Finally — Boxee software users will be getting some love. It seemed for awhile there that all the attention was being showered on people who owned the actual Boxee Box hardware.
The online content streaming program offered an extremely novel and fresh interface back in 2007, when Boxee debuted. It allowed users to navigate and access their different streams and subscriptions via keyboard or remote control. At first available as a software download for Mac,PC and Linux users, the company eventually moved on to focus all of its attention on the D-linkBoxee Box (no doubt, to keep its stature as new competitors surfaced, like Google TV, Apple TVand Roku).
In his blog post, top Boxee boss Avner Ronan explains that the Box (which was rewritten on a totally new platform) needed extreme focus at first — which, admittedly, could have made software users feel a little left out. But now, the company will be picking the software-only version back up for development, and a new long-awaited update is scheduled for the fall. Says Ronan:
We are going to release an update for the downloadable version this fall, and hope to keep it more up to speed with the CE version going forward. We also hope to make the open source version of the downloadable version easier to use for people who want to build out their own versions of Boxee.
Unfortunately, Ronan also says that the downloadable software will lag behind the functionality in the Boxee Box version. Even so, long-time software fans should be thrilled about this.
Given what they've gone through with so little attention and the on-again, off-again Hulu access, this will be welcome news. Not as much as striking a deal so Hulu (or even Hulu Plus) will work reliably on there someday, but it's definitely a step in the right direction.
For more info on the Boxee Box, hit up TechnoBuffalo's full review.
[via Boxee Team Blog]
