“With the Apple iPad receiving its official UK launch tomorrow, much speculation has been cast as to whether the BBC iPlayer service will be made available for the year-defining tablet,” Johnson reports. “Despite BBC’s iPlayer service relying heavily on Flash… the BBC’s Director of Future Media and Technology, Erik Huggers, said: ‘We’re not wedded to Flash. Let’s be really clear about that.'”
MacDailyNews Take: Good, because neither are 100+ of us iPhone OS users, either; that number includes millions of UK license fee payers, too.
Johnson continues, “[Huggers said], ‘Having over 25 devices out there for the BBC iPlayer means we are quite flexible about the technologies we use to get our service out to consumers. Not all of our services are powered by Flash. The iPad is a very interesting device, the screen size is right, the battery life is right, and we will make iPlayer services available.'”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “TheMightyFinder” for the heads up.]
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Cue drum roll before the furore hits the fan as other Tv companies complain that the Beeb is overextending its remit by pushing the envelope to lengths they cannot compete with.
Wow, “100+ of us iPhone OS users”. That is a lot of users.
The title doesn’t really make sense. Flash isn’t an option for the iPad and the BBC never used it (not that they could) for the iPod/iPhone…so how could it have been “scrapped”?
They’re still using Flash, just not for the iPhone OS or other devices that can’t run Flash.
Still it’s good to see iPad development taking off internationally!
“Good, because neither are 100+ of us iPhone OS users,…”
100+? While technically accurate (there are more than a hundred iPhone OS users), that’s a very underwhelming way to put it. millions of iPhone
Nice, BBC. Shoot yourself in the foot on a loser product.
Silverlight is the way to go. It will kill Flash and the iPad.
</sarcasm>
So how come I can access iPlayer on my touch without using Flash?
It would be really nice if others, like ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5, ditched Flash.
=:~)
BBC player isn’t worth anything here in the US. It won’t play any of there media because you have to be in the UK to do so.
As for silverlight, it will only kill itself. Flash is dying and will be dead soon.
HTML 5 is the real open standard that will take over and will work with the iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch and everything else.
BBC always sounds like an interracial porn movie to me.
iPlayer has been working on iPhone for a couple of years now. No flash required.
It’s not even remotely surprising that it’ll work on the iPad.
Non-story.
Not a non-story, although not quite the story being made of it. iPlayer works on the iPhone/iPod touch so should work on the iPad. But a lot of BBC content on the main part of their website … news sport is still Flash and Flash only – although their “main headline” video feed is non-flash if you’re on the “mobile” version. Further deflashing would be appreciated.
To be fair t the other TV companies it is not long ago hat they started using Flash to make their output available on the Mac (channel 4 only last year) so being short of cash it will take time for them to produce it for the iPad/iPhone now that that medium is no longer is acceptable.