 3G iPhone.

iPhone 3G unboxing from Duncan Riley on Vimeo.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Qik Comes Quick with Live Streaming on iPhone

Just a few hours after the news that Flixwagon announced they were able to stream live video from an unlocked iPhone the other popular live mobile streaming service Qik has followed suit. This story also generated a wild flurry of reports on Techmeme and my Google Reader and seems to be a sudden about face from what Qik previous stated last week. The iPhone doesn't support video recording with a native application but Qik and Flixwagon have figured out how skip recording on the device and record the live mobile broadcast stream.

Qik announced a private alpha on their web site starting next week and featured the video below by Michael Fortson who demonstrates the first live stream from an iPhone.

Qik Announces iPhone Support
"Adding to our 30 supported devices, Qik is now announcing support for the iPhone, bringing the full Qik experience to legions of iPhone fans the world over." - video description

Liz Gannes of NewTeeVee says, "Qik discovered that the camera on the iPhone was video-capable earlier this year, co-founder and VP product marketing Bhaskar Roy told us this afternoon. But the phone had no built-in encoder or video engine to actually capture video. In the past few months the company worked on building a solution, but was waiting until Steve Jobs’ iPhone 2 release on Monday to see if Apple would include a video engine itself and make Qik’s solution obsolete." But that announcement didn't happen at the WWDC so Qik decided to push their solution to market. Roy said he was surprised that his competitor released a nearly identical demo online today.

Regarding the lack of an Apple recording application on the iPhone, Kevin Lim writes on his blog,"So a lot of us have lamented over the fact that video recording just doesn’t officially exist on the iPhone. Loren Feldman of 1938 Media got pissed mad about it (warning: harsh language), while developers at Polar Bear Farm (nice!) took matters into their own hands by producing ShowTime, a beautiful video recorder for jailbroken iPhones." Lim says it makes a lot of sense to skip storing our media to local devices and store record cour content,"directly into the wonderful cloud of web servers" which is exactly what both Qik and Flixwagon do.

David Chartier of Ars Technica suggested a possible snag in Qik's plan in his post, Qik iPhone client may violate AT&T's terms of service, and that the fine print forbids video streaming on their network as it's use can "cause extreme network capacity issues and interference with the network and are therefore prohibited."

How that will play out is not yet clear, but a number of sources have cited that this could be the summer of mobile video wars between the two competitors along with other similar services. Just wait until Apple releases it's own video application.

Flixwagon Demos Live Video Streaming via on Unlocked iPhone

I'm glad to be back after several days of technical difficulties with my internet connection.

It's big news in live mobile video broadcasting today, with two big announcements for both FlixWagon and Qik.

Earlier today, Flixwagon announced that they've been able to unlock live video recording and broadcasting on the iPhone. Alan Stern of Centernetworks reported the story earlier today that appeared on Twitter, "Announcing first ever live video broadcast from iPhone with Flixwagon http://is.gd/vUX."

On the Flixwagon blog Ken Zamkow wrote, "We're happy to announce that our development team at the Flixwagon lab has successfully streamed the first-ever live high-quality video from unlocked iPhones to the web, using Flixwagon's alpha client. While we don't condone or recommend unlocking iPhones, as avid iPhone users ourselves we wanted to experiment with ways to enable flixwagon on the iPhone, until the official SDK supports video. We're going to continue working with the iPhone SDK in the future so we can offer this functionality to all users once video becomes a standard part of the iPhone."

UPDATE: Zamkow added,"We'll release the iPhone version to our Alpha testers in July. In the mean time, if you want to sign up for Flixwagon or get updates on future roll-outs and supported mobile devices, click here."

Andy Plesser on Beet.tv interviewed Sarig Reichert, co-founder Flixwagon, who shared the latest news that everyone has been waiting to hear.

Andy says, "Sarig sent me this link with a few videos broadcast with an iPhone. These videos were done in the Flixwagon labs using an unlocked iPhone. BTW: Sarig says the company is not encouraging users to unlock their iPhones. But, it evidently works."

I'm a big advocate of both Flixwagon and Qik as they offer an instant online video publishing solution. So rather than overshadow one platform over the other, I've posted a Part II of this story as the next blog entry.

Sunday, March 9, 2008

The Week in Review, March 3rd - March 7th

It was another busy week in the video and streaming media world and I thought I'd try a new approach to comment on the big events that caught my attention.

Monday, March 3rd

It started on with Oprah's big web cast. Oprah launched a new global web cast series and had record 500,000 simultaneous connections which proved to be too much for the system to handle. I didn't catch it live and only read about it, watched it on demand and talked with a friend who attempted to connect to the live event. He said the video froze, sputtered and quickly dropped and Oprah issued an apology email that followed the next day stating,"More than 500,000 of you simultaneously logged on to watch Oprah Winfrey and Eckhart Tolle live, resulting in 242 Gbps of information moving through the Internet. Unfortunately, some of you experienced delays in viewing the webcast. We are working to identify the specific causes for the problems experienced and will work diligently to rectify them. Harpo Productions, Inc., Move Networks and Limelight Networks recognize that interactive Internet broadcasting to a mass audience is still an emerging medium, and we're proud to have been pioneers in pushing the industry forward. We deeply regret that some of you were not able to participate in Monday night's live Web event and that others did not have an optimal viewing experience"