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How can we get something done about BBC iPlayer? (alien.top)

submitted 10 months ago by MrModius@alien.top to c/apple@hardware.watch

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The iPlayer app is still absolute dogshit on Apple TV. No UHD programs, no season selection, no subtitle support (which is insane for a supposed organisation that champions inclusivisty), still no redesigned app which launched on all other platforms I can think of over two years ago...

When I've got in touch with the BBC to complain about the lack of subtitling in the past they have just said "it's too difficult" and panned me off, even though literally every other app including 'BritBox' which is partially owned by the BBC has them.

So I'm just wondering (especially with Doctor Who back on Saturday, and next year) if there is anything more I/we can be doing to get this sorted?

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[–] -King-Nothing-81@alien.top 1 points 10 months ago (19 children)

Over at avforums.com I've heard a while ago that a user was told by the BBC tech support that the app has all those limitations because of the lack of "MPEG-DASH" support on Apple TV.

So the solution would be that the BBC does some extra work to find workarounds for Apple TV or Apple would have to add support for "MPEG-DASH" in tvOS. I don't think any of this will happen.

I think this is similiar to Netflix not supporting interactive content on Apple TV because they say there is no support for "seamless branching". Or Spotify not rolling out their new "TV experience" to Apple TV because they can't use the same cross-platform code.

So to me it seems that we can also thank Apple for the state of some apps. Not supporting some standards and technologies in tvOS that are supported on many other devices. And I think it's understandable that some app providers don't want to do time and cost intensive extra work for the Apple TV device that has a relatively low market share.

[–] music3k@alien.top 1 points 10 months ago (12 children)

I think this is similiar to Netflix not supporting interactive content on Apple TV because they say there is no support for "seamless branching". Or Spotify not rolling out their new "TV experience" to Apple TV because they can't use the same cross-platform code.

I dont know the story behind BBC, but these two do not work properly by choice of those companies. They compete with Apple with Apple Music and TV+, so the higher ups refuse to allow this support to work properly on AppleTVs. Its dumb.

[–] -King-Nothing-81@alien.top 1 points 10 months ago (7 children)

I could imagine that Amazon is making the Prime app on other devices bad by intention. Because they want that people use their services on their own Fire TV devices. But neither Netflix nor Spotify have their own hardware. And both have already stopped offering their subscriptions over Apple's AppStore. So if they provide an app for Apple TV, why should they have an interest in making the experience less good than on other devices? Instead of just ignoring Apple TV completely?

So personally I still think that those apps would be in a better shape if the developers could just use the same cross-platform code on ATV. Nowadays many apps are basically just dynamic webpages. But as far as I know Apple doesn't allow WebView on ATV. So developers would have to write workarounds or use wrappers to do things on ATV. So to me it seems that tvOS is just not a very developer friendly platform in this regard. But maybe a developer following this might want to comment on this.

[–] Grand-Economics-5956@alien.top 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Amazon won’t care about hardware; I doubt they make any money on it, really it’s a means to an end, that end being subscription services.

I would think Amazon would actually like the idea of taking subscribers away from Apple on their own hardware so there is an incentive for them to make the app as good as possible.

Apple has a history of questionable decisions around widely accepted standards!

[–] -King-Nothing-81@alien.top 1 points 10 months ago

I agree about Apple making some questionable decisions. If it wasn’t about having proper “frame rate matching“ across all major streaming apps, I think I would not own an Apple TV.

And of course Amazon doesn’t care about selling hardware. They want you to use a FireTV device to be able to force you to watch more and more ads.

https://www.aftvnews.com/fire-tvs-now-autoplay-full-screen-video-ads-when-waking-up-and-what-you-can-do-about-it/

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