SlingPlayer Mobile for iPhone

Users of Sling Media’s place-shifting Slingbox family of products, which let you view your home TV signal from remote locations, have been watching TV on Macs, PCs, and mobile phones for several years. Now, with the release of SlingPlayer Mobile on the App Store, it’s the iPhone’s and iPod touch’s turn.

The App’s $30 price tag may seem shocking compared to the rest of the app store, but it’s the same price that Sling charges for SlingPlayer Mobile on all other cell phones. Unlike SlingPlayer Mobile on those platforms, though, SlingPlayer Mobile for iPhone doesn’t support video over a cellular connection, but only via Wi-Fi. That’s a concession forced on Sling by Apple and — more to the point — AT&T, which fears that a legion of iPhone-using Slingbox viewers could destroy its data network.

Setting aside network issues for a moment, let’s talk about the app itself. In order to use the device, you must set up an account on Sling’s web site and register your Slingboxes there — SlingPlayer logs in to that account in order to display a list of available Slingboxes. Once you log in, you pick a Slingbox and you’re set — by default the app will automatically connect to that Slingbox every time it opens.

Once you’re logged in and viewing video, a single tap brings up a menu bar with options to view favorite channels, emulate your remote device’s remote control, bring up DVR or program guide controls, set options, and disconnect from the Slingbox. The Guide and DVR buttons are shortcuts to quickly pick a program to tune to or play back, though sometimes I found that they got in the way and I generally just preferred to use all the buttons on the emulated remote control.

Once you set up a list of favorite channels, you can switch among them simply by swiping your finger from left to right, or right to left. If you simply want to move to the next channel in your lineup, rather than among favorites, you swipe from the top to the bottom (channel down) or bottom to top (channel up). These are intended to be tools that help save you time, but I accidentally swiped (causing a lengthy delay in viewing while I wait for the channel to change and then change it back) far more often than I did it purposefully. It would be good if you could opt to turn the gestures off or, even better, map them to commands you use more often.

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