Spangler reports, “Several iPhone apps already let Netflix customers manage their queues and search for movies. The Netflix streaming-video app would let users watch the actual content on an iPhone or iPod touch.”
“However, Netflix’s streaming-video feature would probably be restricted to access over local Wi-Fi connections only — not over AT&T’s 3G data network — in the same the way other bandwidth-heavy video apps for the iPhone are limited,” Spangler reports. “For example, EchoStar’s SlingPlayer Mobile for the iPhone is Wi-Fi-only, because AT&T says “slinging” TV would chew up too much bandwidth over its 3G network (and would violate its terms of service, anyway).”
MacDailyNews Take: Then why does the MLBatBat.com 2009 stream live video of 3G to Apple iPhones?
Full article here.
Dan Frommer writes for The Business Insider, “Look at MLB At Bat’s new full game streaming: It uses the iPhone 3.0 streaming video API, and is allowed over 3G even though baseball games are three hours long. (Too long to watch on a single iPhone 3G battery charge, as we learned at the gym the other day — one hour of baseball equals 70% battery suck.) And surely more people like baseball than own SlingBoxes, so Apple couldn’t have just approved it thinking no one would use it.”
“So we think that more video apps will start to come out that are 3G-enabled once the developers plug into the official streaming API,” Frommer writes. “Caveat: Netflix may limit itself to wi-fi only if it thinks that’s a way to skirt the need to get separate mobile rights to the movies and TV shows it streams.”
Frommer writes, “Because streaming to an iPhone over wi-fi is really just a specialized way to stream to a computer — the same way streaming to an Xbox is like that — it might fit under Netflix’s existing rights.”
Full article here.
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