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Report card: Apple’s video stream (updated)

By | September 2, 2010, 5:00am PDT

For the first time in a long time Apple yesterday streamed live video from its iPod announcement in San Francisco. Apple announced a new raft of iPods, a second-generation Apple TV and demo’d iOS 4.1 and 4.2 but an interesting rumor surfaced about the video stream itself.

The rumor was that Apple decided to stream the event to test its new new data center in Maiden, North Carolina. The $1 billion data center is one of the largest ever built.

Update: Dan Rayburn confirms that Akamai provided the video stream of yesterday’s event — not Apple. (Tip: @WildCowboy)

The video stream worked fine for me in Safari on my i7 MacBook Pro with decent performance and minimal artifacting and lag, but when I switched to my iPhone 4 (running on AT&T 3G, outside Philadelphia) things went immediately down hill. While I was able to watch video for about 1-2 minutes, the connection was choppy and the video would slip out of sync. Then the video dropped completely and I received this message (below)

“Due to your current limited bandwidth connection this stream is audio only.”

But even the audio-only stream frequently dropped and I had long gaps of silence punctuated by occassional blips of random audio. It picked up again when Coldplay’s Chris Martin was into his second song close to the end of the event.

  • On the Mac I give Apple’s video stream a B+
  • On the iPhone I give it a D-

What about you? How would you grade Apple’s video stream?

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Topics

Apple Inc., Video, Video Stream, Digital Video, Corporate Communications, Personal Technology, Marketing, Jason D. O'Grady

Jason O'Grady is a journalist and author specializing in mobile technology. He has published six books on Apple and mobile gadgets and his PowerPage blog has been publishing for over 15 years.

Disclosure

Jason D. O'Grady

Jason D. O'Grady is the creator and editor of O'Grady's PowerPage, which has been publishing mobile technology news since 1995. He maintains an advertising relationship with the following legacy advertisers on the PowerPage:

  • Amazon Associates
  • Google Adsense
  • Tekserve

    • Advertising on the PowerPage is brokered by a third-party agency (BackBeat Media) and he recuses himself from these negotiations.

Biography

Jason D. O'Grady

Jason D. O'Grady developed an affinity for Apple computers after using the original Lisa, and this affinity turned into a bona-fide obsession when he got the original 128 KB Macintosh in 1984.

He started writing one of the first Web sites about Apple (O'Grady's PowerPage) in 1995 and is considered to be one of the fathers of blogging. He has been a frequent speaker at the Macworld Expo conference and a member of the conference faculty. He also co-founded the first dedicated PowerBook User Group (PPUG) in the United States.

After winning a major legal battle with Apple in 2006, he set the precedent that independent journalists are entitled to the same protections under the First Amendment as members of the mainstream media.

O'Grady is the author of The Nexus One Pocket Guide, The Droid Pocket Guide, The Google Phone Pocket Guide, and The Garmin nuvi Pocket Guide (Peachpit Press), the author of Corporations That Changed the World: Apple Inc. (Greenwood Press), and a contributor to The Mac Bible (Peachpit Press). In addition, he has contributed to numerous Mac publications over the years, including MacWEEK, Macworld, and MacPower (Japan).

When he's not writing about Apple for ZDNet at The Apple Core, he enjoys spending time with his family in New Jersey.

Talkback Most Recent of 40 Talkback(s)

  • RE: Report card: Apple's video stream
    I viewed the video stream on my 3G iPad. My results were pretty much the same as yours. It was sort of fun watching this event on my iPad.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    kenosha77a
    2nd Sep 2010
  • Sort of fun?
    @kenosha7777
    Hehe...so, I didn't miss anything afterall. BTW, it's "sort of fun" to watch YouTube on my 4 yr old Samsung Blackjack. At least I don't get skips, stops or dropping to "audio only", and it's on the same network as your 3G iPad.
    Mind you, I don't watch many YouTubes...too much junk!
    So, it looks like Apple's first attempt at streaming went about as well as some of the old Real Video streams from back in 1996 or so. Maybe they should have tried Flash?
    ZDNet Gravatar
    wizard57m@...
    2nd Sep 2010
  • RE: Report card: Apple's video stream
    @wizard57m@...
    On my home WiFi system I viewed the stream without skips. When I switched my WiFi off and used my AT&T 3G account, the video broke down after a bit. Bottom line .. WiFi good, AT&T bad.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    kenosha77a
    2nd Sep 2010
  • Re: WiFi good, AT&T bad
    @kenosha7777
    Well, I'd been up a creek either way then! Since AT&T is my current broadband provider as well as 3g/Edge...
    however, I do have to give some credit to AT&T of late, they finally, within the last month, rolled out 3G to my neighborhood ( basically the "boondocks" ), so my cellular service has improved, for my BlackJack anyhow...the rest of the family doesn't do any "web based" stuff on their phones...at least not until I change from the "PDA" plan AT&T mandated for my BlackJack some 4 years ago! Yeah, yeah, I know...it's OLD...but it still works well...still get some 4 days from a single charge of the battery...without having to "reboot" WinMo 5!
    ZDNet Gravatar
    wizard57m@...
    2nd Sep 2010
  • RE: Report card: Apple's video stream
    You be aware of, i fake site looks abundant, i site would extraordinarily ability calculated in lieu of cell phone batteries or else here ability i had the capability hiphone
    http://www.beebond.com/cell-phones/android-phones | http://www.beebond.com/apple/iphone | http://www.beebond.com/mobile-phone-accessories/battery | http://www.beebond.com/es/ | http://www.beebond.com/es/cell-phones/china-hiphone
    ZDNet Gravatar
    xobcooltorn
    26th Dec
  • F-
    I couldn't get it to work on the OS that is in use by 90%+ of the people in the world.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    NonZealot
    2nd Sep 2010
  • You should have used OS X
    @NonZealot

    You have a MBP. It comes with OS X. Why not simply switch over when you want something that is OS X based?
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Ken_z
    2nd Sep 2010
  • RE: Report card: Apple's video stream
    @NonZealot
    The conference wasn't meant for those from the "dark side". Next time, buy an Apple product if you want to watch. I'm sure Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates managed to see it. They needed to find out the next thing to copy from Apple.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    ConstableOdo
    2nd Sep 2010
  • Yeah, like how to add social networking features to media manager?
    @ConstableOdo
    They needed to find out the next thing to copy from Apple.

    Oh, wait, that was Apple who copied MS on that one!

    And since Ping was the only new thing announced, had Steve and Bill wanted to copy anything, they could simply have looked back to what Apple announced 2 years ago.

    Of course, in most cases, what Apple announced 2 years prior was actually released by MS 7 years prior so even that would be a waste of MS's time.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    NonZealot
    2nd Sep 2010
  • RE: Report card: Apple's video stream
    mine didn't work at all
    ZDNet Gravatar
    dasilvagm
    2nd Sep 2010
  • RE: Report card: Apple's video stream
    Hi there,
    in Italy on the Iphone 3G while driving home was working flawlessy: it was awesome!
    ZDNet Gravatar
    abortuzzo
    2nd Sep 2010
  • I was never a mac, but am I an "i"?
    120 million iOS devices! 250,000 apps in the AppStore, 6.5 billion apps downloads ? Amazing numbers!
    New iPod Touch models, iOS 4.2 for iPad, iTunes 10, Ping music services, and much more!

    I was never an Apple fan, but using an iPhone for 2 years, and now an iPad, can it be that I'm suddenly a mac?
    Or maybe an iOS?
    http://www.mobilespoon.net/2010/09/everything-you-need-to-know-about-apple.html
    ZDNet Gravatar
    MobileSpoon
    2nd Sep 2010
  • Ha Ha Non Zealot.
    Of course you couldnt get it! You had to be running Safari on an Apple device. I would say that alone gives it an A+. The stream was for those who actually care about great products and OS. Im sure you will have no problem watching Balmer jump around on stage at the next Developers conference, since there will be at least tens of hundreds of people wanting to watch that.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    smartin007
    2nd Sep 2010
  • RE: Report card: Apple's video stream
    @smartin007
    I want to watch Ballmer do a Monkey Dance again. I don't care if it only streams with Windows. I've got a couple of virtual Windows machines running on my iMac courtesy of WMWare Fusion and Parallels Desktop. Haha.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    ConstableOdo
    2nd Sep 2010
  • Ah, so you are like 95% of Mac users?
    @ConstableOdo
    I've got a couple of virtual Windows machines running on my iMac courtesy of WMWare Fusion and Parallels Desktop. Haha.

    You've installed Windows on your Mac to get real work done!
    ZDNet Gravatar
    NonZealot
    2nd Sep 2010
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