Aljazeera Arabic is an iPhone application that allows you to watch Aljazeera TV live. It is a 24 hours live feed that is fully focused on the middle east news.
If you are an Arabic person, you probably watch Aljazeera TV either using a
satellite network
or some kind of a subscription to one of the cable companies
international TV
channels.
However, if you don't want to spend the extra money on additional international TV stations when you can get them for free. Then you will find
Aljazeera
Arabic for the iPhone very useful.
Aljazeera AJA is a free iPhone application from the App Store, and once installed, you will be able to either read it as a magazine or watch the news live in Arabic or English.
The quality of Aljazeera
Arabic TV
on the iPhone is very good, and it works on both
wifi
and 3G. Therefore, you can watch it anytime and anywhere.
Or you can connect a bluetooth headset and listen to Aljazeera Arabic while walking or you can even install an iPhone car mount and watch or listen to Aljazeera Arabic while driving.
The normal way of watching Arabic Aljazeera is by installing the free Arabic iPhone application from the App Store called AJA Live or AJE Live.
Once the AJA Live app is installed, you can start the TV on iPhone by tapping the big button at the bottom of the screen as shown below.
You can also start
aljazeera TV
by tapping the right button shown at the top, or you can switch to the
Aljazeera English
version by tapping the English button shown by the green circle above.
The iPhone video controls are the standard default iOS movie player controls, and it is just like playing any iPhone video application or any video using the Yourtube App.
However, there is another way of watching aljazeera Arabic without installing the iPhone application itself that is by starting the TV feed using the iPhone Safari or any third party iPhone web browser.
You can simply watch
Aljazeera TV
feed from Aljazeera website using iPhone safari or other iPhone browsers which works as an iPhone web application.
Once you open an iPhone browser and enter the aljazeera.net in the URL area, you will start an iPhone web app that allows you to browse Aljazeera site, and also allows you to watch aljazeera arabic live feed right from the iPhone browser.
Running Aljazeera TV arabic as an iPhone web app gives you the advantage of using some iPhone hacks to enhance the TV experience of watching aljazeera.
For example, you can create a shortcut that can be placed on the iPhone screen for quick access. That shortcut is just a link to aljazeera.net. It is similar to creating a bookmark in iPhone safari, but you would create an iPhone icon right on your home screen.
So, instead of downloading and running the Aljazeera AJA Live application from the App Store, you can simply tap the aljazeera iPhone icon from the home screen.
You will notice the difference between the AJA Live App and the iPhone web app using Safari or other iPhone browsers. You will see a big button at the bottom, which is a link to play aljazeera TV live using the standard iPhone movie player.
When you start watching Arabic
Aljazeera TV
using iPhone Safari or any third party iPhone browser you will be able to rotate the video to portrait and landscape, while running the AJA Live App from the App Store only allows Landscape.
Once you run aljazeera arabic using iPhone Safari, you can apply some iPhone system tricks and apply some iPhone Safari hacks to improve your TV on iPhone. For example, some of the problems you might find with many iPhone movie players applications is that you won't be able to multitask the
TV stations.
So, if you are watching TV on iPhone and want to read your iPhone mail, or open an iPhone Note, your
TV
will stop immediately until you flip back to the TV application. You simply can't watch an iPhone video while doing something else. The iOS assumes that you are finished watching the video and that is why you are switching to something else.
Of course, this is annoying sometimes because you might want to listen to the
TV station
but not necessarily want to watch it. So, you might want to read your iPhone mail or iPhone notes while still listening to Aljazeera TV audio without interruption.
Therefore, I found a work around that works for Aljazeera Arabic, and any iPhone application that plays video through iPhone safari or any iPhone web browser.
First you must have a jailbroken iPhone, and must install an iPhone hack called Multiflow which allows you to switch between running iPhone applications which works a little different than the built in iPhone Task Switcher. You must also have an iPhone hack called Backgrounder installed. Once you have those two iPhone hacks installed, you will be able to switch to your iPhone mail while Aljazeera TV is still running in the background. You must start Aljazeera from iPhone Safari or any iPhone browser as an iPhone web app as explained above in order to use this methods.
Using the native iOS multtasking function to switch to your email while Aljazeera arabic is running will not work. Aljazeera TV will stop immediately, and therefore, you must use the Multiflow task manager hack instead.
Here is a summary of what iPhone hacks you need to install from Cydia in order to be able to watch or listen to Aljazeera Arabic in the background:
1- Multiflow: Allows you to switch between running iPhone application similar to the default iOS 4 task switcher.
2-Backgrounder: Allows iPhone applications to stay running in the back ground bypassing the native multitasking feature of the iPhone and iPhone 4.
3-VideoLock: This is a $0.99 iPhone hack that allows your Youtube App and other iPhone movie players to remain playing when you turn off the iPhone screen or display. This is a very useful iPhone system trick that allows you to listen to Aljazeera without draining your iPhone battery by turning off the iPhone display. Normally without this iPhone hack, your video will immediately stop playing once your press the power button to turn off your iPhone display.