14 DAY TRIAL // Popcorn Time is slowly making its way to more and more devices, including to iOS.
Known as the “Netflix for Pirates,” Popcorn Time is slowly growing in popularity around the world, surely exasperating copyright owners. Moving from desktop to mobile is the next big move for the service, even though it’s a small step so far.
That’s because Popcorn Time isn’t exactly available for download in the iTunes store, or even for most iOS users. More specifically, the Popcorn Time fork is now installable on a jailbreak version of iOS.
The app has already rolled out an Android version, as well as Chromecast and Apple TV support, but this time around it’s iOS that’s targeted. The first release requires a jailbreak and can be accessed through the Cydia platform.
TorrentFreak spoke with the time4popcorn.eu developers who say they’re also working on a version of the app that works with non-jailbroken devices, but it’s going to take a little bit longer.
“After only 5.5 months, Popcorn Time is available on all major platforms! And this is only the beginning. Our future plans are huge,” the team behind the project said.
Even though the app is working, there are several features that have gone missing, such as the possibility to cast content via Chromecast, or the Apple TV support, or even the built-in VPN that’s giving Hollywood nightmares.
Some features are missing
However, the standard functionality of the tool is working just fine, so for those that aren’t afraid of the watchful eyes of piracy trackers, things should be ok.
The iOS source code has been released under a GPL V3 license, which means that others will be able to chip in and improve the app if they want to. Work will continue to improve the code, but it’s going to take a little more time.
If you don’t know about Popcorn Time already, then you should know it’s a Bittorrent based tool that instead of downloading the movies as a Bittorrent client would, it streams them to your computer. The way its interface is built has earned it the name of “Netflix for pirates.”
People can choose to search through movies and TV shows and can even filter the content by genre, to make things easier. There’s also a search box to help things along and users can select subtitles once the streaming begins, they can make the window full screen and all other features that you can expect from a media player.
[Update] Time4pocorn had to drop the site due to some legal issues and has moved to popcorn-time.se. You can read more about this here.