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Periscope for iPhone refreshed with landscape video and more ahead of Apple TV app

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 10, 2015

Twitter-owned Periscope is secretly building an app for the new Apple TV and now the company has issued a telling update to its iPhone application in the App Store. The biggest newsworthy addition in Periscope 1.2 is landscape mode for shooting video.

Ever since its debut, Periscope has only supported portrait video. Video streams in portrait orientation look good on smartphones, but no so much on widescreen television sets so today's update could be viewed as a prelude to Periscope's rumored Apple TV app.

A replay stream of today’s event is now available on Apple’s website

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 16, 2018

If you didn't follow a live-stream of Apple's keynote presentation this morning, you can now enjoy the event anyway as Apple has just posted the full replay stream of the event on its website. The press conference was packed with several announcements, including the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, the iPad Pro, the Apple Pencil, the new Apple TV and more.

CBS to stream Super Bowl 50 and other NFL games to Apple TV

Cody Lee ∙ September 2, 2015

CBS Sports announced on Tuesday that it will be streaming an expanded schedule of NFL coverage this year to a wide range of devices, including Apple TV. The new schedule features two regular season games, four playoff games and Super Bowl 50.

This will be the first time ever CBS offers free live streams of regular season NFL games. Coverage begins with the New York Jets and Miami in London on October 4, and continues with the Carolina Panthers vs. the Dallas Cowboys on Thanksgiving Day.

For $12 a month, you can now enjoy Hulu completely ad free

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated December 1, 2017

Unlike Amazon and Netflix who stream commercial-free movies and television shows in exchange for a monthly fee, Hulu's existing $7.99 per month plan includes limited advertising. Wednesday, Hulu unveiled a new monthly plan that gets rid of all advertising for an extra $4 a month.

As noted in Hulu's media release, commercial-free viewing is available to both new and existing customers for a monthly fee of $11.99.

Amazon Video app updated to allow offline playback for Prime movies and TV shows

Jeff Benjamin ∙ September 1, 2015

Amazon Video received a fairly significant update today, which brings a compelling new feature to its video streaming app—offline viewing for Prime movies and TV shows. In version version 3.2 of the app, users can now download videos for offline viewing, which means that you can queue up TV shows and movies for watching when you're low on signal, using airplane mode, or for the purpose of saving on mobile data usage.

The addition of offline viewing may not seem like a huge deal to some, but it could signal a change for mainstream video streaming apps in general, which for the most part, have only been capable off online viewing.

Meerkat now supports YES/NO polls, showing photos to watchers and more

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 1, 2018

Meerkat, the popular live video streaming software that competes with Twitter-owned Periscope, today issued a nice little update to its iOS application in the App Store.

With version number bumped to 1.5.4, this edition of Meerkat includes a few enhancements like a revamped feed and the ability to show your watchers photos from your Camera roll.

Perhaps most crucially, Meerkat now includes a polling feature which allows anyone to ask their watchers simple YES/NO questions about anything, as they're broadcasting.

Apple to live-stream September 9 media event

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 28, 2019

Those not in attendance will be happy to learn that Apple just confirmed it will provide a live-stream of its upcoming September 9 media event.

Like the company's major events held in the past two years, the September 9 event should be presented at the www.apple.com/live micro-site in the blog format, with cherry-picked tweets, juicy photos and quotes updating in real-time right below the video stream.

The iPhone maker sent out invites for the press conference earlier today. Invite graphics sports the colorful Apple logo and a tagline reading “Hey Siri, give us a hint”.

Bloomberg: Apple to delay TV service until 2016

Cody Lee ∙ August 13, 2015

Apple has scrapped plans to announce its long-rumored streaming TV service at its upcoming September 9 event, reports Bloomberg. Citing sources familiar with the matter, the outlet says that content deal talks with 21st Century Fox and others have been progressing slowly.

Additionally, Apple also doesn't have the computer network capacity in place to ensure a good viewing experience—a common complaint among users of Dish's Sling TV and other streaming services. Thus, the company has decided to push back the launch of its service to 2016.

Periscope for iPhone refreshed with muting, Handoff support and more

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 28, 2016

In addition to refreshing its main application for the iPhone and iPad with drafts support and interactive notifications on iOS 8, the micro-blogging startup Twitter today issued a noteworthy refresh to its live-broadcasting app, Periscope.

Available at no cost in the App Store, the new Periscope 1.1.3 implements support for Handoff, a new technology in iOS 8 which lets you seamlessly move tasks across devices.

In addition, the app has gained other perks like a new notification setting for people you follow, viewer statistics when browsing past broadcasts and more. Plus, it now tailors your global list of recommended broadcasts to your geographical location.

Redesigned NFL Game Pass service coming to Apple TV with on-demand broadcasting

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated May 17, 2016

For the first time ever, the National Football League (NFL) will offer its Game Pass service to U.S. users on the Apple TV with on-demand broadcasting of games, according to an update on the Game Pass micro-site Monday.

Regular season, playoff and Super Bowl game broadcasts won't be available as live streams but rather after they air on television. In addition, the organization will retire its existing Game Rewind service on July 31. Available to iOS, Android and Windows users in the United States, Game Rewind provides access to on-demand games after they air on television.

Apple Music won’t auto-add streamed tracks to your Recently Played playlist

Christian Zibreg ∙ July 13, 2015

It's no secret Apple Music has some way to go before achieving feature parity between iOS and OS X.

Some crucial aspects of Apple Music on iOS have yet to make their way into iTunes for Mac and Windows PCs, and now Apple's $9.99 per month service was discovered to have been avoiding adding streamed songs to a Recently Played playlist.

As Kirk McElhearn noted, it's a huge, unexpected oversight on Apple's part because you should in fact be permitted to access a full history of what you have listened to, regardless of whether it's locally stored music or Apple Music files streamed to your computer or mobile device.

Standalone ‘Showtime’ streaming service debuts on Apple TV for $10.99 per month

Christian Zibreg ∙ July 7, 2015

After CBS announced a month ago that it would soon appease cord-cutters by rolling out a standalone video-streaming service over the Internet, Re/code revealed Tuesday that the network's premium cable television service called Showtime is now available through the Apple TV, no cable subscription required.

The standalone video-streaming service is available on Apple's $69 media-streaming box in exchange for a flat monthly fee of $10.99 with iTunes billing. A free 30-day free trial is available provided you have set up a valid payment method in iTunes.

A matching iOS app is coming at a later stage.