Qik Finally Brings Its Live Video Streaming To Blackberry

Qik, a startup that allows you to stream live video to the web directly from your phone, has launched support for RIM's incredibly popular Blackberry platform. The software is currently available in an alpha state (so don't be surprised if you encounter bugs), and includes support for the Blackberry Bold and Pearl (other phones, like the Flip and Curve, will be available in a later release that the company expects soon).

This brings Qik to a much broader platform, and also helps cement Qik's lead in terms of device support well ahead of competitors Kyte and Flixwagon, neither of which support Blackberry. However, Qik will have another competitor on the Blackberry platform: today's news comes hot on the heels (and may have been prompted by) the launch last week of Next2Friends, the first streaming video application that supported Blackberries.

Two weeks ago Qik also launched alpha support for the J2ME platform, which is found on a wide variety of phones.

Unfortunately there's still no word on when Qik will finally makes its way to the iPhone (it runs well under jailbroken phones, but isn't yet available through the app store). At this point this isn't because of technical difficulties (Qik has a version working for distribution through the iPhone's ad-hoc beta service) - it's a question of whether Apple will allow the app on its store. There haven't yet been any applications that support video using the iPhone's built-in camera, but it's unclear if Apple has a broad ban on such apps or if it simply hasn't come across any video applications that passed muster.