BBC iPlayer Comes To Nokia Through N96
By Rafat Ali - Sun 07 Sep 2008 09:10 PM PST
The BBC’s online video catchup service iPlayer, till now bandwidth-heavy enough to only be available on iPhone and iPod Touch through their WiFi capabilities (plus Wii, web, PC and Virgin Media), is now coming to Nokia’s (NYSE: NOK) upcoming N96 phone. The phone goes on sale in UK on October 1.
Users of N96 will be able to access the iPlayer service through Wi-Fi and 3G networks.... this will be enabled by downloading a software from BBC’s mobile site once launched. BBC’s iPlayer service allows UK users to watch all BBC shows on TV and radio, from the previous seven days.
BBC mobile controller Matthew Postgate writes: “The iPhone and iPod Touch gave us something to work with and we launched a beta for those devices earlier in the year. Some aspects of the experience were fantastic but there were still compromises. The Nokia N96 was always gong to be a contender, as we knew it would be optimised for video and audio ... It proved to be the first platform where we could fully realise the ambition that we had for mobile iPlayer. Naturally, we will want to introduce other devices as they become available - and we’re already working on the next group.
“It will be interesting to see how people use BBC iPlayer on mobile rather than over a set-top box or a computer. I think that the ratio of download to streams might be more, even compared to the PC; I also think that BBC radio programmes will perform well. No doubt there will be some surprises that we will be able to feed into the next version.”
Posted in: Companies, BBC, Mobile, Mobile Video
