Audio and Video on the Web
In general, streaming audio and video on the iPhone is a bust. The iPhone doesn't recognize the Real or Windows Media file formats, and the initial version doesn't understand Flash. All of this means that the iPhone can't play the huge majority of online video and audio recordings. That's a crushing disappointment to news and sports junkies.
But the iPhone isn't utterly clueless about streaming online goodies. It can play some QuickTime movies, like movie trailers, as long as they've been encoded (prepared) in certain formats (like H.264).
It can also play MP3 audio files right off the Web. That can be extremely handy for people who like to know what's going on in the world, because many European news agencies offer streaming MP3 versions of their news broadcasts. Here are a few worth bookmarking:
BBC News. You can find five-minute news bulletins here. www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/newssummary.shtml
Deutsche Welle. English-language news, sports, arts, and talk from Germany. www.dw-world.de/dw/0,2142,4703,00.html
Radio France. English-language broadcasts from France. www.rfi.fr/langues/statiques/rfi_anglais.asp
Voice of America. The official external radio broadcast of the U.S. government. www.voanews.com/english/
Actually, any old MP3 files play fine right in Safari. If you've already played through your four or eight gigabytes of music from your computer, ...
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