For television viewers, the holy grail is the ability to watch live programming from the comfort of their mobile devices. ABC appears to be the first to actually make it happen, but as usual, there’s a catch.
The New York Times reported Sunday that ABC plans to release an update to its free, universal iOS app this week which adds a new “Live” button for streaming locally broadcast content to an iPhone, iPod touch or iPad for the first time ever.
Unfortunately, the technology will only appear for viewers in New York and Philadelphia, spreading its wings into six other ABC-owned markets sometime this sunny summer, and is in talks with more than 200 affiliates coast-to-coast as well.
The first of those affiliate deals with Hearst Television has already been locked, which will bring live streamed ABC to 13 additional markets including Boston and Pittsburgh. The network originally planned to launch live service next year, but has tapped into feedback from users to accelerate those plans.
“We keep a very close eye on consumer demand,” explained Disney-ABC Television Group President Anne Sweeney. “We watch how people are behaving with their devices, and we really felt that we needed to move faster.”
This week’s release is also no coincidence: Tuesday, May 14 is when the network will hold its annual upfront and announcing its full fall television schedule. But ABC and others are also feeling pressure from third-party services like Aereo, which offers over-the-air broadcasts to mobile devices for only per month.
The rebranded Watch ABC app will feature mobile-centric advertising in place of the ads cable and satellite subscribers will see, but will otherwise include local newscasts, syndicated programming as well as national series. It will arrive soon for iOS, and is planned for other mobile platforms in the months ahead.
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Americans are still reeling from the explosions that rattled the Boston Marathon on Monday afternoon, which all but consumed social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook almost immediately after they took place. As a result, you might have paid far less attention to tech-related announcements (and who could blame you?), but thankfully we’ve assembled a handful to get you up to speed.
The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that Foxconn Technology Group is once again enlisting new factory workers for its Chinese assembly lines following a hiring freeze after the holiday season. The move is viewed as a good indication that Apple will be ramping up production of the next iPhone soon, with the Taiwanese company reportedly adding 10,000 workers per week in its Zhengzhou location alone over the last several weeks. We have been very busy recently as we will start mass-producing the new iPhone soon,” a Foxconn executive remarked. The Zhengzhou factory alone employed roughly 300,000 people last year alone.
Google released version 1.3 of its official YouTube app for iOS on Monday, finally adding the ability to watch live streams on the iPhone, iPod touch or iPad. The update also brings faster access to the latest uploads in the “My Subscriptions” feed, the ability to queue up videos for TV playback, “One Channel” branding for the company’s original content channels and the usual battery of stability and performance improvements. YouTube 1.3 is a universal app now available on the App Store.
The Verge reported Monday that Microsoft also intends to throw its hat into the “touch-enabled smart watch” market, with sources telling The Wall Street Journal that Redmond has already enlisted Asian suppliers for component shipments. With Apple, Samsung, Google and actual watch markers already rumored to also throw their hat into the ring, it’s getting easier to name which companies won’t be making a smart watch. However, the report notes that Microsoft has been down this road before with SPOT, a 2004 effort that crashed and burned four years later.
The saga of Apple removing AppGratis from the App Store appears to be far from over, with the company launching a page on its website enlisting its more than 12 million users around the globe to rally behind the company’s efforts to get the app discovery service restored. “Today we believe it’s you, Apple’s customers, who should have the final word,” the page reads. “Today, you can speak up. Tell Apple that you think different.” The website encourages AppGratis fans to participate with emails or tweets, with nearly 800,000 thus far voicing their support at this writing.
Clock, weather and RSS feed reader apps have been done to death on the App Store, but how many developers actually bring all three into one title? That’s exactly what Clock Weather News does, featuring a retro flip clock design with localized weather images and yes, the ability to scroll headlines using a Google Reader-powered RSS feed — but fear not, the developer already has an update ready to replace this functionality when Google pulls the plug in July. The best news is that the app is free, although users have the option to remove iAds from the bottom of the screen with a one-time in-app purchase of 99 cents, which also adds an alarm clock capable of waking users up to their favorite songs.
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New rate plans must not be all that T-Mobile USA plans to announce at an event on Tuesday, since they’re already showing their hand by introducing them on the web over the weekend.
As first noted by a Twitter post from TmoNews, T-Mobile USA’s new “Simple Choice” rate plans have now shown up on the company’s website, offering unlimited talk, text plus 500MB of high-speed 4G data starting at per month.
Better yet, all of the company’s new metered data plans include Smartphone Mobile HotSpot for device tethering — the only time you’ll need to pay extra for that is should you choose one of the carrier’s new unlimited plans, which start at per month. But even then, T-Mobile includes 500MB of hotspot-specific data, which is perfect for occasional users.
The savings really add up when applied to family plans — for example, a AT&T Mobile Share plan with four lines and 4GB of data runs around 0 per month, while the same T-Mobile plan with unlimited data would cost a whopping less.
Of course, the rub is that the iPhone isn’t officially supported yet — you’ll need an unlocked handset to take advantage of it, and there’s no 4G LTE as yet. But with T-Mobile holding a media event on Tuesday, we imagine there could be more good news in store for users soon enough…
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You’d think app developers would eventually hit a wall where they simply ran out of new features to add, but that doesn’t seem to be the case with Camera+, which just pushed out another great update for both iPhone and iPad.
tap tap tap has released Camera+ 3.6 for iPhone and Camera+ 1.1 for iPad, bringing a number of slick new features to the already popular third-party camera app.
Claiming to have made the impossible possible, Camera+ has introduced a flash for your front-facing camera with the latest version. No, they’re not sneaking new hardware into your iOS device, but the app will now light up your screen while taking a shot with the front camera to help illuminate the scene.
If your friends complain that your photos are always crooked, the new horizon level feature will soon have them singing your praises instead with a nonintrusive software solution.
Live Exposure is another big addition to Camera+, allowing budding pros to see the details of their exposure parameters before actually taking the shot. That includes ISO, shutter speed and f/stop, and thanks to this new feature, framing with the iPhone 5 is also more accurate than ever.
Camera+ also includes a host of smaller but equally welcome improvements and bug fixes, and the free updates are now available for iPhone and iPad versions in the App Store.
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So what would you do if you were Microsoft and you owned both Windows Live Messenger as well as the far more popular Skype? If you answered “get rid of one of them,” you may be correct.
The Verge is reporting on a so-called “exclusive” detailing the fate of Windows Live Messenger, Microsoft’s instant messaging service formerly known as MSN Messenger, which may find the IM service in danger of extinction soon.
With the introduction of both Facebook and Microsoft account logins with the latest Skype 6.0 client, it may come as little surprise that Redmond is considering a retirement of Windows Live Messenger in favor of its more powerful (and likely more used) Skype VoIP service, which also includes the same type of chat feature.
Apparently, 80 percent of all IMs sent via Skype are being handled by Messenger as more and more users flock to Skype for its more robust feature set and the ability to video chat for free to any other user worldwide.
The report claims Microsoft “will announce the retirement of Windows Live Messenger soon, possibly as early as this week,” according to Verge sources. Microsoft has yet to comment on the report, but if true, such a move is unlikely to surprise too many people.
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