Streaming

Orb, the media-sharing software for the PC, has just been released for the Mac. Orb lets you access your media, like music and videos in iTunes and photos in iPhoto, by streaming them to your iPhone from your Mac. As long as you have your Mac on and running the Orb software, you can access your media anywhere you have internet access, including the iPhone if you download the OrbLive app [App Store, $9.99].

Public Radio App [App Store, $2.99] is a new app that acts as a DVR for your favorite public radio stations. With it, you can listen to NPR whenever you want, as well as "pause and rewind public radio streams from NPR, PRI, APM and local public radio stations."

Simplify Media has released Simplify Music 2.0 to the App Store today. Simplify Music lets you stream non-DRM music from your iTunes library on your desktop to your iPhone or iPod touch over Wi-Fi, Edge or 3G (respectively), as well as music from libraries of up to 30 friends. The new version adds search features, favorites, playlists, and a "scrub bar". Video after the break.

Pandora is a great application that can complement your musical tastes with its music rating system, and the application received an update today. Pandora 2.0 [iTunes] adds a myriad of new features including CoverFlow to browse music history.

Next week the iPhone Alley crew is headed out to San Francisco for Macworld Expo 2009, and we have some big plans this year. Throughout the entire week we'll be live streaming video from Macworld Expo, the parties afterward, and everything in between! While you watch, you'll be able to chat with us as we interview everyone from celebrities to iPhone developers.

To make things easy for everyone, we've set up a special page to localize all of our live Macworld coverage. iPhoneAlley.com/macworld is where you'll find our live streams and all the relevant info to keep up with us at Macworld! Head on over and say 'hi'!

A while back, Qik announced that they had begun private beta testing of their live streaming app for the iPhone. The app worked for the most part in its beta form, although it was only available to a select few (we had a chance to play with it). Thankfully, Qik has just announced that the application will be released to the public via Installer.app, with one fairly significant caveat. Although we'll be getting Installer for iPhone 2.0, the Qik app isn't ready for 2.0, which means it only works on phones loaded with 1.1.4.

A new patent application filed by Apple describes a process which would allow users to remotely access music and videos located on their home computers over WiFi or cellular data networks. The system works by syncing iTunes metadata to the device, rather than the media itself. The metadata would list "virtual media items" which would represent every song, video, and playlist a user has in their iTunes library. Once selected, the file would be downloaded for local playback on the device.

A new Apple patent application has been found that shows that Apple may be looking to either build or support a hardware add-on for the iPhone and iPod lines that would allow it to directly receive streaming Radio and/or TV. The device pictured in the patent would attach directly to an iPod or iPhone, and would accept signals from one or more formats, including AM, FM, HD or satellite radio, or TV standards such as cable, satellite, over-the-air or IPTV.

As Thursday comes to an end, the guys from iPhone Alley are heading down to the local Apple Store to wait in line for the iPhone 3G. Thanks to the fantastic folks at Qik, we'll be streaming much of our experience live over the web. You'll be able to watch and interact with us as we lose our minds waiting in line, buy our iPhones, and touch them for the first time. We're also going to try our best to drill the Apple employees with questions about the activation and setup process. We may even get some video of it going down.

So hit the jump to see our live stream. We'll jump on around 5:30 CST to waive goodbye before we hop into the car. At around 7PM, we'll start streaming from the Apple Store in Deer Park, IL. Come chat!

Kevin Rose is back again, but this time it's not with a prediction or rumor. He recently sat down with the CEO of Qik, the popular service that lets you stream live video from your mobile phone to the internet, and it's official: Qik will be coming to the iPhone. A video demo of it running on the device has been created, which you can view after the break.