Everyone may think that AT&T threw their fat around and made Apple lock down the SlingPlayer iPhone app because of AT&T’s lousy network, but a tipster tells us there’s a more nefarious reason at play.
https://gizmodo.com/at-t-uses-semantics-to-justify-locking-down-slingplayer-5251464
While it is true that AT&T’s already clogged 3G pipes would burst into unusability if tons of people were watching Sling on their iPhones, that’s only half the picture. The other half comes from the fact that AT&T’s working on their OWN application code-named i-Verse, one that performs a similar task as SlingPlayer Mobile.
AT&T’s “i-Verse” app works with their U-Verse TV solution that can either load DVR’ed shows from your U-Verse recorder into your iPhone at home, or stream shows across the net over their 3G network. The app was demoed last year behind closed doors and based on the reception then, prompted AT&T to go into full-time development on it.
We understand that AT&T doesn’t want to lose man-hours sunk into development into the app (and that it’s their network), but using their position to strong-arm the shut-down of another app just so it doesn’t have the competition? That’s some lousy, lousy sauce that’s more similar than not to net neutrality issues—that is, if our tipster is right. [Thanks tipster!]
