Watching the world cup on your mobile phone
Being a site about business mobile phones this may be slightly off topic, but I guess that most of the UK are keen to see England have another stab at the holy grail of sports trophies. Therefore I thought that it would be helpful for you if I had a look into watching the games on various mobile phones, which may become a reality for the first time in world cup history as now some mobile phones have live streaming that is now just about watchable. as well as the live streaming of world cup games it is also possible to catch up on live scores and see the latest world cup news via your smartphone.
Firstly the i-phone
A number of mobile phone apps have recently been put together in anticipation of the world cup market, a couple for the i-phone are proving to be very popular and do work extremely well.
Know Your Mobile has put together a list of the top 10 world cup mobile apps so that you do not have to miss a moment of the action – from iSouthAfrica2010, an app which has a summary of each nations’ team, the stadiums and leading players to ESPN’s stunning FIFA World Cup game-tracking portal – there’s also an app that is simply and descriptively named World Cup Countdown that, erm, counts down the minutes, hours, days until the games begin.
The BBC have a great mobile phone app on their iPlayer for the Iphone. it’s great for catching up on all of the highlights and the banter surounding the big games, but the service will not be streaming live matches to mobile phones, nor will they be showing all of the games due to the split of World Cup coverage between BBC and ITV, but great for pre and post match news.
To actually watch the World Cup matches live on your i-phone, we suggest taking a look at TVCatchUp, this is a pretty handy new service that streams a range of UK TV programmes to your iPhone over a 3G or Wi-Fi signal.
Beware – it is not a completely free app, TVCatchUp is a website specifically focused around providing TV services for iPhone and iPad users, enabling streaming of 15 television channels including digital output like BBC3 and E4.
The viewing is pretty smooth and with no fees unless you find yourself outside a WI-FI area, TVCatchUp is a great way to bring the matches shown on both BBC and ITV to your mobile phone. Make sure that you’re either connected to a Wi-Fi hotspot or have a data bundle however, or 90+ minutes of streaming content to your iPhone could work out giving your boss a nasty rash when they see the bill.
Just go to TV catch up on your iPhone’s browser, set up an account, and you’re good to go!
Google Nexus One, Htc Desire and other Android phones.
Android phones are in the news again this week as they have now surpassed the i-phone’s market share when it comes to Smartphones; with Android you are almost able to enjoy desktop quality streaming on your mobile phone, but a real issue is the lack of proper Flash support. Streaming content from your favourite portal is possible, but extremely frustrating to try and watch a full game on.
BeebPlayer is the original iPlayer solution for Android Smartphones, it’s still free and still giving the official app a run for its money both over 3G and Wi-Fi. however, the lack of ITV means that you’ll still be missing half of the action and need another app for these games – the MyPlayer App gives both the BBC and ITV on Android as well as other platforms – download here.
Those without a concern for the law of the land/cyberspace can also use one of the many Android torrent applications to download and watch matches on the fly.
TVCatchup are still working on a solution for Google-powered phones, but are not quite there yet…and currently it looks like they probably won’t be in time for the opening ceremony on the 11th of June.
Blackberry Smartphones
Blackberry, famous for their focus and success in the business mobile phone market, have recently started to put a lot of time and effort into their Multi-media functionality, and are no longer simply a digital Filofax!
The latest Blackberry Curve 8520 and Blackberry Bold 9700 handsets have larger, higher res screens as well as 3.5mm audio jacks for keeping the roar of the crowd to a tolerable level, whilst the expansive touch display of the Blackberry Storm 2 is perfect for viewing media.
However, BBC’s iPlayer can only be streamed to a BlackBerry on the 3 and Vodafone networks in the UK, all others will have to blag 90 mins in their local tech friendly pub or coffee shop and leech some free Wi-Fi come match day.
Finding an app-based solution is also not easy, Blackberry App World now offers a broad selection of software to choose from. SPB TV ($9.99) is a streaming television app, with programmes from various European networks.
But from what we have read and heard on the grapevine the quality of the streaming is not supposed to be so good, and the profusion of foreign language channels makes finding something to watch difficult.
Sky News have a free application that allows customers to stream the latest sporting highlights to their BlackBerry phones, as well as keep up with the latest news. Granted, it’s not quite live…but it’s a start.
Another few apps for the BlackBerry available at the app world are Goal Mobile and ScoreMobile, offering commentaries, interviews and photos directly from soccer mecca website Goal.com.
Hopefully this post has been helpful, please remember that football should be enjoyed in the comfort of a nice cosy pub with a bunch of mates and a few pints and that mobiles are not really a choice alternative more a necessity for emergency situations when you really cannot get in front of a TV set.
About the Author
Business Savings Advice is blog that aims to help small and medium sized UK businesses to save money on the services that are vital to their operations. This particular blog is about business mobile phones and includes reviews of new handsets as well as special offers from the 5 main providers as well as some resellers
Business Savings Advice is blog that aims to help small and medium sized UK businesses to save money on the services that are vital to their operations. This particular blog is about business mobile phones and includes reviews of new handsets as well as special offers from the 5 main providers as well as some resellers
BBC iPlayer App Review.
