Boxee iPad app due soon
Last updated Jul 13, 2011 — 2033 views
The much anticipated Boxee iPad app is “almost ready” and may show up in the Apple App Store by the end of this month, say Boxee sources.
“Boxee for iPad” can be used on its own, or in conjunction with Boxee on a PC, Mac, or Boxee device.
The app will let you to access videos from your Boxee “Watch Later” queue, as well as from a Feed of items shared from Facebook and Twitter, according to a post by Boxee on the company’s blog.
Conversely, you also can add items to your Boxee Watch Later queue from within the Boxee for iPad app.
The app also lets you stream videos to your iPad from your PC or Mac, without requiring syncing. You can watch the videos directly on the iPad; or, by clicking a button in the app, you can cause them to be played on your Boxee Box or other Boxee device (presumably including a PC or Mac running Boxee).
In the latter case, the app simply sends the video’s url to the Boxee device, which then streams it directly from the source. This approach contrasts with how Apple’s AirPlay works, in that the iPad does not serve as a bottleneck in the streaming process. Hence, you can perform other operations on the iPad — such as checking email, looking up video info on imdb.com, etc. — without degrading the streaming quality of the video playing on the Boxee Box device.
Below are some screenshots from a demo of Boxee for iPad by Boxee CEO Avner Ronen at CES 2011. The buttons at the top of the app’s display are labeled Feed, Featured, Watch Later, and Files.
(click thumbnails to enlarge)
Boxee for iPad preview screenshots
The iPad app also will let you play any files from your PC or Mac that would normally be playable on Boxee, according to Boxee’s Andrew Kippen. To accomplish that, Boxee will provide a pair of programs for PC and Macs; these will implement fileserver functions, along with on-the-fly transcoding of the A/V files into formats playable on the iPad.
When will Boxee for iPad show up in the Apple App Store?
“Hopefully sometime next month — we’re at the behest of Apple when it comes to release dates,” Kippen told DeviceGuru on June 27.
Oh, and best of all: like Boxee itself, Boxee for iPad app will be free.
Update (Aug. 9, 2011): Boxee for iPad has now been released. Read our coverage here…