Chris: Geek Guy

The BBC Future Media & Technology team have announced that their first official iPhone application, BBC News, is currently under development and due for release next month.

I’ve had a play with the online demo and it looks pretty slick, so I’m looking forward to installing the app when it becomes available.

The BBC are also planning to follow up with a BBC Sport application, and they’re also considering an iPlayer app in order to provide a richer experience than the current iPlayer mobile site.

Update: Sadly, these plans have been shelved for the time being.

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Cleverly-named SeeSaw is a new catch-up TV service with content from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Five. While much of the content is already available on the respective broadcasters’ own on-demand services, it’s nice to have everything in one place.

The site boasts a slick user interface that’s a pleasure to use, and I found the picture quality to be very good with no buffering problems to speak of.

Clearly the site has to make money somehow, and in SeeSaw’s case it’s through video advertisements embedded into the programmes you watch, something that commercial TV viewers are used to seeing.

SeeSaw have future plans to licence programmes from a wider range of broadcasters, which will enhance the service’s appeal.

Interestingly a TV licence is not required to use on-demand services such as SeeSaw – you are only legally obliged to buy a  TV licence if you watch broadcast TV.

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Real Alternative is a great alternative (for want of a better word) to the bloated official RealOne Player. However, it’s still good to know that the BBC has a spyware-free version available for download, which runs on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and Solaris. Apparently BBC insisted on this condition before licensing Real technology.

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