Apple has finally approved the live streaming app by Ustream.com. Previously there was an app for viewing live streams and an app for recording video and uploading it later but not live streaming. This is huge and will most likely lead to the approval of Qik for the iPhone too. Previously these types of apps were only available by jailbreaking your iPhone. With the recent approval of the video streaming app, Knocking Live Video, supposedly directly approved by Steve Jobs himself after initial denial, we will most likely see all of these types of apps approved.

The Ustream application is very nice. It allows you to see live chat from your viewers, create a poll and have viewers vote live on the video and you can see the results, you can automatically have it upload the video to YouTube or Facebook when you’re done, and you can have it tweet when you’re streaming live. I tested it over wifi and here’s the results:

ScreenShots

The Ustream.tv Mobile app has to be one of the coolest apps that I have played with. On my personal website (justinvanrheenen.com) I have a section on my sidebar for live streaming from Ustream.tv. I really haven’t used this much but this mobile app may make it easier to live stream whatever my heart desires.

To get instructions for the download, you can go to Ustream.tv/mobile. You will need to sign up for a Ustream.tv account if you do not currently have one.

Once you have set up your account, open Cydia. If you have not jailbroken your iPhone yet, you will not be able to use the Ustream.tv Mobile App. You can download a Ustream.tv Watch App from the App Store but to be able to live stream from the phone, you will need to jailbreak your phone.
1. Once you have opened Cydia tap “Sections” at the bottom.
2. On the next screen, tap “Multimedia”.
3. Then tap the letter “u” to find the UstreamBroadcaster.
4. Then install and confirm the installation of the app.

You are now almost ready for streaming. Once the app had downloaded onto your iPhone, shut down Cydia and then head to your Springboard for your new Ustream.tv Mobile App. When you open the app it is going to bring up a login page. If you didn’t set up a Ustream.tv account, you will be given the option to do that. Otherwise fill in your username and password and sign in. At this point I started having issues. Be sure that if you have your account open on your computer that you have it shut down for at least 60 seconds. That way the app can connect to your account and you can begin to stream.

This app has 4 very cool options.
1. The first is the broadcast button which tells you that you are broadcasting to the world.
2. The second is the record button. You are able to record anything through the app while broadcasting. It is then saved to your account through the website.
3. The third is the “ask” button. This is freakin’ sweet! You are able to ask a live question and the people viewing will be able to answer back to you by clicking yes or no in a box that pops up on their screen. It then charts the answers and shows everyone in a bar graph the percentage of the question’s answers. Once the question has been taken down, Ustream sends you an email of the results of the question. (Very Cool!)
4. When you start to stream from your iPhone, Ustream.tv will post to your Twitter account to show all your friends that you are online.

There is one thing I wish Ustream.tv would incorporate into this app…Chat! Qik.com has an app that allows you to live stream as well and it has a chat option where your viewers can text chat to you and you can the audio respond. The Ustream.tv Mobile App would really benefit from this.

This App opens so many possibilities for video conferencing especially in the business world. The bad thing about that is that this app is only available to a jailbroken iPhone, something most IT departments won’t approve of. Maybe there are still some tricks up Apple’s sleeve with the release of 3.0?

Ustream has just released a new app that allows you to watch live streaming video from any of their channels right to your iPhone or iPod Touch. The application was just released so we’ll get a full review soon. They also have an application ready to go that will stream right from your iPhone to their website or other iPhone. It will be in the App Store soon as long as Apple approves it. So far, Apple has not allowed any apps that let you record video although they also were not letting in alternate internet browser but now they do. Here’s a video demo by Chris Pirillo of the playback version: