All Articles Tagged Video

You know what the iPhone popularized? Not just iCloning. Not just multi-touch. Not just visual voicemail. What I’m talking about is watching video on your mobile device. Youtube was integrated into the iPhone from the beginning and well, most other mobile users were jealous.

But the iPhone has so much more video potential than just Youtube. As popular as Youtube is, there are other video sites out there. Take the webapp PocketVidz for example, they have thousands of videos available for your iPhone, sized and optimized for your viewing pleasure. What is the selection like? Should you try it out?

Read on for the rest of the review!

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Monday we asked you “What’s the iPhone 3G Chip and When Will it Ship?“. Tuesday it was “What is the iPhone 3G Going to Look Like?“. Wednesday brought “What Surprises Will There Be in the iPhone 2.0 Software & Services?”. Thursday questioned “What 3rd Party iPhone SDK Apps Will Be Available Launch Day?” Today we want to know what else the iPhone 3G will feature, both now and into the future?

GPS is the biggie (right after 3G!). What about a front-facing camera? VGA screen? Stereo Bluetooth? Wireless N? Full-sized querty keyboard? … (Ha!) What do YOU think?

To give you some help, here’s a HUGE roundup of all the iPhone SDK 3rd party apps rumors. Epic-style. Because let’s face it, roughly 0.01 seconds after Steve Jobs pulled the first iPhone from his pocket back at Macworld 2007, and someone, somewhere, put aside their childlike sense of wonder long enough think: “Nice! What’s the next gen going to be like?”

Complementary, contradictory, obvious, confusing, all but confirmed or from left field via outer space, the rumors have flooded the internet ever since. It’s become almost impossible to keep track of them all.

Three days from today Steve Jobs takes Moscone Center stage for the sold-out WWDC keynote, and according to everyone and their newsfeed, announces the iPhone 3G. In eager anticipation, every day this week, TiPb wil be asking you to tell us what you think the next generation iPhone will be, from 3G to GPS, release dates to price points, colors to casings, 2.0 software to .Mac .Me services, and this weekend we’ll wrap it all up with a look into the WWDC/iPhone 3G Crystal Ball, and a roundup of the very best of YOUR predictions.

So come on, let’s get in on!

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VLC is a popular media player that supports countless audio and video codecs and multiple file formats. Because of such versatility, a lot of folks use VLC as their computer’s main video player. And now thanks to ZodTTD, it’s available for the iPhone (jailbroken ones only, sorry)!

The project is currently in private beta but a public release is planned for ‘very soon’. In its current iteration, VLC supports drag and drop files for MPEG/MPG, AVI, and MP3 formats. Support for FLAC and OGG are well on their way and they are currently researching playback for DivX, VCD, WMA, and WMV. The project is even asking for YOUR input on what codecs you want to see supported, feel free to click the Read link to let your voice be heard.

I firmly believe that this will be a game changing program for the iPhone and the jailbreaking scene in general. Imagine being able to play ANY video format like the desktop version of VLC, that freedom from iTunes will undoubtedly lead people to jailbreaking. Keep up the good work ZodTTD!

ReadVia

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No need for double-takes. You didn’t click the wrong link. Just breath, dig deeply, and stick with me for a moment. Yes, you really are still reading the iPhone blog.

For a 1.0 device, the iPhone knocked the ball — if not out of the park — soundly into the fence, and sent a complacent industry fumbling and flurrying to catch it. But no device, not even from Apple, could get everything perfect the first time at bat. Now, I’ve pretty much staked my turf here by playfully poking a little bit of fun at the competition but, truth be known, when they’re not wasting their time on iClones every platform and handset has some great — even killer — features to recommend it. In that spirit, here’s my top 5 list of what Apple should seriously consider stealing… er… learning from the competition if they want to hit a home run with 2.0 and beyond…

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I love the fact that Apple gives us their events on iTunes! Believe it or not, I still watch the MacWorld 2007 video. I enjoying watching the part where Steve says:

An iPod, Phone and an Internet communicator. iPod, Phone, and an Internet communicator. Are you getting it? These aren’t three separate devices…

hmmm, perhaps I have watched that one too many times.

I do wonder why it is a Podcast though and not a “movie”. I say this because the Podcasts do not refresh… we just get a new one every time.

You can find the link here to the Apple store for download, enjoy.

Music by Pete Miser. Video put together by Meritt Duff. Found by TUAW and Merlyn. Desire to write songs and videos about a cell phone by Apple, of course.

Mr. iPhone demo used to creep me out, but now I think I have a crush on him.

iPhone wielding Slingbox owners will soon be able to view their favorite smutty Spice Channel content on iPhone screens, if rumors are true. A site that goes by the charming name Electric Pig (I prefer my swine without rectal power adapters thank you very much) claims to have spoken with one of the higher ups at Sling Media, who went on record as saying that a version of its popular Slingplayer for mobile devices is in development right now.

Sweet. Now I can watch all my favorite episodes of Gilligan’s island while driving down the freeway. Zoom Zoom.

ReadVia MacRumors

figure 1: Derek, Kristin, and Ken

Apple has posted three new “street” ads. The ads feature Bryce in “Delay”, an airline pilot who used the iPhone to shorten a 3 hour delay into a 30 minute delay (and apparently also flies RC jets competitively); Kristin in “The Winger”, a ballet dancer that uses her iPhone to keep connected to her ballet blog at thewinger.com, and Ken in “My Show”, where Ken uses his iPhone to keep connected to the theatre community via his website at broadwayspace.com.

Apple has finally deviated from the instructional ads, instead moving to a man-on-the-street system of advertising. The three ads are well-done, :

• Doug in “Mankind”, on the miracle of visual voice mail
• Elliot in “Meredith”, on using MobileSafari to remember important things like your Boss’s wife’s name moments before you make some gaffe.
• Stephano in “One Thing”, on the trend of convergence, where he replaced his iPod, a camera, a regular phone, and a text-messaging and email phone, with an iPhone.

It’s a good set of commercials, and it would appear that the folks that are doing these New York ads are actual New-Yorkers and not paid actors, in what is perhaps a nod to some of the earlier Mac commercial ad blitz of “Switchers”. The music track from Orba Squara has also been replaced.

figure 1: All this and more for just 70 Schrutebucks.

If you use a Windows PC as a DVR and are looking to get away from iTunes for syncing your video to your iPhone or iPod, it looks like Beyond TV might be worth a peek. The new version of Beyond TV, 4.7, not only syncs your shows to the iPhone or iPod, but also pulls out your podcasts from iTunes. Not bad!

Someone has posted a YouTube parody video of Apple’s ‘Think different’ campaign. Until folks manage to crack and hack the 1.1.1 firmware, it probably functions as a eulogy for the 1.0.2 firmware that allowed us to install 3rd party applications and unlock our iPhones. There was a nice little ecosystem going on the iPhone for a while, and it was pretty much nipped in the bud.

Steve Jobs was asked at “Mum is no longer the word” press event why there was no 3G on the iPhone. His response was telling; it’s important enough that I transcribed the money quote of his response:

“We’ve got to see the battery life for 3G get back up into the five-plus hour range, before it’s really suitable for [the iPhone]. I think we’ll see that hopefully late next year. But right now, you make a really big tradeoff to go to 3G, and that’s really bad battery life.”

I think it’s safe to say that by “late next year,” he doesn’t mean January or something. Some analysts were predicting a 3G iPhone would be announced at today’s UK media event. I bet those same analysts are thinking “Perhaps he’ll announce some new hardware at Apple Expo Paris next week….”

Struggling to find that YouTube video of cats battling territorial turtles on your iPhone? Fret not.

Veveo has announced the launch of its new service designed for mobile users, called VTap. What this solution does is enable anyone, iPhone users in particular, to search for and view videos right from their mobile device. Just type in a search, hit the the search button, and VTap will aggregate a list of results, allowing you to bookmark or view the selected media on any supported device.

This isn’t the first such service to come along. Another popular mobile video search engine called TinyTube has been around for some time and gained a following among YouTube junkies. But VTap works pretty well, so let’s give these guys a try, shall we?

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iLounge reports that the video out functionality of the new iPods has been restricted — 4G or 5G iPod video out accessories don’t function with the new iPods. If you want video out with them, you need cables that have a special chip inside, like the $49 Apple cables. I wonder if this is the basis of this dock connector exclusivity lockout rumor I heard about a while back.

figure 1:component video cable support

It looks like the Composite AV cable and Component AV cable both officially support the iPhone. This is definitely an exciting new development.

figure 2: composite video cable support