Huge internet content backbone Akamai is introducing their new on-demand, streaming HD Network, along with support for… the iPhone. Says Macworld:
Akamai worked with Apple to make HD Network video run on the iPhone using the standard H.264 format. The iPhone 3.0 software upgrade, introduced in June, added support for live video. Content providers can use the HD Network to deliver programs for the iPhone through the Safari Web browser or an application offered on the App Store. The videos can play on the phone’s video player, as YouTube videos do now.
We’ve heard about iPhone 3.0’s HTTP Live Streaming capabilities before, and if this uptake is real, we’re getting increasingly excited about our iPhone media future…
Techcrunch thinks the move of iTunes to the clouds is inevitable. Back in February there were rumors of something called iTunes Replay, that would allow users to store their media purchases — which can easily grow to 10s if not 100s of GBs fairly quickly — on Apple’s servers and then stream them down to iTunes, Apple TV, or their iPhone or iPod touch on-demand.
Nothing came of it at the time. Since then, however, Apple has begun building a world-class data center in North Carolina, and baked a new HTTP streaming media feature into both the iPhone/iPod and the Mac.
With cost of hard drive storage still falling, and 2TB soon being realistic capacities for standard home media centers, do we — or Apple — really need to think about the “cloud” so much?
We do if we use iPhones, iPod touches, laptops… or upcoming iTablet and like-devices dependent on smaller, still more-expensive solid state storage. Sure local copies for backup are nigh impossible for old curmudgeons like myself to even consider giving up, but syncing, deleting, and otherwise managing content can be a pain in our old curmudgeonly nethers as well.
There’s one key area, however, it doesn’t address — bandwidth caps. Sure, they’re not an issue for most people in the US, but they are in countries where internet service is both more expensive, slower, and far more tightly capped. (Like where I am, in the distant realm of Canada.)
And even in the US, if cable and DSL companies start losing TV subscribers to iTunes, those prices and lack of caps might just change as well.
Of course, letting us sync and manage our content over WiFi could and should be an alternative. iTunes and Apple TV can already sync over WiFi, and the iPhone can download movies from the iTunes Store over WiFi. Why can’t the iPhone browse our PC’s iTunes library and transfer media over via WiFi?
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. That’s the future. Maybe. This is now. Do you want your iTunes in the cloud?
Apple Insider took a closer look at the HTTP Streaming Media feature that was highlighted as part of iPhone 3.0, but hasn’t received a whole lot of attention since:
The real benefit to HTTP Live Streaming is that the server can maintain multiple versions of the clips in different formats. This allows an iPhone user with a WiFi connection to negotiate a higher quality version of the video than if only EDGE were available. Even better, the phone can renegotiate a higher or lower quality dynamically if it improves or loses signal. This enables the watcher to experience the best video quality possible at the current bandwidth available, continually optimized as new segments are requested.
We saw this demoed by ESPN during the iPhone 3.0 Sneak Peak Event. Better still, Apple is proposing it as an open standard, platform and player neutral, which could spur adaption, meaning more content for users.
Check out the full article linked above, and iphone.akamai.com for examples.
