Why no BBC iPlayer?

I personally feel there's a rather blinkered approach to AppleTV which is far too US centric.

In the US Netflix and TV Show Rentals may be worthwhile selling points but are not available for most international customers, which seriously detracts from it's international appeal as there are no localised services to make is preferable to many other devices other than itunes integration.

YouTube access on a device is old hat, even if it appeals.

Even in US many devices have Netflix access, so AppleTV does not do anything unique there.

The established players in the AV market all seem to be releasing their BluRay players/STBs with iPlayer access, YouTube etc, many TVs have these features built in so without competing features and a heavily itunes Store/iTunes centric model which many don't want to use, AppleTV will have a problem getting a foothold without something unique. Look at how many DVD/BluRay players simply offer USB playback of a variety of formats - average consumers like these features yet Apple won't allow you to directly connect a USB drive even if it were technically feasible.

The reality is there are probably far too many services like iPlayer/4od etc globally for Apple to support all of them individually unless they work via a common core web technology i.e HTML 5 as we won't see flash on AppleTV.

Apple presumably just does not have the resources currently in AppleTV development to target each country with tailor made video services.

So what does Apple have up it's sleeve?

Airplay could really open things up if you could stream iPlayer from your phone/iPad, but it still needs that portable device - given mass sales of iPhones/iPads it's a big potential market for AppleTV as an accessory.

Secondly the new AppleTV is iOS based so it will be feasible to allow all sorts of plugin apps that may be popular in different countries, but it would presumably rely on people like the BBC creating these plugins and would they do so to work on targetted devices - given that they did enable HTML5 based players and if we think of downloadable podcasts for many radio shows, it might happen.

I love my Apple TV. I do find it limited and I really want more. I understand Apple is in business trying to make money, but I won't be buying TV shows or movies I have Netflix. I wish they would offer more in terms of content. For now, I will get ANOTHER device and get the other content I'm looking for. Apple is a great company and they deliver great products, they can't and won't control everything!! I wish Apple and other companies would just learn to play with others in the sand!! When the next Apple TV comes out, I will think twice before purchasing it unless it has a LOT to offer. I still love Apple and I'm always excited to see what they are up to. To be honest, all of these companies are turning me off with their increasing greed, it just never ends! Let's see what the future holds!

SG

I'm pretty certain we'll see Apps on the Apple TV and that will allow international TV streams to come on board.

The iPlayer works on an iPhone, and the ATV is essentially the same platform.

But what Apple must concentrate on is getting the Apple TV to work correctly on wifi networks as it currently doesn't, as seen in the hundreds of posts to this forum.

Jonathan75 wrote:
The iPlayer works on an iPhone, and the ATV is essentially the same platform.

iplayer on the iphone is simply a website thought, and not a native app.

But what Apple must concentrate on is getting the Apple TV to work correctly on wifi networks as it currently doesn't, as seen in the hundreds of posts to this forum.

you may find that many of those issues are actually local network config issues, and not specifically device issues. it's hard for me (and you) to generalise though without reading every single unique instance of an issue (and you find a lot of people chime in with a "me too" comment when in reality their issues is nothing like the one originally posted).

I agree with most of the posts on this thread.

Apple TV looks interesting, even exciting - but it cries out for BBC iplayer, and the equivalents like SeeSaw and the itv player. Some of those use flash, but the BBC iplayer is enabled for iphone/ipad etc and if the demand were clear, then we'd see that happen more widely - but the new apple tv promises more than it can currently deliver and that is disappointing.