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With Adobe’s Flash Player for Android currently in its final death throes, the BBC needs a new way of letting Android users access its Flash-based mobile video streams. Which is what the new BBC Media Player app is.
Install the app on your Android phone and it’ll redirect you to any of the BBC’s web sites that work with the new Media Player app, although, at the moment, that just means a link to the iPlayer site to stream videos using this new media manager rather than Adobe’s Flash Player.
The good news it the BBC says its new Android Media Player works with Android 4.1, although the app’s Play Store listing warns that updates are gradually filtering out to its site content, so you might see a few error messages when trying to actually use it to watch embedded videos on the Beeb today. [Play Store]
The BBC Launches a Dedicated iPlayer For Radio
The BBC's Media Player App Goes Jelly Bean
BBC Bringing iPlayer to Sky Boxes
Could Giz, using it’s media contacts, get an explanation for the fact that Android users have had to use flash and now this app to access media content when they could give us access to the same streams they make especially for iOS users. I have asked this question a number of time on various BBC sites and never been given an answer that was not bullshit and evasion.
Your avatar is still a Black Block Darrell, maybe you should use your Bane face?
I wondered if it was an animated gif and spent 20 minutes staring at it. I could swear I could see a face staring back at me after around 18 minutes.
Maybe it’s like today’s XKCD?
gravatar doesn’t support animated gifs.
Knowing that could’ve saved me 20 minutes.
A guy from the BBC said it is because of DRM (that’s why HTML5 like Youtube is a no-no). I presume the Apple tech is specific to that platform and DRM’ed up to the nostrils.
Well there used to be independent apps on the Android Market (when it was still called that) that used the iOS streams, so it wasn’t impossible to do. Unfortunately the BBC crushed them out of existence and forced flash on us.
And us WP7 owners are still waiting for any kind of iplayer app
Tough at the top, crowded at the bottom.
When your Avatar is ashes, you have my permission to die.
I’ve just had a thought, a fully integrated BBC World should be a feature on Amazon Kindle tablets.
Or, the BBC should make their own tablet device. Actually no, that would end up being terrible.
Oh, and you know when you’re not in good company when people start talking about avatars.
That’s usually my cue to get up and walk out of the room.
Bye then.
I prefer Aang over Korra any day..
I concur.
Anyone got the address of the website it points you to? Still trying to find it on my WP7 phone but it keeps saying I need flash
Oh thank goodness for that. I might actually bother using iPlayer now.
Seems to work OK, but there’s no option to download to local storage which I think you can do if you just hit up the iPlayer website itself. So somewhat pointless.
Droid users get subtitles? I’ve been kindly said to look forward for updates to get some on iOS. As a french speaker, I just sometimes feel like trying to understand Sean Connery and Bob Hoskins chatting in a crowded pub but this app sure rocks.
just tried it…hmmm…it tells me to install bbc nedia player(which is what i used to see the links…)