The BBC and Apple are getting closer and closer with each other as each day passes, so much so that the wife of BBC Director-General, Mark Thompson, is bound to be getting sick of the smell of Steve Jobs’ Apple flavoured lip gloss off him when he comes home at night. Recently, Apple and the BBC seem to have been inseparable. First the BBC announced that its TV programs were to be available for download via the iTunes service and now they have announced that BBC iPlayer service is going to be available through the iPhone and iPod Touch in the next few weeks.

Personally i don’t really see the point in the whole BBC/iTunes service, well, from a consumer point of view anyway. If you have missed your favourite TV program on BBC 1, the chances are that it is going to be on, on BBC Three or something either later that night or the next day and most probably all throughout the course of the week. Even then, if your life is too hectic to catch it second or third time around, it’s available on BBC iPlayer for the next 7 days sitting there waiting to be downloaded anytime you see fit. At £1.89 an episode from iTunes, I’m not sure the likes of Robin Hood and Torchwood are even worth the hassle.

The iPlayer service being available on the iPhone on the other hand, that i am in favour of. I am a big fan of BBC iPlayer as are a lot of other people judging by the 2.2M people who used the service in January alone. I find it particularly useful for the stuff i miss at weekends when i am out dancing, such as Friday Night With Jonathan Ross (Yes, i know!). Well instead of catching up with it on the PC, i can put it on my iPhone and watch it wherever i am, most likely public transport. You can never find enough stuff to keep you amused on a train or a bus! Catching up on missed TV makes much more sense while on the move.

I do have a concern with the download quality though. The iPhone’s speed is not exactly the greatest, also will i actually be able to download and store files in an iPlayer library on my phone or will it just be a more simple streaming system, that could mean disaster. I suppose for now we can only wait and see but as soon as i hear more you will be the first know.

Posted on February 25th, 2008 by fraser