That stalwart of British broadcasting, the BBC, has finally announced plans for a Mac client for their new online iPlayer media service. Earlier in the year, the BBC asked users how important it was that the service be available on non-Microsoft systems. The results were pretty resounding, apparently, since later they said they would re-engineer their client for both Mac and Linux compatibility.
Now they’ve added a little more specificity, promising delivery of a Flash-based client by the end of the year. But those looking for feature parity with the Windows offering will be disappointed: the first version of the client will provide only support for streaming video, and not allow users to download video and keep it on their machines.
[Ashley Highfield, the BBC’s director of Future Media and Technology] 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.”Well, somebody needs to do it, Mr. Highfield. And if the BBC doesn’t throw their hat in the ring, then they’re just writing off a substantial minority of the population. Hardly serving the public interest then, are we?
It's worth noting that the BBC Trust has told the BBC that NOT providing a download service for Linux and the Mac is not an option. Do it for one platform and you have to do it for all. So I believe that's Ashley Highfield's decision has been made for him. Isn't that nice?
Thats fine. Deliver in flash and rip to local disk using FLVR. In fact ideal as we can then add to iTunes and onto iPod. I will start to feel like I am getting value for money from my $200+ license fee.