Looks like all that pent-up demand for
SlingPlayer for iPhone has caused the suits at Sling to go mad with greed -- the company just posted up a page saying that owners of every older SlingBox save the Slingbox PRO will have to upgrade to a Slingbox SOLO or Slingbox PRO-HD in order to stream to iPhones. Yes, this is totally ridiculous: we've been told that the limitation is purely money-driven and that previous builds of the iPhone client worked just fine with older Sling hardware -- hell, if a Palm Centro can stream off the original Slingbox, there's no reason at all the vastly more powerful iPhone can't hack it. Sling's offering a $50 credit to owners of older hardware, but honestly, we can't say some token coupon is going to take away from the bitter taste of a forced upgrade here -- unless Sling comes up with legitimate technical reason for crippling such highly-anticipated software like this, we'd say it's about to piss off a lot of formerly-happy Sling customers.
[Via
SlingCommunity; thanks David]
posted Apr 2nd 2009 12:01AM
What a silly thing for Slingbox to do. this is much more of an issue because many of the customers are very loyal to Slingbox. I would say they are treading on terrible territory here. because many people will get upset.
Maybe if they would actually release products in the same decade they announce them, Sling wouldn't have to take such dramatic steps to completely piss off their installed base in order to make a couple bucks.
Out of business in two years. Shame.
Slingbox on the iphone just seems to good to be true. Something tells me it will be very slow loading and get stuck buffering all the time unless you are using a quality wi-fi connection instead of 3G. There will probably also be audio sync issues, battery drain issues, and issues when you get calls and texts while using the sling app. Also issues related to aspect ratio making the video significantly smaller than full screen... and the screen is very small to begin with. Using the touch interface to navigate channels will probably also be anything but quick and user friendly. The app will probably take a long time to load and perhaps even cause the phone to lock up and crash.
So we'll see if this app even works. Forcing people to upgrade to a new slingbox is ridiculous.... the most loyal and enthusiastic sling users are probably the ones that have the older boxes and still use them.
The slingplayer for PalmOS (RIP) worked perfectly well using a bluetooth connection at about 400kbps, using a BT network access point. If the iPhone can't play the same datastream using a good 3G connection then it must be a really crap implementation. I'm not disagreeing with you since all of the other characteristics you describe would follow.
DAMB! DAMB!! DAMB !!! Say it aint so !!! I own 2 of the original slingboxes. Sling how could you do this to your dedicated fans !?!
You gotta remember: the sling boys aren't running the show anymore, Echostar is. That was the hardware business that was spun off from Dish. With that heritage, does it surprise *anyone* they would knift their customers in the back?
And it is a shame. Dinosaur syndrome... the larger they get, the smaller their brain gets. Oh well.
knift = knife
The reason why Sling is doing this is because there is an upgrade to the box side firmware necessary when a new client is released on a new platform. So it becomes difficult for them to keep supporting and updating the firmware on the older sling boxes since they have been EOL'ed.
And we all know that maintaining backward compatibility often limits the performance of apps. So maybe its not a bad move by Sling. Atleast we can hope for some killer performance on the iPhone streaming from a Pro-HD
I call BS. If this is the case then it's a self-inflicted problem. If a Palm Centro can handle it then why can't an iPhone? This is worse than Apple claiming they cannot support MMS on first-gen iPhones in the OS 3.0 upgrade.
What are the chances someone can reverse-engineer this and remove the artificial limitation for older SlingBoxes?
EchoStar, you made a big screw-up here. You're ticking off your most dedicated fans, the ones who have given countless demos to their friends, coworkers, and family, which has surely sold more than a few of these for you. Don't count on seeing one more nickel from me, and that includes Dish Network service as well.
Well, I would have been happy to buy the app for my iPhone. I will not be able to buy the app and a new slingbox at this time. This sux, big time. Is it still April Fools??
Nope. Orb it is!
Screw off, slingbox. You're getting sold.
If indeed it is true, this is a silly move by Sling/Echostar. I would have gladly coughed up $30 or so for the iPhone client. I will not cough up $130 (after upgrade rebate) for a new SlingBox. I've survived this long without it, and I certainly won't endorse their move by upgrading my hardware, which works just fine from my laptop. As an expat American I have always evangelized about the Slingbox to my fellow expats...no more.
Just for the fun of it I went to their website and put my serial number in to see how the discount works. After accepting the serial number it tells me I can purchase the Solo for $129.99 ($10 less than Amazon) or the Pro-HD for $249.99 ($10 more than Amazon). Both are offering free shipping. At least if they gave you a code to use at Amazon or Buy.com I could maybe see it, but this is plain silly.
I would have happily paid $30 for the iPhone App. I would have grumbled a bit and paid $40. To have to pay $159 for the iPhone App (assume $30 plus a $129 solo)....well...I can purchase plenty of iTunes TV content with that amount.
Fail. Fail. Fail. Fail.
Wow! I have an older Sling, and I was thinking about picking up an Sling HD eventually, but after this dick move I think I'm going to stay away from Sling prodcuts. They just lost a customer.
Phew, thanks for saving me from buying this app when it comes out, I don't think I will be buying this or upgrading my Slingbox, looks like it is time to fine tune Orb on my HTPC!
Sounds straight forward to me. They need to use H.264 for the iphone and the older Slingboxes don't support it.
Nope, Sling can use their own codec on the iPhone -- our tipster was really clear that this all worked until two weeks ago when it was shut off, and that hacking the app's plist file re-enables it. We'll see how easy that is when the app is finally released.
This is most likely a codec issue. I know the previous versions used WMV encoding which is not natively supported on the iPhone. I always wondered how they would get around this issue when making an iPhone version of the software. With the newer releases of Slingbox Solo and Pro HD version it now uses h.264 which the iPhone supports.
This is great news! I have a PRO-HD and I plan on getting a new iPhone this summer (hopefully the new model).
I'm sorry for those who don't have the newer Slingboxes, but as we all know we have to keep forking out money to keep up with technology. Maybe I should have demaned apple make my 2nd gen B&W iPod do color video. That would have saved me some money too! :-)
Sweet, time to buy some cheap original slingboxes that work perfectly on my windows mobile phone.
as a current owner of slingbox pro, this is totally a bad move from Echostar. Like others that said, which I totally forgot, if it can work on an ancient OS like Palm, why won't it work on iPhone? don't be so greedy, give the loyal followers what they want. without them, you would have never gotten the opportunity to acquire sling from the first place?
echostar, home of the many douchebags, if you ask me.....