Qik: Yet another brilliant service crippled on iPhone

Mobile video streaming site Qik, which was introduced last year is leading the charge into the next generation of the Web. Think of it as a real-time YouTube where a user's mobile phone is paired with an online channel that broadcasts live video streamed from his handset camera over 3G. The service's value for citizen journalism is undeniable.

Symbian, Windows Mobile, and Android all have the ability to stream live video to Qik, and the iPhone 3G S just got an app for the service for the first time yesterday.

Unfortunately, as we've seen with many of the most groundbreaking new apps, the iPhone's version provides none of the groundbreaking features.

Qik's Director of Marketing, Jackie Danicki said last night, "For now, this is a capture and upload app -- not the low latency live video you've become used to with Qik. And for today, this app only works over Wi-Fi. But we've submitted an update to the App Store which will have it working over 3G networks, too."

So the service which is noteworthy for streaming live video over 3G networks has come to the iPhone with no live streaming and no 3G connectivity. This places Qik in the ranks of most of Google's services which have to be tailored to fit the iPhone, or which have been rejected entirely.