BBC looks to Adobe AIR for iPlayer on Macs

A Mac version of the iPlayer download manager may be constructed on an upcoming version of Adobe's AIR set of technologies.

AIR is designed to bring together existing technologies such as HTML, AJAX and Flash - which the BBC now uses as part of iPlayer's streaming component - to permit the building of advanced, rich applications. Anthony Rose, the BBC's head of digital media technology, said that an upcoming release of AIR is being looked at for making iPlayer's download component compatible with Macs:

"We have worked hard to make BBC iPlayer a compelling user proposition. Streaming is the first in a number of new services that we will be rolling out in the coming months and we will be listening to feedback from our audiences to understand how they find the service and what new additions they would be interested in.

"We will be constantly updating BBC iPlayer to ensure that we continuously improve the way we deliver BBC programmes. One of the many updates we hope to implement in 2008 is a download solution for users of other operating systems including Macs which may be possible with the next suite of Adobe Air products."

Last Thursday, the BBC introduced a Flash streaming component of iPlayer, effectively opening part of the on demand service up to any computer capable of playing Flash video. In October, the corporation confirmed it was working with Adobe to use Flash for the delivery of "the majority of streamed video and audio content" on its website.