Justin.tv unveils non-broadcasting iPhone application

Popular live video streaming site Justin.tv today unveiled its much-anticipated new iPhone application, which is available in the app store now.

Upon launching the iPhone app, the user is taken to a featured list, an aggregated collection of the most popular broadcasting channels. The company notes that watching video and chatting are the app’s main functions. When watching a video, the lower right of the screen has a chat bubble which lets users chat with other users, both on the app and website. Other features include search, creating a favorites list and sharing. For new users who might not be familiar with Justin.tv, they can register from within the app.

Justin.tv says it already has future plans for the application. The first update will use push notifications to alert users when their favorite channels go live. More importantly, broadcasting will be added to the application. The company hopes that Apple announces a live video API so that it doesn’t have to use the current method of snapping individual screen-shots and loading them into video frames, which results in low quality.

Justin.tv’s most recent announcement included the simplification of it’s user interface for broadcasting – increasing the rate of creating video by over 700%.

While Justin.tv claims to be waiting for an Apple upgrade to its video API to launch broadcasting capabilities, competitors like UStream, also a live broadcasting site, have already launched an iPhone application with that feature. Without live broadcasting, the Justin.tv app is less exciting.