Sling to stream Apple TV to cellphones?

Sling Media is developing support for its Slingbox streaming hubs that would let them support the Apple TV, the company said late on Monday. A future update should give cellphones with SlingPlayer Mobile the ability not only to view an Apple TV's content streamed over the Internet but to control it as well by sending IR codes.

The combination of an Apple TV and Sling's device would allow not only the option of streaming media cached on the Apple hub's 40GB drive but media stored in iTunes on the host Mac or Windows PC, providing a rare opportunity to share a user's entire home media library with their cellphone. Specific release dates were unavailable but are expected soon while the Apple TV is in testing, Sling's Brian Jaquet said.

Though devised primarily by Sling he linkup between the Apple TV and Slingbox raises the possibility of Apple itself either incorporating Internet streaming into its TV set-top box or else adding an Internet media streaming feature into future versions of the iPhone, according to CNET's Erica Ogg.

The journalist also suggests that Apple might wish to add a completely in-house alternative to the Slingbox after the iPhone's June release that would let Apple's hub or iTunes-equipped computers stream directly to the new handset without requiring an intermediary device.

It "could really separate the iPhone from the pack," Ogg said.