SlingBox Public BlackBerry Beta Begins Dec. 30

sling-on-blackberryHas it really been almost a year since we first heard Sling Media would support the BlackBerry platform? It sure has and maybe the wait was worth it. After all, we’ve seen RIM snap up some serious market share over the past year and they’ve brought more capable media functions to their handsets. Perhaps the time is ripe for a beta of their SlingPlayer Mobile on Blackberry handsets. Starting on December 30th, Sling kicks off a public beta in the U.S., U.K., and Canada with official support for:

  • BlackBerry Bold
  • BlackBerry Curve 8320, 8900
  • BlackBerry 8820
  • BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8220
  • BlackBerry Pearl 8120

No luck for the new BlackBerry Storm at the moment, but the press release says that Sling Media is working with RIM to bring support to additional handset models.

For the beta, you’ll need your own SlingBox of course and your handset firmware must be version 4.5 or greater. Sling Media says that you can try the beta client on “EDGE-Berries” like the 8100, 8110, 8300, 8310, 8800, and 8810, but these models won’t be officially supported. Having used SlingPlayer Mobile over EDGE, I can vouch for the experience to be far less than optimal, although setting the software to audio-only mode wasn’t bad for listening in on television programming like the local news.

I asked about client status for the iPhone and Android platform and a company representative told me that SlingPlayer Mobile for the iPhone and iPod Touch remain in development. As far as Android? Sling Media is doing what many other companies likely are as well: monitoring the platform and its adoption.

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