Boxee is holding an event in San Francisco tonight to declare a winner of its App Dev Challenge, in which third-parties created apps for the media platform. But the real winner tonight will be Boxee, which is also announcing a boatload of new features and functionality for its media center software — none bigger than a version of Boxee for Windows, finally.
While many developers go the other way, Boxee started as a Mac and Linux product first. But obviously, Windows PCs are the vast majority of the machines out there. “This is huge being able to serve the rest of the computer market,” Boxee CEO Avner Ronen tells us. And that’s undoubtedly an understatement, given the success Boxee has already had minus all those Windows users.
While this is just an alpha version of the product for Windows, it will be open for the public to use. And perhaps more importantly, it will work on machines with Windows Media Center, many of which are hooked up to televisions in living rooms. While Boxee is great on the computer, it’s arguably even better on a big screen television, many of which typically feature awful user interfaces. Boxee’s interface, on the other hand, is very nice. And that’s being revamped a bit as well tonight to make room for the other new features being launched.
The biggest of those is support for MLB.tv. This will mark the first time that Boxee users will have access to live content through the software. MLB.tv is a premium service that requires either a monthly or one-time fee, but it’s already very popular, and all those users can now access it through Boxee. Ronen notes that he hopes this is the first of many live experiences Boxee is able to offer, stating that other sporting deals are being talked about, as well as the possibility that live news could come someday.
Another addition is Digg video content. Everyday, tons of videos become popular through the social voting site, and now Boxee is giving users a way to see those through its software as well. In the future, you’ll be able to Digg items right from Boxee as well, we’re told.
Tumblr is another service Boxee is adding support for tonight. You’ll be able to stream music shared by people you follow on the blogging platform, as well as play picture slideshows.
And finally, Boxee is announcing a partnership with Current, to offer its news and entertainment programming.
All told, there are now well over 100 applications available for Boxee (something around 120, we’re told), so that’s why it needed to make some interface changes to accommodate all this new stuff. And the developer challenge apparently yielded a lot of interesting apps as well. Over 40 were submitted for the competition, including quite a few using the all-important Twitter.
I asked Ronen about the possibility of seeing Boxee create its own set-top box in the future, but he downplayed that. He feels Boxee’s strength lies in its open approach to developing for other pieces of hardware. And he hinted that by early next year, we should start to see some interesting partnerships involving Boxee and some living-room bound hardware devices.
As for Hulu, which Boxee has famously been battling with after it blocked its content from appearing on Boxee several months ago, Ronen says there are no new updates. But he hopes that the fact that Hulu has made its own desktop software, Hulu Desktop, signals that they are open to the idea of moving their content outside of the traditional browser and onto other services, like Boxee.
Ronen also defiantly notes that while Hulu isn’t playing ball, yet, plenty of other media providers are.
Finally, on the subject of mobile development, Ronen says that while they aren’t actively working on anything beyond its remote control iPhone app (which works with the Boxee software), a lot of people are asking about an actual iPhone app that will play Boxee content. “If we keep getting asked we just may do it,” Ronen notes.
With the Windows version now out there, Boxee plans to update all versions at the same time, with new content and features, we’re told. It’s getting to be a very robust media player.
hahahaha, as cool and as new edge Boxee is… it brings us BASEBALL?!?!?!
WTF? whats next? Golf? Bowling? Come on guys, think along the lines of “what can be broadcast via the internet that TV/Cable stations CANNOT?
answer that question with your product, and the world will beat a path to your front door…
duude. have u used boxee or xbmc. with the plugins, u can watch pretty much watch anything there is on television streamed to your tv on-demand. the baseball thing is just significant for live video and bringing in paid content.
MLB.TV is so successful is because it brings out-of-market games to home fans. TV/cable restrictions limit you to receiving your “home team”’s games.
I live in Florida, so I get Tampa and Miami baseball games, although I’m a fan of a New York team. To get ALL of their games, I need MLB.tv, and therefore, the Internet.
Boxee is making an effort. The iPhone app will be difficult as it will be to stay within the Apple SDK guidelines if they start monkeying around with containers.
Does this update include Boxee for Apple TV? Also, when is ABC coming to Boxee for Apple TV? It was announced a while ago but still nothing.
Does this update include Boxee for Apple TV? Also, when is ABC coming to Boxee for Apple TV? It was announced a while ago but still nothing.
Yep all this stuff should work on Apple TV as well, I’m told.
Not that it was meant to, but it looks like the AppleTV with Boxee chokes on MLB.tv streams.
WTF wants to build their own “tivo-like” devices to watch web stuff on a TV?!
These guys are just riding the hype.
i’d love to see boxee add support for Amazon video on demand. that would make it a complete solution, in my opinion.
Strike five! You’re out 1 2/3 times!
Congratulations! You’ve got MLB.tv on your Apple TV 6 weeks after anyone running Plex had it on their Mac (8+ for people technical enough to run a few terminal commands and install the beta).
Instead of being content with Boxee following on with Plex’s plugins 2 months later, why not sell the Apple TV and buy a used Mac Mini on Craig’s list? As a bonus, you get a full-blown computer, not just a media center.
You are kidding right? Boxee kicks ass on my MacMini. MUCH better than Plex. In fact I was a Plex user for well over a year before I switched to Boxee 8+ months ago. Face it, Plex is toast, Boxee is kicking it’s ass.
None, and one more thing…
Boxee = OSX / Apple TV / Linux / Windows XP, Vista, Media Center and Windows 7
Plex = OSX
Game over Plex, thanks for playing.
Plex has changed a ton in the last 8 months.
I got my Mac Mini in February, tried both. Plex won. Beautiful interface, much easier to set up IMO.
I do plan on checking out Boxee again, though, since they added MLB and apps. We’ll see.
And Nono was talking about the Mac Mini, why would he care if you can run Boxee on all those other OSs?
My reply would have been more or less the same as Jason’s. Emphasis on the “changed a ton in the last 8 months” part. The Plex guys iterate quickly. It’s come a long way.
To your cross-platform point, aren’t there better options on all of those platforms, except Apple TV? MythTV and friends for Linux, Windows Media Center for Windows, Plex for Mac.
From where I sit it looks as though Boxee is only interesting if you A) own an AppleTV or B) haven’t done your homework.
From where I sit it looks as though Plex is only interesting if you A) Run OSX AND haven’t done your homework.
Ah, so you work for Boxee then? Should have disclosed that up front.
Seriously though, how’s Boxee better?
Your comment earlier (”Game over, Plex”) only referred to cross platform nature of Boxee. In my experience cross platform software is almost never better for an individual user. In fact, because you have to support the lowest common denominator, it’s frequently worse. I’m often wishing Firefox looked/felt more like a native Mac app, for example.
Your last comment implies that Boxee (or something else?) is better on the Mac than Plex. In what way?
As far as I can tell Plex has many more plugins, more frequent releases, better support for Harmony remotes (which is important to me). I like Plex’s UI better too, but I some of the settings are definitely still hard to find, and they’re working on that.
If only it would support the GPU in the apple tv so that it can actually play any kind of HD signal. Boxee+Apple TV = NO HD (too slow), so pretty useless for 2009.
maybe its the apple tv that’s pretty much useless. get better hardware.
10minutes used, crashed and couldnt get on the network. Ouch, alpha indeed.
Had to ctrl+alt+delete kill it several times last night, so let’s hope I can get a video to load soon.
Like the UI though.