BBC iPlayer is a great service, and its recent expansion in the mobile space is impressive, but the line-up has a gaping hole – the iPhone. The iPhone and iPod touch have been able to stream iPlayer content over WiFi for over a year now, and were in fact the first mobile devices to support iPlayer at all. But you can’t download programmes to your iPhone, and so you can’t watch them offline, which is a very large caveat. The issue has been addressed in blogs by people like Anthony Rose, saying:
Unfortunately, Apple keeps its DRM technology close to its chest and has so far not licensed that technology to third parties. This means that as of today, it’s not technically possible for us to make rights-protected BBC iPlayer programmes available for download from the bbc.co.uk/iplayer website in a format compatible with Apple devices.
He promised that the issue has the team’s full attention, which was reassuring. But here’s the problem – I think there’s an obvious solution, and I’ve not heard any progress to making it work. So consider this an open letter to the iPlayer team – here’s my ideas, please take them and run with them if you can, or if not, please engage with users as you’ve done in the past, and point out the flaws you find in my argument.
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Very few things irritate me more than people who have no idea what they’re talking about mouthing off on the web. And few things entertain me more than their arguments being ripped to pieces by people who have slightly more idea what they’re talking about. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for democracy and free speech and all that, but sometimes I just think people should find out what the hell they’re on about.
The BBC’s iPlayer is a very emotive topic on the web it seems, and in particular the original Windows-only download version. SMPPMS says on the iPlayer forum:
The BBC has rightly been criticised for spending £130 million for developing the download version of the iPlayer which is tied into Microsoft’s Windows Media Player which restricted to Windows Operating systems only. This had very rightly received widespread criticism from the public
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I’ve recently gone from being an occasional reader to an avid follower of the BBC’s Internet Blog. It’s written by some of the senior people in my devision (Future Media & Technology), though it’s about the BBC’s web presence, not something I work on. It can provide fascinating insights into some of the work that goes on behind bbc.co.uk, iPlayer and more. If you’ve got even a vague interest in both technology and the BBC, it’s well worth a look.
Today’s post by Ashley Highfield sent me on a chain of links which made my blood boil. The Telegraph have recently published a few articles about the cost of online TV. It’s an issue which is large in the minds of the BBC, as ISPs’ concern grows about increasing internet bandwidth usage due to the growth of online video. iPlayer has contributed heavily due to its success. Read the rest of this entry »
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