Saturday, August 08, 2009

Apple to Stream First Live Concert to the iPhone Tonight by Liz Gannes

Tonight Apple will produce its first-ever live event streamed to the iPhone: a concert by the electronica band Underworld. Apple has apparently kept the event quiet as it doesn’t want to overwhelm the AT&T network, but if you have an iPhone you can queue it up yourself at iphone.akamai.com or underworldlive.com. The show starts at 9 p.m. PT and the stream is free.

Apple in June released its own HTTP streaming protocol which uses adaptive bitrates to deliver a continuous smooth stream in varying network conditions. The intent of the technology is to optimize for difficult environments — like when a lot of people want to watch something at the same time, as in a live event, or when a watcher’s bandwidth cuts out, which often happens on a mobile phone. So tonight’s show should be a good test.

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