I can’t help but think that some of the stories about the BBC making the content from its iPlayer catch-up TV service available on the iPhone and iPod touch might be a little bit wide of the mark. For example, take The Register:
“iPlayer availability on the iPhone will be via Wi-Fi only as O2’s EDGE data network is too slow. However, the BBC has a deal with hotspot provider The Cloud to offer free access to bbc.co.uk and iPlayer.”
Actually, all iPhone users already have free WiFi access via The Cloud - it’s part of the deal you get with O2. And given that The Cloud has a deal which gives you free WiFi for a few quid a month, I don’t think the BBC is going to offer to make up that lost revenue. (UPDATE: See Jem’s comment below… although of course, it’s still kind of irrelevant to iPhone users…)
Incidentally, the original story about this seems to be the one written by Mark Sweney for The Guardian. in which it’s pretty much an aside at the bottom of the story. There’s no link to any release from the BBC, and no indication of where or when exactly the statement was made - or, for that matter, who made it.
Because there’s so little context given, it’s actually almost impossible to get a handle on what this story means, or what is actually happening. It could mean that the BBC is developing an iPlayer application which uses the forthcoming SDK. It could, however, simply be a slightly confused reference to the release by BBC Worldwide of shows on iTunes.
And, perhaps most irritatingly of all, there’s no direct email address listed for Mark, so I can’t actually ask him. Of course, I could probably just guess it - but that’s hardly radical transparency, is it?