Slingplayer for iPhone hampered

Slingplayer – Sling Media’s iPhone client app – has been a long time coming, but the TV viewer app has finally passed the App Store approvals process. Sadly, the app will be crippled when it hits the App Store tomorrow.

Slingplayer’s long march to App-hood is nearly complete. The app – which lets you watch TV and video streamed from your home using a gadget called a Slingbox – has been waiting for App Store approval for several months and has been dogged by rumours that several US mobile carriers were trying to get Apple to block it due to the effect it would have on their bandwidth.
Slingplayer has now been approved by Apple’s App Store police, and should be available for $29.99 from today.

Sadly, the app has been crippled. As we reported in April, Slingplayer will only work with newer Slingbox set-tops. In addition, the promised support for streaming over 3G has been dropped. Users will now only be able to watch Slung video if they can find a wifi connection.

The restriction is an odd one – Slingplayer Mobile is available (with 3G streaming intact) for several other mobile platforms. Are carriers just paranoid that the iPhone is a platform that people would actually use to watch video?

(Via Electricpig)

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