The latest version of my favorite Bittorrent client uTorrent has a pretty cool new feature: iOS support. And while that doesn’t mean uTorrent’s coming to the App Store, it does mean you have a new and easy way to sync torrented content with your iPhone or iPad.
Although uTorrent’s new iOS support doesn’t allow you to torrent on your iPhone, it does mean that after you’ve used the desktop version of uTorrent to download a movie, the new 3.1 Alpha will convert that file to the best format for your device: MP4s.
Sadly, this functionality has only come to uTorrent’s Windows Alpha build right now, and apparently, its inclusion in the Alpha was an error: instead, this functionality will be rolled out to uTorrent in the future as part of a for-pay, premium version of uTorrent called uTorrent Plus.
That’s disappointing. uTorrent is famous for its minimalism, and as much as I like the idea of on-the-fly converting of torrents into iOS appropriate files, the idea of it being a paid upgrade really seems to me to be losing the plot.
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
23 responses to “Latest uTorrent Alpha Has iOS Support… But For Not Long”
utorrent is a bit of a UI nightmare, but it’s probably one of the best functioning clients out there. Â I hope they fix the screen redraw issues on Lion with this release also. Â
Handbrake is a much better, more efficient, faster and more reliable way to turn the movie into something iTunes likes though.
Why not just get the Azul app. This plays any file anyways
No need to convert.
Just use something like CineXPlayer on iPad to play avi, etc. files.
the moment an app like this splits off into a paid and non-paid version is the moment i look for another app. This is just the start. they’ll add more features and the best stuff will cost money. as i recall, i had no problems with transmission and am more than willing to go back.
I use the AirVideo App. It’s easily the best 2.99 I’ve spent in many moons. I have uTorrent download into a folder AirVideo server is directed to. Then, from my iPhone or iPad I can live convert all types of files (avi, mkv, mov, mp4, m4v, wmv etc), even over 3G. Â
With the new feature in uTorrent to auto clean up a torrent file and auto download, coupled with AirVideo. I see no need for uTrorrent Plus.
Oh, and the cherry on top is AirVideo has AirPlay built in…
Transmission works great and has a couple of features I like that uTorrent does not. It is not bloated either, so I feel no need for the minimalism of uTorrent.
Or VLC if you where able to grab it while it was still on the Appstore (or you are jailbreak as it’s available in Cydia), works great.
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To those of you talking about there being “no need to convert” you’re kinda missing the point. Â Lots of folks actually like to keep the video around after watching it and lots of folks actually *like* iTunes and like keeping all their video there. Â
If you don’t care about the video or you’re going to delete it later, or you are a Windows user that hates iTunes then fine … no need to convert. Â If you are an Apple user and like to use iTunes though, then conversion is necessary isn’t it? Â
This is “CultofMac” after all, not “WindowsUsersWithiPads”
You might want to check the title of this article….
Best combo is transmission & handbrake
I only own Mac’s. I also have a variety of movie formats. What is the point of converting if I dont have to?Â
Once IOS5 hits I will want to avoid plugging my phone into my Mac as much as possible. I dont want to sync my movies using iTunes, especially after I have spent time converting them. Two extra steps that are eliminated by a simple App that live converts.Â
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