Qik, the service that allows you to stream live video from your mobile phone to the internet, has finally had its app accepted into the iTunes App Store. Great! This should mean iPhone owners can steam their lives to their hearts’ content – except they can’t. Yes, Qik for iPhone has to win the award for “Most disappointing iPhone app ever”.
Why the disappointment? It can’t stream live video. For an app meant to do just that, it’s a major flaw. All you can do is shoot video and then upload it later, something that’s already possible using the iPhone 3GS’ default video recorder. Add to that the facts that you can only upload via wi-fi (making it actually worse than the 3GS video recorder) and that it’s 3GS only (original iPhone and iPhone 3G owners need not apply) and you have one lame app.
The Qik Blog assures us that you’ll soon be able to upload over 3G networks, but that still leaves the app missing live video – the whole point of Qik. There’s only one person we can think to blame here – Apple and its draconian restrictions on iPhone apps. After all, Qik has had a perfectly good iPhone app available for Jailbroken handsets for a year now.
For now the best version of Qik remains the Android version we covered last week. That has live streaming plus record-and-edit functions if you need them. Until the top dogs at Apple (and its mobile network partners, terrified of high-bandwidth apps) relax a little, such a full-featured app being in the App Store will remain a dream.
Get the TNW newsletter
Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.