Eeyore

We haven't had any problems with the iPlayer - don't have Adobe AIR on the Mac mini that's connected to the TV, plus we don't download from the iPlayer, we only stream - but if the BBC wanted to block people using VPNs, they could do so very easily. It's simply a matter of ascertaining which IP ranges belong to VPN providers (and this is publicly-available information), and blocking any connections from those.

Hulu in the USA already does this, or at least it did the last time I tried using it (over a year ago now, admittedly). Fortunately WiTopia has enough alternative US gateways that I was able to keep trying different ones until I found one that worked, but there's no guarantee that they haven't subsequently blocked all of them.

rowell

Even with my VPN on and set to London I cannot get Netflix, so they can obviously tell exactly as you state above

scrubbedexpat141

iPlayer is working fine.

Trust me. 'The Paradise' doesn't buffer, stop, moan about bandwidth...anything. It just goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on.

rowell

You got finger cramp

scrubbedexpat141

copy + paste.

captainflack

Iplayer is a great idea, and has some fantastic technology, but sometimes their platform choices are nuts.

To put themselves dependent on Adobe like this so that updates can break it, that was a pretty bad decision.

Similarly, they developed their iOS code away from Adobe Flash, which isn't allowed on iOS, but cluelessly built the Android version on Flash. Flash is no longer supported on Android 4.1, and so again they've ended up having the rug pulled from them by Adobe. The Android app is now an absolute shonky half-assed job that could have been knocked up by an average dev in a couple of days. And probably was.

There is a widespread belief that BBC suits are all called Nigel or Jeremy and all carry shiny Apple gear so don't really care that the vast majority of mobile users are on Android. Given the fact that they've put huge effort into creating a native platform with digital rights management on iOS and then just used an off-the-shelf package for Android does rather give that impression.

Still, since I don't pay a license fee, I can't really complain. But it's hardly surprising that people just end up going to illegal download sites, when the Beeb is selectively only really servicing the posh end of the market.

scrubbedexpat141

Eh?

That a joke?

captainflack

Mid 2012, android phones 57% of UK smart phone sales, Iphone 25%. Android was top with just under 50% in 2011 too. There are more UK users with android phones than with iphones, and the gap is increasing.

scrubbedexpat141

Blimey.

That's mental.

Dili.Gent

Well that explains the problems I'm having with downloads. However, since about September the quality of the iPlayer catch up programmes has been abysmal with constant buffering and views akin to looking through stained glass windows. Strictly, the wife's favourite, is particularly bad but X Factor on ITV Player with similar flashing lights and multi colours is perfect in comparison. I pay extra for 8 Mbps broadband and for VPN and all was rosy until the last couple of months. Is our favourite Auntie on the slippery slope? Has anyone else noticed the change?
Not so bright in DXB.

Eeyore

Market share is a very crude metric that doesn't tell anything like the whole story. Have a read of the following article, which explains why - despite the apparent dominance of Android - most app developers in the USA and Europe still prioritise iOS over Android. It's very interesting stuff:

Android is winning - if you're writing apps for China. Elsewhere, though...

flood2

Just because every 2nd phone is shipping with android does not make it a better OS. Android ships on phones at under £100 while apple still get £500+ for its one model. If you look at internet traffic from mobile , then IOS has more traffic than android. When it comes to tablets, IOS totally blows android tablets out the water.I think the last I read that ipads have 85%+ of all tablet internet traffic.

This shows that IOS devices are used a lot more, and android are cheap and disposable devices in a lot of cases.

If I was developing apps I would go for usage figures

http://http://news.cnet.com/8301-103...e-web-traffic/

Eeyore

Yes, that's addressed in the article I linked to. Because Android phones are so cheap, there's a lot of churn, which kicks back into sales figures. People might buy a new Android phone every six months (or less), whereas they'll only buy a new iPhone once a year at most, so inevitably that shows up as much higher sales figures for Android when in fact the actual installed user base isn't growing anything like as fast - a large chunk of the sales are the same people just upgrading their phone after a short period.

auzdafluff

Actually, you're all falling for a common misinformation tactic used by manufacturers in every industry.

Shipped means nothing more than it was produced and sold on to a distributor.

Often the sell through rates are drastically different. Apple tends to have very high sell through rates as its logistical operation is operated very tightly. A phone that is sold in a shop may have only been produced a week or two before.

Android devices on the other hand are known within the industry to sit in distributors' warehouses for months on end. Take the original Samsung Galaxy Tab. Even financial analysts couldn't get a solid figure for how little stock had been sold during the first quarter, although Samsung did admit it was a percentage on the low side.

Despite shipping 1m units, one senior figure in the industry – a key supplier to the device – claimed that only 20,000 devices had been sold. Even according to the official figures, of the 2m devices produced, to date they've only sold 725,000 of them. Compare that to the 16m+ iPads Apple manages to sell (it can say this, because it operates such a lean operation) in just one quarter.

The situation with Android phones is a little different, due to them being subsidised and pushed heavily by the operators (for a whole different reason), but the amount of sell through is still only around about 40-50 per cent of the shipped figures according to various analysts I spoke to when I was a tech journalist.

Blue Cat

use a torrent site to download, search for tvchaos and once you have enough posts DM me your email ID so I can invite you to another one