We are hearing from sources that the SlingPlayer for iPhone might have been rejected by Apple despite the fact that it conforms to all of the requirements by Apple for release. Apple itself has rejected the product for release based on a request from AT&T, if sources are to be believed.

The reason, according to sources, stems from the fact that AT&T believes that it will just consume too much bandwidth. We find this kind of logic to be suspect, as the SlingPlayer has been around for other wireless devices. While the iPhone has a much larger release, we are surprised that AT&T would try to block the release of the application.

Despite the fact that the Sling folks are saying that they don’t have a final word from Apple yet on acceptance of the SlingPlayer for iPhone, our sources suggest that the decision has been made and Sling is, in fact, buying time to see how they want to spin the rejection of the SlingPlayer for iPhone.

At this point we are not sure what to think, but we do believe that it is unlikely that AT&T would try to get Apple to block the release of the application. We will have to see how this plays out, but we think the SlingPlayer has a good future on the iPhone and the sales of the Sling boxes are still relatively small when compared with other means of getting streaming video to the iPhone; so we don’t think it is AT&T blocking the release of the SlingPlayer for the iPhone.