Samsung Takes on Apple Airplay with Movl Swipeit Connected TV App

written by: Richard Kastelein

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Published on Sunday, 08 January 2012 14:53

Theverge.com has done some investigating of Movl's latest Samsung foray with their new SwipeIt app - which makes it easy to share photos and videos from your mobile device on your Samsung Smart TV.

It's actually pretty neat — you "throw" content to the TV by swiping up on your smartphone screen — but the reason it's making waves is a rumor that Samsung will "announce" the app at CES 2012 as part of a broader strategy to compete with Apple's Airplay. That's strange enough, seeing as the app's been out for a week now and Samsung's DLNA-based AllShare system already competes with AirPlay, but a little more digging reveals that the rumor all seems to have started with a single blog post that claims Samsung is "pushing" the SwipeIt app to all 2011 Smart TVs. It's further fueled by Movl's liberal use of the Samsung name and logo, but nothing's verified yet — Movl told us they "worked closely" with Samsung on the app but wouldn't confirm anything beyond that. The company did tweet earlier tonight that it's working to add server capacity to deal with demand for SwipeIt, so it doesn't seem like it was especially prepared for Samsung to promote it — not exactly what you'd expect on the eve of a major announcement.

It's pretty simple according to the Android page description - you simply use your mobile device app to share content over WiFI with the TV. There is no complicated setup, just launch the app on your TV and then login from your mobile device with the TV Code and start sharing. Multiple people can share with the same TV at the same time!

Planned for future versions include:

1. Support to "share" pictures and videos from the built in Gallery, in addition to the one row browser in the app.
2. Support to select ranges of pictures or videos by date (month, etc) in addition to album name, in order to filter and make it easier to find the content you want.
3. Fast forward and rewind control for videos (right now it only supports pause and play, due to complications with the content player on the TV).

See here for more coverage of Movl at Appmarket.tv