Ustream, Qik Apps Finally Let iPhone Users Stream Live

One of the last barriers on the iPhone fell last month, and owners of even the 2G and 3G models can now shoot video and stream it live. 没有任何通知，而且耽误了很长时间, Apple allowed the app Ustream Live Broadcaster in the app store on December 9. This free app lets users stream live video over 3G or Wi-Fi connections. Users can run polls and hold chats underneath their videos. 几周后, 12月24日, 苹果允许Qik Live, a free app for streaming live video that also works over 3G and Wi-Fi connections.

Famously tight-lipped, Apple didn't offer any clues as to why the sudden switch. The company's public relations team likewise didn't respond to a request for this story. We did speak to a few insiders, however, who knew the story.

It was a "long process," says Brad Hunstable, president and founder of Ustream. 多长时间? 关于 a six months of back and forth discussions between Ustream and Apple, 有很多面对面的会议. "We would have certainly liked it to happen sooner,他说.

When Ustream's team saw the technological jump in the iPhone 3GS, they made more of an effort to work with Apple to deliver live video uploading. Many of Apple's concerns had to do with providing a satisfying user experience, says Hunstable. As a result, the app offers different quality settings for each model iPhone. Because his company was able to devote so many resources to the product and meet Apple on a professional level, Ustream的应用程序首先获得了批准, 他说.

While iPhone users were frustrated that they had to wait so long for live streaming, Hunstable说, “我们明白其中的逻辑." If this feature had been available from the start on the 2G iPhone, "it wouldn't have been the best experience by any measure,他说.

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iPhone users seem glad it's arrived: "We've seen a tremendous amount of adoption since we launched it,亨斯泰勃补充道. “我们正朝着100万下载量的目标前进."

“苹果几乎就像一个黑盒子,巴斯卡尔·罗伊说, co-founder and vice president of product marketing at Qik. His company was also in talks with Apple about opening the iPhone to live streaming, 但这是一次单方面的谈话. “主要是我们在问问题，”他说. "We did not get a whole lot of answers for the past one to one-and-a-half years."

The Qik team has a special reason to be frustrated by Apple's silence: They knew that their app would run even on older iPhones. They'd been selling an app on Cydia for jailbroken iPhones since July, 2008.

Qik能够搭上Ustream的顺风车, submitting its app for approval soon after Ustream got in. The company had to make some changes, however, and use an API that Apple had started allowing. Called _UIGetScreenImage, the API controls how video is captured. The Qik team wasn't given any bandwidth restrictions to follow.

Video quality isn't as strong on the approved app as the jailbroken app, 罗伊承认, with the jailbroken app capturing 15 frames per second (fps) and the approved app only 7fps. The problem is the required API, 他说, which is almost a screen capture API. There are only so many optimizations you can do, 他说.

The Qik team is already at work on the next version of the app. 这将提高整体素质, but Roy won't confirm whether or not it will offer more frames per second. Roy won't be satisfied until Qik is able to deliver 30fps on the iPhone. "We would like them to open up their APIs so that complete video sharing can actually be done without screen capture,他说.

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Ustream也在开发它的下一个版本, 高分辨率的, 640 x 480 client that it began demoing last week. “对于美国政府来说，这些数据太多了.S. 3G network," says Hunstable, noting that the company is seeing good test results in Japan. "It's pretty amazing to be broadcasting from your iPhone and be walking around, and have a level of quality that exceeds even the built-in MacBook's. 这是非常了不起的."