Sunday, January 10, 2010

Flash 10.1 will (finally) Bring Slingbox to Android & Palm Web OS


Slingplayer Mobile on my PalmOS Treo 700P was a huge feature that I wanted in my next smartphone.

I would use the player to watch shows in bed as I was drifting off to sleep, or watch breaking news events. I was driving home the day the bridge fell in Minneapolis and was able to see live video while stuck in LA traffic on my commute.

iPhone, Palm OS, Blackberry and Windows Mobile have supported SlingPlayer Mobile for some time. Each of these solutions is flawed in a serious way:

iPhone- WiFi only. Like so many other apps in the ATT / Apple walled garden, this is LAME.

Palm OS- This is a dying platform

Blackberry- I have no interest in this antiquated OS.

Windows Mobile- See Palm OS

Sling announced this week at CES it will support Adobe Flash 10.1. Devices with Flash 10 support will be able to view Sling Player content on their desktop or mobile devices. Word is this will only work with Slingbox® Pro-HD and Slingbox SOLO. I believe Sling tried restricting which devices would work with the iPhone when the app was released and eventually supported all Sling Devices.

I have sold my SlingPlayer Pro on eBay anticipating Sling wold never get around to supporting Android. I may be shopping for a new Sling in the near future when Android 2.1 comes to the Samsung Moment in the first half of 2010.

UPDATE:  3/20/10 Engadget has a demo here

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Just a note that Slingplayer does work over Wifi and 3G on the iPhone. This changed a while back along with Skype and other apps.