In time for holidays, Ustream brings live broadcasting to the iPhone
Last week we warned you wouldn’t be able to use your iPhone to broadcast live those holiday moments and drunken office-parties.
But Ustream’s brought us an early Christmas present.
A long-rumored live broadcasting iPhone app has finally received App Store approval (iTunes link) and is now available for free download. The app represents a big upgrade from Ustream’s previous Recorder app, which only allowed for uploading of pre-recorded clips to the Ustream site. It also closes a major gap between the iPhone and Android devices, which have long been able to run a similar Ustream broadcasting app.
The sanctioned iPhone app reproduces all of the functionality of an already famous private-beta version. Users can initiate a live feed via a 3G connection, with a lag-time of only a few seconds between the phone and a live broadcast on the web. The broadcaster can see ongoing viewer chat from registered users watching the broadcast and can initiate live polls.
The app can also send Tweets to notify followers of a live broadcast. And you have the option of archiving the video for viewing or editing later on.
Live iPhone video has been a hot topic over the past two weeks, with Knocking providing an App-Store approved one-to-one video calling app. Fring also jumped in the mix by adding the ability to receive live video calls from Skype, albeit only via WiFi.
But with far superior video quality and reliability, Ustream’s one-to-many broadcaster easily raises the bar for iPhone video to its highest level yet. Expect competitor Qik to get its impressive jail-broken app into the App Store soon.
