As you may have read, Sling Media has submitted v1.1 of their iPhone Slingbox client ($30) to Apple for approval. And while streaming over AT&T’s network will still be prohibited at Apple’s insistence, Sling’s submitted a second version of 1.1 with hopes that cell carriers outside the US might be more accommodating. (Doubtful.) Having said that, SlingPlayer 1.1 corrects the other major flaw of their initial release by truly supporting 16:9, widescreen content. Additionally, there’s now a stretch mode to fill the screen should any of your source content end up with those unsightly black bars (as seen above).
Also new with v1.1 is true DISH STB integration, some of which I first saw demo-ed way back at CES. Instead of fumbling through a smaller version of a program guide or recorded content listings, the SlingPlayer “talks directly to the DISH Receiver” and will “draw a guide natively on the iPhone instead of just piping in a picture.”
Otherwise, the updated SlingPlayer is largely the same – there’s some performance and UI improvements, but not a whole lot of new functionality… or any changes in their underlying streaming technology. I fully expect Sling to ultimately migrate away from WMV to H.264 on the iPhone. Perhaps one of the motivating factors in their original, though now retracted, proclamation that this software would only work with newer Slingbox models.
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