BBC iPlayer Beta now available for iPhone

Remember the recent unconfirmed quotes from the BBC that a version of the iPlayer was coming for the hallowed iPhone? Well in a surprise move, no doubt trying to gain a little momentum with today's SDK furore, a limited selection of shows from the iPlayer have been made available to UK residents on their iPhones. It's worth noting, however, that the service makes use of existing technologies on the iPhone -- not anything announced today.

At the moment only the BBC-produced 'Whistleblower' documentary seems to be working from the iPlayer website, with content being streamed-only via the iPhone's built-in QuickTime player -- quite the surprise given the heavy use of Windows-only technologies until fairly recently -- although we'd guess there's more shows on the way.

Of course, it's a beta service (when aren't they?) so you may not be able to access all the content and the usual caveats apply. As ever, the iPlayer is only for UK residents.