{"id":9913,"date":"2011-02-09T13:35:18","date_gmt":"2011-02-09T13:35:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gadgets.itwriting.com\/?p=85"},"modified":"2011-02-09T13:35:18","modified_gmt":"2011-02-09T13:35:18","slug":"dear-bbc-please-give-us-mobile-apps-for-offline-viewing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/9913-dear-bbc-please-give-us-mobile-apps-for-offline-viewing.html","title":{"rendered":"Dear BBC: please give us mobile apps for offline viewing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The BBC has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/blogs\/bbcinternet\/2011\/02\/bbc_iplayer_apps_coming_soon_t.html\" target=\"_blank\">announced apps<\/a> for Android and iPad, sparking a bad-tempered discussion (see the comments) in which users complain about two things:<\/p>\n<p>1. The requirement for Flash 10.1 or higher on Android, which limits it to Android 2.2<\/p>\n<p>2. The fact that catch-up viewing is only available on-demand, as on the Web, and not for offline viewing.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/gadgets.itwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/image.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px\" title=\"image\" border=\"0\" alt=\"image\" src=\"http:\/\/gadgets.itwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/image_thumb.png\" width=\"191\" height=\"244\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Both are interesting points, but to my mind the first is the biggest deal. As one of the commenters observes:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>As people have pointed out you can use the web interface to watch so using up valuable memory on a phone for an app that does the same thing essentially is not very useful!<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>By contrast, the ability to download two or three programmes for viewing on the train or plane would be a huge feature. Downloaded video is also more robust even when you are online, thanks to the variability of typical wifi or 3G connections.<\/p>\n<p>Storage is an issue, but not such a bad one now that cards with 16GB or more are commonplace. My HTC Desire currently has 14GB free on the storage card \u2013 plenty for a few videos in quality suitable for a tiny screen.<\/p>\n<p>Apple\u2019s devices do not support add-on storage cards, but even the cheapest iPhone 4 has 16GB of storage, as does the iPad.<\/p>\n<p>Failing that, I would rather see the BBC invest in optimising its web site for mobile, rather than creating apps that add little value. See my earlier post, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/2255-why-i-dont-want-to-view-bbc-co-uk-through-an-app.html\" target=\"_blank\">Why I don\u2019t want to view bbc.co.uk through an app<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><p>Too much to ask? The BBC\u2019s Nick Reynolds promises a follow-up post next week, so perhaps we will discover then.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The BBC has announced apps for Android and iPad, sparking a bad-tempered discussion (see the comments) in which users complain about two things: 1. The requirement for Flash 10.1 or higher on Android, which limits it to Android 2.2 2. The fact that catch-up viewing is only available on-demand, as on the Web, and not &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/9913-dear-bbc-please-give-us-mobile-apps-for-offline-viewing.html\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Dear BBC: please give us mobile apps for offline viewing<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,1155],"tags":[143,158,195,394,500,501,599],"class_list":["post-9913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mobile","category-video","tag-android","tag-apple","tag-bbc","tag-flash","tag-ipad","tag-iphone","tag-mobile"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9913\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}