Review: Boxee for iPad
Its been a long time in the coming, however Boxee have recently released thier iPad app, and its an interesting one at that.
Its no secret that the start of the cable cutting revolution has already started, with more of us using portable media to watch what we want when we want to its no surprise that companies like boxee are getting in on the act of distributing portable media.
The app itself offers media from two sources, your social media stream, including evidently the ability to share media on Tumblr. and your personal media collection.
The sharing of media from your local collection requires a Mac or PC which is on, and on the same Wifi segment as you are on, as with many such apps, it sits on the “server” and you pint it to the locations your media is stored, which could be a networks hare, and acts as a conduit between these locations and your iPad.
The quality is ok, however i have to say i prefer AirVideo as it seems to adapt to the network its being used on beter. Also Airvideo allows you access to your media from outside your network. Boxess doesn’t yet.
When it comes to the social media streams, there are still some which require Flash to play, however most of the media i was provided from my streams was in a format the iPad could handle.
Where Boxee is leaps ahead of any of its competition i feel is in the Look and Feel department, it is a slick, well thought out app. The interface is highly intuative and well thought out.
I like the app, i feel it has a long way to go to become the ultimate cord cutter app, links into your existing boxee plugins would be a great start. However links to the desktop features like watch it later are a good inclusion in this first release.
I’m almost there for cutting the cable myself and am using boxee a lot, I have it on my Mac, and would have it on my TV if the company would adopt the far better underpinnings of XBMC 10.1 for better screen resolution and picture quality.
Read the Ars Technica Review for more.
