The first exciting news from
Macworld 2009 came late Monday afternoon when
Sling Media PR director Brian Jaquet
announced that we will see the much anticipated SlingPlayer for the iPhone by the end of the quarter. If you own a version of their SlingBox set top, this app will allow you to watch live TV, record DVR programs, and even watch recorded films over the air with a 3G or wifi connection.
Six months ago at WWDC, Sling showed off a proof-of-concept SlingPlayer on a jailbroken iPhone. Sling also informed reporters that they were using a jailbroken phone because they had not been accepted into Apple's Developer Program. From that moment, the
rumor mill went into overdrive about why we have not seen an Apple approved SlingPlayer in the app store.
Until now we have only heard silence from all the players involved, leaving speculators pointing fingers at Apple and AT&T from trying to ban the San Mateo company from the iPhone. Today at Macworld, the silence will finally be broken as Sling Media will be showing off an alpha version of their official SDK app which is scheduled to hit the App Store in March. We will be there first hand to check out the demo and should have a video later in the day.
Along with the exciting iPhone news, Sling Media also announced that their streaming site, sling.com will begin supporting OS X via a browser plugin. For the first time, Mac users will be able to stream HD TV on their browsers from the SlingPlayer. Very exciting to see that Sling is finally showing Apple some love and I, for one, can't wait to see the demo in person.
