BBC Snubs Mac Users (again)

Jim Campbell · Oct 16, 2007

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7045123.stm

I know that this has just come up in another thread, but I don't think that it deserves to be tagged onto the end of an existing thread where it might not be so widely seen.

"But Mr Highfield said the BBC had not committed to offering the iPlayer to Mac and Linux users who want to download and keep content on their machines for a limited period.

He said: "We need to get the streaming service up and look at the ratio of consumption between the services and then we need to look long and hard at whether we build a download service for Mac and Linux"

Then there is the seemingly arbitrary insertion of this sentence:

"Flash is one of the driving forces of online video, with millions of programmes and clips using the format every day to deliver content over the web."

... Which kind of comes out of the blue and seems to serve little purpose beyond the implied second half, along the lines of "So take your iPhone and f*** off."

I think we should be making more of a fuss about this, people.

(And this time, I'm not joking.)

Cheers

Jim

Mord · Oct 16, 2007

All this just motivates me to torrent things more often.

Blue Velvet · Oct 16, 2007

Don't know about Linux but surely Apple and Fairplay have something to do with this?

Shaduu · Oct 16, 2007

And if you'd read on, you would've seen this:

At the end of the year users of Windows, Mac or Linux machines will be able to watch streamed versions of their favourite TV programmes inside a web browser, as well as share the video with friends and embed programmes on their own websites, sites such as Facebook and blogs.

Okay, yes it's streaming, and yes it's not the iPlayer as such but the end of the year is only two months away, it's not that bad. I mean, any media has to be better than none I s'pose.

xUKHCx · Oct 16, 2007

Only stream though, windows users can download. Totally forgot about this service, i even have the iplayer installed on my BC partition.

Schtumple · Oct 16, 2007

They say this, whilst the BBC is or actually already has switched to using Final Cut Pro, good work...

northernmunky · Oct 16, 2007

Blue Velvet said: ↑

Don't know about Linux but surely Apple and Fairplay have something to do with this?
Click to expand...

From what I understand the BBC is slow on this because Apple wont licence out the Fairplay code and no other form of DRM exists that meets their requirements. So as much as I'd love to have a good winge at the Beeb... Apple has to get a share of my rage too!

mcmadhatter · Oct 18, 2007

surely if it is streamable on a mac , then they will have some "unscrupluous" mac users ripping the streams? , mind you I guess bittorrent would be easier than that

scotthayes · Oct 18, 2007

looks like it's all down to cost. Well as a TV licence payer, I don't care about the cost. Divert some of the money spent on crap like Eastenders.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7047381.stm

Markleshark · Oct 18, 2007

Thank the lord for torrents. If I we're ever to feel bad about torrenting stuff I miss, the BBCs incompetence in offering me a service would make me feel better.

Apple, in a rather round about way, come through for me again.

AlexisV · Oct 18, 2007

It doesn't even support Vista, let alone OS X!

You can get torrents anyway.

arkitect · Oct 18, 2007

Mind you with all the problems at the BBC right now I think we're not going to be getting any good news anytime soon.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7050440.stm

OllyW · Oct 18, 2007

Jim Campbell said: ↑

Then there is the seemingly arbitrary insertion of this sentence:

"Flash is one of the driving forces of online video, with millions of programmes and clips using the format every day to deliver content over the web."

... Which kind of comes out of the blue and seems to serve little purpose beyond the implied second half, along the lines of "So take your iPhone and f*** off."
Click to expand...

Why is the fault of the BBC if the iPhone doesn't play Flash.

Queso · Oct 18, 2007

Just do the Activity Window thing in Safari like you can with YouTube. Perian plays locally stored Flash video quite happily.

Jim Campbell · Oct 19, 2007

OllyW said: ↑

Why is the fault of the BBC if the iPhone doesn't play Flash.
Click to expand...

I didn't say it was ... I said that due to the way the article is constructed, a random justification for the use of Flash is just shoehorned in there, and in context reads like a bit of a rebuff to the iPhone.

The BBC is becoming rather good at this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6968291.stm

"Unlike the BBC, Apple will charge iTunes customers £1.89 per episode for their favourite shows."

A splendidly misleading statement, since it omits the necessary second half: "And ... unlike the BBC, Apple is not paid a levy by every TV owner in the UK who have, therefore, already paid for the BBC shows once."

I also notice in this article:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7048463.stm

They have at least amended one statement. If you think that this is a somewhat underwhelming summation of Time Machine's capabilities:

"Apple said it had more than 300 new features onboard including one named "Time Machine" that automatically backs up important files."

That sentence previously read "Time Machine, which allows a computer to be restored to a previous state" ...

Now, I'm actually very pro-BBC as an institution, but its buddying up with Microsoft seems to go hand in hand with quite an aggressively negative attitude to Apple.

Bah.

Jim

dranakin · Oct 19, 2007

On a related note...I've been waiting for a BBC Desktop Alert Mac version. I've seen it in action on Windows, and its awesome. Oddly, this page says "A Mac version will be available later this year" but its been saying that for a long while now.

scotthayes · Oct 19, 2007

dranakin said: ↑

Oddly, this page says "A Mac version will be available later this year" but its been saying that for a long while now.
Click to expand...

As that page was put up over a year ago, I wouldn't hold out to much hope for a Mac version

"<meta name="keywords" content="BBC, News, BBC News, news online, world, uk, international, foreign, british, online, service" />
<meta name="OriginalPublicationDate" content="2006/06/09 08:12:08" />"

BBC Snubs Mac Users (again)

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