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Rush Limbaugh, the iPhone App

by Rush Limbaugh - Dec 21,2010

RUSH: We built the glitches in for version 1.0 so we could show improvement real fast. Yeah, it’s smart marketing. You put glitches in there and fix ’em, and then you go to version 1.1. He-he-he-he-he.

Hey, folks, it’s Rush Limbaugh, and this the Excellence in Broadcasting Network, and this is our last program — well, mine — of the year. And so we’re gonna do Open Line Friday on Tuesday today. Snerdley is doing two hours and you’re gonna catch a plane? Yeah. Snerdley’s gonna go up to New York, is gonna screen for Steyn tomorrow up in New York. H.R. will be doing the last hour of screening today, but it’s Open Line Friday on Tuesday. Telephone number is 800-282-2882. And the e-mail address, ElRushbo@eibnet.com.

I’ve been wanting to tell you about this for the last couple of weeks, but we weren’t ready to release it because it was perfect and you never want to release anything perfect so we had to build in a couple glitches, but our iPhone app is now up and running and free for all of you who are subscribers at Rush 24/7. It’s in the Apple app store, the iPhone app store under Rush Limbaugh, and right now you can live stream today’s Dittocam, any live stream during the program, stream it right to your iPhone or your iPad. Now, here’s the glitch. Right now it’s just an iPhone app but we have built in retina code so if you use it on your iPad hit the 2X button after the video starts and it will expand to fill the iPad screen without any loss of resolution on the video that’s streamed. There will be some loss of resolution on the graphics, but you’re not getting this for the graphics, you’re getting this for the audio and the video. And the 2X button, this is the glitch, the 2X button — we built this in — the 2X button will not work until after you start the video.

This is on your iPad. If you sit there and punch that 2X button and nothing happens like I did, they said, ‘Yeah, well, we built that in so we have something we can improve pretty quick, version 1.1.’ So it’s not 24/7, it’s not Dittocam, it’s just listed at Rush Limbaugh in the app store. It’s up and running and it’s our first version. It is designed exclusively for the Rush 24/7 subscriber. It is free to everybody, but if you’re not a subscriber it won’t do you any good. You won’t be able to get any content on it. You have to be a subscriber. Those who already are subscribers or those waiting for this compelling reason to become one, here’s what the app features. You can watch the program live on the Dittocam from your iPhone or iPad. Remember, if you do it on the iPad, hit the 2X button after the video stream starts and it will expand. You’ll be able to see the Morning Update every day that it is provided in the morning. Actually, the Morning Update goes up 30 minutes, 45 minutes after the program. It’s the morning radio commentary that airs on all of our radio stations, but we do it in video as well, and that will be viewable on the app.

You’ll be able to see a transcript of each program so that the words will live on not in ether, but you’ll be able to actually read the wisdom that you have heard on this program. You will be able to see the program on a delayed and archived basis in a video feed available, meaning all the past Morning Updates, all of the past radio programs. There are a lot of other video features, such as we got a couple of Haney Project promos that are up, some of my TV show audio from back in the nineties, my appearance with Tim Russert and Tom Brokaw on election night coverage in 2002, and this also has a list of all of our stations, all of our affiliates constantly updated, so if you’re traveling from home and looking for a different EIB affiliate, the app will have that for you, and you can also e-mail me with the special Rush 24/7 e-mail access. Every listener can download the app now, become a member of Rush 24/7 once the app is downloaded, become a member from the app, or you can do it at Rush 24/7 on our website on the computer.

It looks good. We put it through its paces last night. That’s how I discovered the built-in glitch, basically the 2X glitch. There also are a couple of times, depending on what video source you hit, you’ll get a dialogue box message saying that the network is busy or some such thing. That is also a glitch that we’re working on. We monitor this thing constantly. We’ll be taking care of these little things, like I say version 1.0, and we’ve been hustling. We wanted to get this thing out before the election, and we’ve never had any problem streaming the video, we haven’t had any problem with the mechanics of it, the challenge for us was to have the app properly recognize subscribers and we have a bunch different kinds, we’ve got monthly, we have yearly, we have multi-yearly, and so forth and to have the app be able to properly identify every subscriber was a lot of code, and that’s what took the time. The actual code to distribute the video was challenging because you can’t use Flash. But it’s done.

So it’s available for one and all, and I’ve been excited about this because people have been e-mailing me ever since the iPad came out, ‘When can I get the Dittocam on the iPad?’ Well, the answer’s today. And Snerdley’s in there watching the program, what is it, about a 30-second delay would you guess? He’s watching the program stream live on his iPhone and it does look good, it’s high definition. It’s optimized for the iPhone retina display, we make sure that when you go 2X on the iPad that the video quality doesn’t lose a thing. It’s high definition all the way around. So now you’re not tied to your computer, and you’re not tied to your iPod. You can take your iPhone, your iPad wherever you are, listen to the program live, listen to it or watch it, what have you. So I guess I’m kind of committing now to using the Dittocam every day since we’ve done this. Well, there’s a price to pay for virtually everything. Now, the app is free, folks. It’s a Christmas present. You’ll be able to do everything on your iPhone and iPad that you can do on the computer right there in the palm of your hand. We’re very excited to have it.