Many have been quick to point on the irony (iRony?) inherent in the naming of the BBC’s Mac-incompatible on-demand service, Liberal Democrat MP John Pugh notwithstanding. – last week he issued a letter to BBC chief Mark Thompson, accusing him of indirectly supporting Microsoft, by making the release version of the iPlayer only available to Windows users running Internet Explorer.
In his letter, Pugh stated: “By guaranteeing full functionality to the products of one software vendor [the BBC] is as a public body handing a commercial advantage to that company - effectively illegal state aid!”
The iPlayer allows for would-be viewers to either download entire broadgrammes, or stream them from the iPlayer main site, much like the Listen Again radio service. Currently, users of non-Windows machines can access the streaming service, but as of yet are unable to enjoy downloads.
The BBC Trust outlined the provisional deadline for making downloads available to everyone was two years, which Pugh blasted as not being a “sufficient excuse for past sins or indeed much of an explanation”.
Edited: 16:39PM 22/01/08
Similar Posts:
melissa said on 22 Jan 2008 at 2:25 pm #
As much as I hate iPlayer, that’s not actually true - non-Windows users can access the streaming service from any browser. IE for Mac stopped being made and supported years ago (thank god!), and I can watch the streaming iPlayer just fine on Firefox, as it’s a Flash player.
fanta said on 22 Jan 2008 at 4:31 pm #
I’m a big fan of the iPlayer (except perhaps the name) and as Melissa said I can enjoy videos in Firefox on any platform. Except the iPhone of course
Hats off to the BBC for making this service available, even if it can be somewhat limiting.
bartlett said on 22 Jan 2008 at 4:37 pm #
Yeah, anyone can stream it sure.
Just that only Windows/PC users can access the download aspect of the service.
Tom said on 22 Jan 2008 at 4:42 pm #
“As much as I hate iPlayer, that’s not actually true”
Edited the offending sentence. It was meant to refer to the download service, only available to Windows types. Sorry for the confusion!
Yeah I agree with you about IE for Macs too :).