Looks like all that pent-up demand for
SlingPlayer for iPhone has caused the suits at Sling to go mad with greed -- the company just posted up a page saying that owners of every older SlingBox save the Slingbox PRO will have to upgrade to a Slingbox SOLO or Slingbox PRO-HD in order to stream to iPhones. Yes, this is totally ridiculous: we've been told that the limitation is purely money-driven and that previous builds of the iPhone client worked just fine with older Sling hardware -- hell, if a Palm Centro can stream off the original Slingbox, there's no reason at all the vastly more powerful iPhone can't hack it. Sling's offering a $50 credit to owners of older hardware, but honestly, we can't say some token coupon is going to take away from the bitter taste of a forced upgrade here -- unless Sling comes up with legitimate technical reason for crippling such highly-anticipated software like this, we'd say it's about to piss off a lot of formerly-happy Sling customers.
[Via
SlingCommunity; thanks David]
posted Apr 2nd 2009 12:01AM
Snicker. Yay corporate greed!
as always!
"about to piss off a lot of formerly-happy Sling customers"
Okay, Nilay. So they were happy before, but since they aren't getting MORE than they are apparently currently happy with, now they will be pissed off...? Does it ever end? It's like the people who bitched about extra content in RE5 costing extra.
Well not only will they miss out on my money for an upgrade, but they won't get my money for the App either (which will doubtless cost a fortune). Double whammy. Don't these morons know there's a credit crunch on?
It's funny - I remember the Sling Team practically begging us to buy a Slingbox back in the early days when they were trying to get the company off the ground - not those of us that did exactly that are getting a slap for our faith in them.
Jerks.
I have a slingbox pro and a hava Monsoon titanium. Gotta say by far the better box is the monsoon. Better quality, better setup, better options. etc. So go ahead sling, be greedy. All the way into oblivion.
Watch them tell me my SlingBox Pro wont work with any new software they come out with for my computers or winmo phone...
The Apple Tax, it's spreading....
Wow I can't believe Sling is doing this to the iPhone/iTouch community. Especially when you know they are trying to get the app approved with the word of the press/popularity. Why do you think they making announcements when the application was submitted to Apple? They know that Apple listens to its customers and that there will be a big outcry if Apple doesn't approve this app. Now they haven't publicly announced that a upgrade is needed because they need the people, and don't want the community angry at this.
I'll continue to use my Slingbox AV, but definitely not upgrading. It's bad enough I already paid for the mobile software for windows mobile, but I bet they can't transfer it to the iPhone app.
ridonkulous!
Another DICK MOVE by the DOUCHE Network suits!
PS Dish, er Douche, owns Sling...
One more thing - Hey Sling (Ra/Jen, etc.), tell your Dish Network overlords that this obvious money grab attempt is “bad for business” especially in the long run. If you don’t, we will never sign the NDA and our development house will make sure that SlingShot and SlingBlade will NEVER see the light of day. Better still, we will shop them to someone else. We will be waiting to hear/read the “updated/corrected” press release!
PS By the ballz GEEK POWER for life bitches!!
"Another DICK MOVE by the DOUCHE Network suits!
PS Dish, er Douche, owns Sling..."
Yep, that explains it. They lost me as a customer a while back for dickish moves like this. Dish, that is.
Digg this up to spread the exposure of this BS
http://digg.com/apple/Older_Slingboxes_won_t_work_with_SlingPlayer_on_iPhone
i dont believe.
Screw those hippies!
www.orb.com
Clear evidence that Palm Centro > Apple iPhone.
except that the phone itself has nothing to do with the fact that its the douchebags at sling that have done this. therefore you fail.
No, it's clear evidence that iPhone is better than Centro because Sling didn't even bother putting the limitations on the Centro. They did it because of greater demand for iPhone.
Wow you iphone users are sensitive.. I think the OP was joking, then again when a phone lacks as much as yours does, you get defensive. (Not meant as an attack, but come on, the iphone lacks a LOT of features other phone have had for a while)
@patriotsn1 - so, when a troll makes a "(other phone) > iPhone" comment, that is humorous and we should all get the joke, but when a toll makes a "iPhone > (other phone)" comment, it is okay for all the haters to get mad and spew forth the bile that they do spew forth when such a comment appears?
Find any "iPhone > (other phone)" troll comment, look at the replies to it, and then tell me who is defensive.
I've had the Slingbox (original) for like 3.5 years now. I LOVE IT! and saw NO reason to upgrade.... Now I'm pissed... this is effed up!
What really sucks is they KNOW I will buy a new slingbox anways! I hate you lol
You were stupid enough the buy the iPhone, so you'll buy a new box too.
Stupid enough? Stupid enough to buy a music player, movie player, email reader, web browser, cell phone all in one?
I use this thing all day every day, it helps me relax during my commute, it helps me do my job, it helps me keep in touch with *gasp* friends. You may not like the thing but don't judge me for owning one you arrogant troll.
I definitely won't be buying one if this is not an April fools joke. It would be borderline robbery for sling to cripple the original boxes like this. www.orb.com.
For some reason, I have a feeling "Server Capacity" or "Bandwidth Capacity" or some other shpeal is going to be thrown around by a suit or two... either way it seems like I'll be upgrading to the Solo...
Note: I wrote this comment up... and then edited it for language. This was all that was left.
PS: Fyck you jackholes at the top...
I could legitimately see something like that being the case if it was a matter of the newer Slingboxes using H.264 or VC-1 or some better codec that the older Slingboxes don't have the processing power to do in real time for the bitrates possible over AT&T to the iPhone smoothly.
Other than that, there shouldn't be any reason (technically) to impose such a constraint.
Honestly, I think it's Slingbox wanting to sell another round of boxes to everyone hopping on the iPhone craze.
The truth is Slingbox classic blows new Sling products away. When you consider the bandwidth limitation nowadays, streaming HD is BS. And new firmwares from Sling are much less usable than the one they produced 2 years ago.
Seriously, why would anyone has Slingbox classic wanna upgrade it?
Even the player software has gotten worse. I mean really Hava looks like a much better product. Multiple streams, integrates with Wondows Media Center and cost $110 on their website for the HD version. I mean if I need a new "Sling" product I'll just get Hava instead.
Pkus I use S60 So my phone Hava player is free, not the $30 Sling charges.
I really hope this Engadget story turns out to be wrong. If it's true, this is ridiculous. I'm super ready to be pissed off, but I'm just hoping that instead Engadget is wrong... Crapola...
Nilay you are totally correct about pissing of Sling Happy Customers. They just lost their CEO, I had a feeling there was a problem between the sling team and EchoStar and I think I know what was going on. I think that kevorkian or whatever the last CEO's name was told by EchoStar not to support the older boxes and push forward demand for the new integrated cable/sling boxes.
APRIL FOOLS!!!!?? There's still time left.
Good thing I will still be able to use my SlingBox Classic on my good ole Windows Mobile powered Touch Pro. Suck it, iPhone.
Complete guess on my part could be that newer slingboxes may have better compression tech, and so the iphone stream wouldn't be as bandwith hungry? Never really an issue with other phones, but given iphone popularity its now an issue.
On the Canadian sling site they confirm this story, hopefully customers create enough of an uproar to overthrow this poor business decision
I have a sling box Solo, but I don't have an Iphone.
Then you are obviously not important.
That's bullshit. Screw 'em.
"...has caused the suits at Sling to go mad with greed"
-This line strikes me as funnier than anything I've read in a long time. Nice work, Nilay Patel.
Actually, I laughed when I read Nilay's "outrage" about this. Anger over older Sling hardware not working on the iPhone, but a few weeks ago when Apple said that some 3.0 featrues would not work on the original iPhone (really, why the restriction using bluetooth headphones on older iPhones), there was no outrage, just praise. Wonder why?
There was both outrage and praise. You just choose to remember only that which supports your own viewpoint.
Um...April Fools, right?
seriously?
WTF
Might it be possible that the iPhone/Touch don't support the codec that the original Slingboxes use? And that maybe the new ones use h.264, which there is support for? Apple really limits things with their own video player, and I very much doubt that their API offers the kind of direct hardware access that Sling would need to write their own driver (not to mention Apple would never let it in the store if they did, in fact, use "undocumented APIs"). As much as I think Sling has gone downhill and that this is probably just one more manifestation of it, I think it's just as possible this is yet another victim of Apple's "our way or the highway" approach to apps.
This is what I was thinking, but they had it working on 1.x firmware, and the beta version worked with older SlingBoxes. Also, if it was because of something like that, I doubt they would talk about how they chose to not to support older models when they could blame this on Apple
I used to use my trusty slingbox tuner with my winmo phone. I've been looking forward to an iphone client for close to two years now. If this is really true, and not just some features not working with older hardware, it will be a HUGE blow. A lot of people are gonna be pissed off.
Slingbox is shooting themselves in the foot by forcing people to upgrade. It's just going to cause them to lose sales from their Slingbox app. I'll be damned if i'm buying another $300 Slingbox.
I can't believe this. I too was an original beta tester for the slingbox back in 2004. I still have 3 of those original slingboxes working just fine. And to top it off, sling just released a new firmware upgrades for those boxes. I'm totally shocked and sling media may just have lost another one of their loyal customers for the past five years. Very disappointing.
I'll take one
not only will i not buy a new box, they won't get the $50 i was willing to pay for the iphone software either
...and people wonder why AT&T's 3G network seems slow...
Time for a collective fuck you.
This is BS
This is a complete outrage, not only do I use my slingbox classic player on my blackberry bold seamlessly but I spent good hard earned money to buy that sling player. Now sling media is telling me that when I go get the new iphone which will cost me 400$, that just to enjoy my media content on the go I'm going to have to throw down 170 (120 if the discount is true) because my 2 year old slingbox is "obsolete"..Well not this time. Engadgeters unite! I say we personally start a petition, either upgrade me FREE to slingbox solo or give support to slingbox classic on the iphone app. I am extremely disgruntled and frankly I plan to write a very rude letter to the coporate office.
Haha. I own a Slingbox Pro and I've had it for about two years or so and I paid just under $200 for it. When Sling announced the application for the iPhone I figured they had some trick up their sleeves. They knew iPhone users just love to spend money and now they'll have iPhone users running out and spending money on Sling hardware. It's good to know my investment in the Slingbox Pro was worthwhile. It has given troublefree service for two years.
But when I first got it I had to take it apart to resolder the IR Blaster port to the circuit board. The connector was a bit loose (most likely a cold-soldered joint) when I bought it and after putting the IR blaster in a couple of times it no stopped working. It took about 15 minutes to fix and that was it. I've never had to touch the box since then. It really is a great device when hooked up to a network and my cable box. I can watch my DVR recorded shows whenever I want, whereever I want.
New users can run out and buy the Slingbox Pro HD. It's still rather expensive, but it's probably worth the price if you have the bandwidth.
I have NEVER seen an Engadget post with as much venom as this one. Can't say it's not warranted if this is real but I thought this kind of emotion was reserved for format and console wars only.
...Don't bring up the subject of Creative's non-support of legacy sound cards under Vista unless you want to hear some REAL venom.
What do you expect? Dish Network owns them now.
Damn, now I'm glad I bought the slingbox pro to begin with... But, if I'm a slingbox owner that have to upgrade, that's gonna piss me off...
I was really looking forward to the Slingplayer app. but they can shove it. I've always praised the Slingbox to people but never again if this turns out to be true. I'll also dump the iPhone at the end of my contract.
This is really shitty. I am probably going to upgrade from my Slingbox Tuner this summer anyways, since it won't work after the digital transition... but to be forced to upgrade to use this app? BS.
I hope this is a cruel joke, but my gut says, fat chance. I am truly upset by this. I have been a loyal slingbox customer for 2.5 years and probably helped sell more slingboxes than most sales reps at retailers because I loved the product so much. I have sling every where on every computer I own and on each mobile device. I bought the iphone for this reason alone. I have been chomping at the bit for iphone app, checking every day and it has killed me to wait this long and now this. UGGGG. Worst part is I will most likely still upgrade. Sorry for the rant, but I had to vent.
Its like working hard for two years to finally land in bed with Giselle Bundchen only to find out she is a guy!
@ncarnahan I agree I've encouraged at least 3 people to get one. What a slap in the face.
I find it really hard to believe this isn't a bad April Fools joke.
For only a complete fool is going to go out and buy a brand new Slingbox just to get iPhone streaming. For $20-30 on software, sure, I was ready to fork that over no problem. But nobody with an ounce of common sense is dropping close to $200 just to get the privilege of watching their TV on that little tiny screen. iPhone streaming is quite desirable as a convenience thing, it isn't going to ever be the preferred platform for watching a Slingbox, and most people with Slingboxes and iPhones aren't exactly far from a laptop and a broadband connection very often.
Doesn't look like Echostar has any idea how to manage what it bought when they acquired Sling. They don't understand their customers or the product they're selling. They just wrote off something like 75% of the potential buyers for the iPhone player application and they might get 1-2% of the existing customers to upgrade. And it isn't like the Slingplayer + iPhone addressable market was all that big to begin with.
When your business plan boils down to a "fool and his money are soon parted" - well, see Hummer.
How much would it cost to upgrade the hardware? Add that to the cost of the iPhone software, and that's the real total cost of the App.
What a royal asshole move. Did they miss the message that if you are going to try to pull this type of crap, you cannot release a beta or show off it working on the old hardware. It is like Sling is rubbing it in our faces that they are purposefully blocking out old hardware. Great job Sling. I was going to buy the iPhone app but since I own the Slingbox Classic I won't give you money for the application and I definitely won't be upgrading my Sling Box after a weasel move like this! I am sure I am not the only one too. Idiots!!
I'm in the same boat you are. I've owned a classic for almost 4 years. We both know that we'll be buying a new one soon enough lol.
It seems sling is riding too high on it success. I`ve never had one and if this turns out true I`ll never have one either from those greedy madmen. I`ve been interested in HAVA for a long time now but they dont have mac client yet. But now with the announcement of an iphone client it seems like a Mac version wont be far away either.
i hope to god this is a sick joke... if its not, i expect someone to release the beta version ( which clearly worked with the old hardware) to the jailbreak community. which would completely destroy there sales. lets be honest anyone who has a iphone and old slingbox is going to be ready willing and able to jailbreak ( if they haven't already) for this support.
Either way - Sling is going to lose a ton of business
awesome, ill just not upgrade now, i would pay $20 for an iphone app over the sling upgrade.
I hope this is an april fool's joke. has anyone tried typing in their serial number to get their $50 discount? Maybe after you type in your info there's some page that appears saying it's all a joke...one can hope right?
engadget needs to shame them into doing the right thing
ive been dreaming about the sling player on my iphone even before it was announced. Now they pull this bullshit. Guess I'm gonna have to set up an orb sever.
first of all they should make the $50 discount a mail in rebate instead of only allowing the discount from their store, I can get a slingbox pro hd for $250 on amazon. They should also give each person who upgrades a coupon code to get the iphone app for free. and even after that its still bs
They lost a customer here. Sling, you are not the only game in town. I am enjoying my new Orb installation right now in fact. I'm sure the app was going to be at least $30 anyway. Was that not enough? Greed begets bad PR.
Absolute F**KERS.
The only reason I bought an iphone over the vastly cheaper Nokia 5800 was because of this forthcoming app. I'm a UK ex-pat living in Finland, so I use my original Slingbox almost every day.
If they don't support the original Slingbox on their iphone app, I'll ditch my Slingbox ASAP and find another solution.
I can't believe Sling are gouging us like this. I've been waiting with bated breath for this application - what a disappointment.
My SlingBox Classic is the last thing of theirs I'll ever buy. It's going on eBay and I'm building an Orb box.
Other than greed, anyone want to theorize on why Sling did this? Albert, you mentioned the PRO and newer products might have better compression algorithms for lowering bandwidth need. Is it feasible that maybe AT&T via Apple asked for this in order to approve the app through iTunes?
Maybe we have compounded reasons? (Sling greed + AT&T crappy network = our loss)
This is bollocks. No restrictions on symbian, none on windows mobile. Why on iphone? I didn't read anything about different compression on the newer ones - surely if they were 'better', Sling would have been crowing about it as a reason to upgrade from the classic.
I am out than! Great!
Wow. This is really messed up, sling.
Formerly happy? Has anyone read about all the networking issues that the Slingboxes are having? Bad power supplies, not connecting to the network. There is truly an epidemic of this happening. There are 100's of these stories which you can read about here:
http://www.slingcommunity.com/forum/thread/27441/Slingbox-Pro-not-connecting-to-network/
Happened to me and I'm honestly looking at the myhava.com option.
Bullshit. Sling won't get me to upgrade. In fact I was gonna sell my sling but held off for this app. Sling Media can kiss my ass now.
It's not really fair to slag the (original) Slingbox team for this decision, they are long gone......... When Dish network 'Aquired' them last year, they served their contractual term with the beast, than bailed at the first opportunity - can hardly blame them!
I have the first generation, so am obviously bummed out by this, poor decision to write off the early user, due to trying to get more $$$$'s out of the customer. In the end they lose, I won't buy another Slingbox or Dish product.....
This is a really crappy way to treat your customers, Sling. You've been promising us this app for years, and many of us bought your box on faith based on your promises. Paying for the app would have been no problem, but now you lose that as well as the hardware sales you're trying to generate. Dumb move, sling.
@Nohone
I think these are two different situations. Some iPhone OS 3.0 features won't work on older iPhones due to lack of hardware features and the use of a different radio in the 3G iPhones. But with the slingplayer app, according to the above article, it worked with older slingboxes in previous itterations of the slingplayer app. The app has now just had support for older slingboxes removed. So, it seems that there is no hardware incompatibility with older slingboxes, just a decision made by the sling crew to remove support in order to push early adopters to upgrade.
I agree that it's a d--k move by Sling, likely engineered by their new corporate overlords at Echostar. I own a Solo and can honestly say that Sling largely sucks as a company: lousy customer service, slow to push out software upgrades or support newer devices, firmware and software "updates" that introduce more problems than they solve, and virtually zero technical support. If it weren't for the Sling community forums the company would have a much worse reputation than it already does.
That said, where was the outrage from Engadget when Apple did virtually the same thing a few weeks ago with the 3.0 firmware announcement? Unlocking "features" like MMS, copy/paste or bluetooth requires a iPhone 3G or equivalent iPod Touch. Where's the outrage Nilay? Some things never change - Apple can do no wrong and Engadget enables it. No wonder so many people hate AAPL. Pathetic.
This is complete and total BS. Sling is going to turn of TONS of fans by this move. I've got a Sling A/V. If I can run the sling software on a PC, then I should be able to run on my iPhone.
This would have been a great time for Sling to get a win. Allowing their other devices to work with their software would not only serve the entire Sling community, but it would foster a great word-of-mouth campaign with the existing users. Since Sling probably doesn't sell the older models, it would cause new users to buy the new hardware. Thus, you get your sales and a good rep with the iPhone / Touch community.
INSTEAD Sling decided to play it dirty and screw over some of their customer base.
As an early adopter, I get a lot of questions about tech from co-workers, friends and family. I won't be upgrading my box and I will NOT be giving Sling a good recommendation to people that ask about the product. I just can't support this kind of corporate greed.
Screw you Sling!
It's all been said, but on the chance someone from Sling is reading this: shameful and greedy. The irony is, they're trashing their good name and still are only going to make peanuts from the very few people who will upgrade for the Iphone functionality.
Bogus. I have the SlingPlayer Classic and I just tested SlingPlayer Mobile for BlackBerry and it works brilliantly. This software better be cheap or free if I'm going to have to get another Slingbox.
Who are Sling's competitors? I'll never be buying from Sling again. Fucking greedy bastards.
They were dumb enough to buy an iPhone, they'll be dumb enough to pay for this lol.
Bye bye sling, bye bye iPhone. Now I have to go with either Sling+WMo Phone or Orb+iPhone. F U both! (btw, I hate ATT too!)
This looks like a last minute business driven decision by Sling. As earlier noted, it was very tacky to drop this at the last minute.
I am hoping, though I expect to be disappointed, that it will work with legacy devices, just not be "supported". But that is unlikely to be.
I current have Orb. I don't know about everybody else, but Orb over 3G is very finicky. I get dropped connections all the time.
The Hava option might be worth considering.
The secret sauce at Sling seems to be the real time bandwidth negotiation. Maybe Orb will figure that out.
I don't have much experience with Hava.
Maybe we need to find some way to "share" the beta version of the iphone app. I reallly don't believe in copyright infringement, but what is going on here really and truly stinks. I mean I am quite happy to pay for a working version of this software...but a $250 upgrade? Nah.
Vent vent vent.
I have orb as well but really havent had many issues. I use it every day for about 8 hours during work hours. The only thing I was looking forward to sling for was getting all channels. Orb is limited by your tvcard which typically doesnt get encrypted(subscription) channels or channels above 100. From what I understand, with Sling you could get all channels? Is that correct?
Zippy chance I'm buying a new Slingbox. Eff you, Sling Media.
Sling has lost a very loyal customer here in Texas! I bought my Classic over four years ago and have loved it, using almost every day. And that's exactly what I tell everyone who asks, even last night showed a guy my slingplayer running on Macbook at kid's school.
Now the reward I get for being a loyal customer and advocate for Sling is a knife in the back. This is pure greed on their part. That's business, I understand. But now Sling has forced me to respond with negative comments anytime I'm asked.
I'm willing to pay for the iPhone app, no problem. But forcing me to upgrade to the Solo is unacceptable. We know that Classic and other older versions work just fine with other mobile devices.
Bad move Sling -- very bad move!
I had the original slingbox for years, and finally was forced to upgrade when it died.
I was pleasantly surprised that the video Quality on the newer models was greatly improved.
I've since upgraded several clients to the newer models.
I doubt the quality improvement would have been noticeable on the iPhone however, because of the small screen, unless it has something to do with the built-in compression of the device or something.
Yes, I agree, lets share the beta version.
I am also officially resigning from the slingmedia beta program, if they wont help their most loyal customers, i sure as hell wont help them.
Sling will truly regret this decision
Oh yea, and engadget can you please make this a featured story so it stays at the top and continues to get posts so echostar can see how pissed off their biggest supporters are