Popcorn Time, the app for Mac and jailbroken iOS devices that allows you to stream movie and television torrents from the cloud, has often been heralded as “Netflix for pirates,” thanks to its easy-to-use interface and huge selection of content. Turns out that’s enough for Netflix to consider Popcorn Time a direct competitor.
Yesterday, Amazon announced that they would begin streaming Amazon Prime movies in 4K Ultra HD, free of charge. This follows an announcement by Netflix in March that they would allow subscribers to stream 4K shows in Ultra HD for a small additional charge every month.
Of course, neither the iPhone, iPad, or the Apple TV support 4K video… but the new iMacs with Retina Display do. Yet despite this, Netflix and Amazon don’t actually stream 4K video to the Retina iMac. The best you can get is plain old 1080p.
What’s the deal? The same as it ever is. DRM.
Amazon will roll out a new, standalone video streaming service next year that won’t be bundled with a $99 Prime subscription, according to sources familiar with its plans. The retail giant hopes to take on rivals like Netflix and Hulu and undercut their prices in an effort to attract customers.
This week: Huge news in the fight for an open Internet; YouTube’s music service confuses us; Apple Pay is, like, the payment method of the future, man; big Black Friday deals on Apple’s newest gadgets; the go-to apps we keep on our home screens, and sooooo much more.
Hem and haw your way through each week’s best Apple stories! Stream or download new and past episodes of The CultCast now on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing on iTunes, or hit play below and let the chuckles begin.
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Show notes ahead!
Popcorn Time’s popularity has taken off this year by bringing BitTorrent streaming into the mainstream with a lineup of apps that let users watch nearly any new blockbuster they want for free with just the tap of a finger.
We published a hack that brings the popular Netflix-alternative to iOS 8 users for the first time ever without a jailbreak, but before diving into an endless buffet of the world’s most popular movies and TV shows, you might be wondering just where this magical software came from, and most importantly: can it be trusted?
After being available to the public for more than seven months, many aspects of Popcorn Time are still a mystery – like who’s actually building it – but, here’s everything you need to know about the hot new torrenting service:
Popcorn Time makes it ridiculously easy to “freely” stream almost any movie you want to your iOS device, but unless you have a jailbroken iOS device, actually getting it on the iPhone 6 is impossible, unless you know of a little loophole that allows you to install the banned app.
Adventurous iPhone owners can finally get Popcorn Time by utilizing the same time-hack loophole that allowed others to install Nintendo game emulators and other apps, no jailbreaking required. Popcorn Time isn’t strictly legal, but that’s not stopping thousands from pirating the app onto their iPhones and iPads by simply rolling back the clock on their device.
Here’s how to get ‘the Netflix of torrents’ on your iPhone right now:
Popcorn Time, the service that allows users to stream movie torrents, today makes its debut on iOS. It’s available only to jailbroken devices — there’s no way Apple would have approved it for the App Store — and it can be obtained through Cydia via a dedicated Popcorn Time repository.
Thousands of angry iPhone users have found an album they weren’t looking for: U2’s Songs of Innocence.
Instead of making the band’s mediocre new album an opt-in freebie, Apple jammed it down the throats of a half-billion iTunes Store customers, enraging some of the company’s most loyal fans. Whether they wanted the album or not, it’s now showing up as “purchased” in individuals’ iTunes libraries on their computers and phones.
When Tim Cook trotted out the Irish rockers for a limp finale to Tuesday’s big Apple Watch announcement, he called giving away the band’s new record “the largest album release of all time” — but now it looks like one of the dumbest.
I’m a huge fan of Popcorn Time, the Mac App that lets you stream torrents to your Mac and even (if you’re a Windows user) to your Apple TV.
The one thing Popcorn Time doesn’t have is an iPhone or iPad app. But that’s all about to change, and Popcorn Time for iOS could land within the next couple of days.
In some ways, this pick has already been made for us. As the previous page demonstrated, for a show that’s apparently about nothing, people sure do want to see Seinfeld make an appearance on Netflix. Although it did dip in quality after co-creator Larry David left, at its apex no other comedy can come close to matching the triumph of Seinfeld. Hopefully Jerry is right, and this will find its way to Netflix ASAP. With classic moments in virtually every episode, this show is the stuff binge-watching was invented for.
Binge watchers rejoice! Netflix has answered one the biggest complaints many have had for its Apple TV app.
Netflix has finally brought “Post-Play” to the Apple TV, a feature that automatically queues up and plays the next episode of a TV show while the current one ends. Post-Play has been present on the web, Netflix’s iOS app in the App Store, and many other platforms that offer Netflix for a long time. It’s finally on the Apple TV.
If you watch Netflix on your iOS device or game console, you know that the browsing function on those apps is a pain to use. And unless you know exactly what you’re looking for, it can be annoying to find something new.
So as a service, we’re going to recommend some things you can watch on Netflix right now. This time around, we have three fascinating documentaries about the horror genre. But even if you’re not a fan of scary monsters and super creeps, they still have plenty to offer.
Stroll into your local record store and you won’t find the dusty-floored wasteland of empty bins you might imagine. Chances are you’ll see something that’s more vibrant, relevant and vital than before.
Like the nerdy know-it-alls at specialty wine stores and comic book shops, today’s typical employee at an indie record store is still a tastemaking wizard — just turned up to 11. Staff picks bear the unerring zeal of the true believer, and staffers are more focused on uncovering stuff that you’ll never find on a Walmart CD shelf.
“Since there’s been a turn to Spotify, Bandcamp and iTunes, we sell way more vinyl,” said Jim Haynes, assistant manager at San Francisco’s Aquarius Records. “We’re at about 75 percent vinyl to 20 percent CD and a smattering of cassettes. People are turning to an even more seemingly obsolete medium.”
Predictions of the end of physical media are as played-out as those reports about the death of rock ‘n’ roll, with everyone and their mother proclaiming that Spotify and other streaming services have killed the local record store. That fear-mongering sounds smart and might even contain a kernel of truth, but the reality is much different.
Apple wants to deliver content directly to your iPhone, iPad or Mac and according to a report, it’s ramping up development of its own Content Delivery Network (CDN) to take make it happen.
Dan Rayburn at Streaming Media reports that Apple’s CDN plans are ramping up as the company has begun negotiations with the US’s largest ISPs to secure paid interconnection deals that would let Cupertino beam updates directly to your iPhone more efficiently than the third-party providers it currently uses.
Ashton Kutcher’s role as Steve Jobs didn’t exactly set the box office on fire when it was released last summer despite Kutcher deep diving into the former Apple CEO’s life.
If you’re one of the hundreds of millions of Americans who still hasn’t seen Jobs you can finally steam it for free on Netflix Instant.
Popcorn Time, the desktop app that acts as a Netflix for pirated content, has been resurrected by torrent site YTS.
Speaking with website TorrentFreak, YTS developer Jduncanato claimed that the (still legally dubious) service is in a better position from a copyright position because it’s built on their API:
Twenty years ago, if someone had told us we’d be streaming our favorite shows from the internet legally, we would have scoffed at them and disregarded it, never mind how the speed of broadband internet has changed the way we live our everyday lives. Roll on to the last couple of years, where media streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu Plus have taken over and the days when we sat in front of the television flicking through 57 channels with nothing on are no more. Now there’s a whole host of entertainment right at the tap of a button, and we literally have to make no effort to leave our seats as these services take over our smartphones, tablets and electronic devices in a huge way.
But which service to pick? We’ve researched every possible choice out there, engaged in some elaborate hands-on testing, and narrowed down the extensive list to one reigning champion. If you look at the table below, it becomes fairly obvious that each media streaming service provider excels in some aspects but lags behind in others. By comparing each feature, it became much easier to narrow down the overall ultimate media service app.
This time on The CultCast: hipsters have beards installed; the mysterious life of Timothy Cook; exciting rumors around the new Jobs movie; Mavericks 10.9.2’s features and fixes; why you should install iOS 7.0.6 like, right now; Netflix pays off Comcast; and we’re too sexy for this podcast.
Laugh your way through each week’s best Apple stories! Stream or download new and past episodes of The CultCast now on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing on iTunes, or hit play below and let the audio adventure begin.
And thanks to Lynda.com for sponsoring this episode. Learn at your own pace from expert-taught video tutorials at Lynda.com.
This Cult of Mac Deals offer puts high-speed 4G LTE Internet access in the palm of your hand!
With the Freedom Spot MiFi you can take internet connectivity with you wherever you go – all at blazing fast LTE speed. Connect up to 10 of your mobile devices at once to surf, stream, game, and update with no restrictions. With speeds up to 25mbps, you can even stream HD videos from Netflix. And Cult of Mac Deals has this revolutionary device for only $199 for a limited time – including free shipping! Now, Sprint’s recent upgrade to Spark LTE, this device will be faster than ever.
Not many of us have 4K devices yet. A 4K Ultra HD TV would pack about 33 million pixels, more than six times the resolution of even the MacBook Pro with Retina Display.
Yet 4K is coming, and when it drops, Netflix CEO Reed Hasting doesn’t want his service to be caught with its pants down, saying during a recent earnings call that he hopes his company will be “one of the big suppliers” of 4K by the time it launches in 2014.
To make sure they’re ready for the crush of 4K Ultra HD TVs next year, Netflix is already streaming some 4K content.
Netflix 5 brings HD video and AirPlay to iPads running iOS 7. You may have thought you had HD video streaming to your retina iPad, but you didn’t. 5 fixes that, and it also lets you throw your TV shows and movies up onto your big screen via Apple TV with native AirPlay streaming.
The Netflix app for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch has been updated to bring high-definition video streaming to devices running iOS 7. The release also adds support for AirPlay, and some improvements and optimizations that make the app more stable under Apple’s latest software.
What’s better than HD? Super HD! And it’s coming to Netflix on your Apple TV and iOS device.
Amazon has added AirPlay support to its popular video streaming app – Amazon Instant Video. Starting today, the new feature allows iOS users to push video from their iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad to the Apple TV. Not quite as good as having an Amazon Instant Video channel on the Apple TV, but the move is sure to satisfy Amazon Prime users for the time being.
The update also includes more IMDB integration with cast info, ratings, trivia and quotes. Amazon also says the updated app is faster, more responsive and now supports concurrent downloads. There’s also a new “Customers who watched this also watched…” feature to help users discover more movies and spend more time and money on Amazon. The free update is available now in the App Store.
Source: iTunes
Thanks: Charles!
Apple has acquired Matcha, a second-screen video search and recommendation service that was recently closed, for a fee believed to be between $1 million and $1.5 million.
Matcha was previously available as an iOS app, and it allowed users to get an overview of everything they could watch on a variety of cable TV networks and video-streaming services. But the service was closed back in May as it focused on a new direction — one which will now be controlled by Apple.
