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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Agreed completely. It seems they deliberately can’t be arsed to offer proper app support for Apple TV, and Apple devices in general. They don’t offer a BBC Sounds app for ATV, despite one being available on a load of other platforms. And most annoyingly, no native HomePod support so you have to AirPlay the BBC Sounds app if you want to listen to their audio content or radio stations. It’s infuriating.
I am in the USA and subscribe to Britbox which is horribly glitchy on Apple TV
For many series with multiple seasons, you can’t select a Season as whatever season you choose will bring up Season 1. If you are watching something and select through the What’s Up it will bring up the next episode.
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.
Really this is just an excuse for the BBC’s shitty behavior. Why would anyone expect different devices to have the same solution? BT sports were able to deliver 4K content, Netflix, Disney, Amazon are all able to do so as well. The truth is they just don’t see the value, probably because of market share. HLS vs Dash isn’t the barrier they are making out. They receive public money, they should be obliged to provide a similar service on all their supported devices.
Won’t disagree on that. I think if they would really try, they would find a way to do all those things on Apple TV. I had an app from a german broadcaster that also lacked subtitles support for a long time. But a while ago they finally added support. Although you can see that the subtitles don’t respect my style settings. So I guess they are using some workaround. And I could imagine that subtitles support lacked because of the same reason.
But on the other hand I think it’s also true that Apple is kind of ignorant sometimes in some cases. And thinks they can afford to do things differently than everyone else. And regarding phones and tablets they can. Because they have a leading position there. But not when it comes to streaming boxes.
But what are they doing differently? HLS vs moeg-dash? HLS is just as popular as dash and was around before it. It’s unrealistic to expect everyone to support the BBC’s preference when there are two very popular protocols.
But obviously there is broad support for MPEG-DASH on other devices. Because otherwise the app would have the same limitations there too. But I’m pretty sure that those devices will also support HLS. So you could also argue that if there are two very popular protocols out there, you should support both. And that you can’t expect from the BBC to change their protocol just because of that one streaming device out there.
But I don’t want to take a side on this. In the end it’s just the usual blame game of big companies. And the customer has to pay the price for it.
Given the fact everything supports HLS, the BBC choosing Moeg Dash is a weird decision.
On this, I think it’s important to remember that the BBC are using a EU and UK standard, DVB-Dash, used in HbbTV platforms such as Freeview Play.
It’s really a case of Apple TV needing to properly support standards.