One of the world’s most ubiquitous smartphones is now allowing its users to broadcast live video for free.
With Apple’s approval of Ustream Live Broadcaster for iPhone this week, users of the popular device can broadcast live video, or for that matter, report live from a scene. Apple approved the free app this week after Apple CEO Steve Jobs approved another live streaming video app called “Knocking Live” last week. That app allows one-to-one live video streaming, while Ustream allows one to many.
“Ustream Broadcaster enables live streaming on 3D or Wifi and users can notify their Twitter communities when they start broadcasting and interact with their viewers using chat of Twitter through Ustream’s Social Stream,” the company said on its Web site. Ustream Broadcaster mainly targets the latest iPhone version 3GS, although it can also work on the iPhone 3G. Ustream also allows users to record video directly to their iPhones. Streaming video is directed to Ustream's servers and then rebroadcast to desktop or mobile clients, according to ars technica.
“I got emails from, I’d say, hundreds saying the world has changed today,” Ustream co-founder John Ham told the Los Angeles Times. “This is the first time on the iPhone globally that Apple has approved an application to let you broadcast to potentially millions.”
UStream Broadcaster is also available for Motorola’s Droid smartphone as well as Nokia smartphones. Another smartphone video broadcast company, Qik, announced this week that it has submitted its app to Apple for iPhone approval.
Also this week, Ralph de la Vega, the head of AT&T’s consumer divisionm told investors that the company may penalize those customers—estimated at only about 3 percent—who use its data network excessively.
