SlingPlayer Mobile iPhone App Launches Tonight

Nearly a year ago, Sling Media announced that they planned to bring Slingbox connectivity to the iPhone and iPod Touch. That makes sense, considering that the app is already available for Windows Mobile, Palm OS, Symbian, and BlackBerry platforms. After being held up in the approval process for unconfirmed issues, we can now say that the wait is finally over!

According to our source at Sling Media:

"Apple will post our app (Wi-Fi only) on the iPhone Store between 9:01pm (PDT) Tuesday, May 12th and 3:01 AM (PDT) Wednesday May 13th."

Our source has not addressed why the the iPhone version of this app will be the only mobile version that doesn't allow the user to utilize 3G connectivity. As an iPhone enthusiast, I'm truly getting sick of this streaming limitation. No other mobile device is limited to WiFi only for the streaming of video content. What's worse is that you can stream YouTube videos through the built-in app over 3G without any issue, but non-Apple apps are being denied the ability to offer this feature.

The price for the application will be $29.99, the same price that the other mobile versions currently cost. This seems to be slightly unfair considering the WiFi only limitation imposed on this version. In regard to what versions of Slingbox the app will work with, our source stated that:

"Legacy Slingboxes, which include the Classic, AV, and TUNER, will work with this iPhone app, but will not be officially supported. This means that Sling Media will not provide any service for technical problems with these products, including problems caused by updates to SlingPlayer Mobile software or Slingbox or iPhone firmware."

For those interested in the app, we'll have a full review for you once the app goes live!