BBC's iPlayer racks up 500k users, BBC shows how they made the app
The BBC's wildly popular iPlayer app was updated last week to include support for the iPhone and iPod touch plus the ability to stream TV over 3G. As a result of all the new features, iPlayer for iOS has been downloaded over 1.1 million times in just the last week alone. What's more interesting is that 500,000 of those downloads were to people who have never downloaded the app before.
Daniel Danker, BBC's General Manager of Programmes and On Demand, told The Guardian that the new 3G streaming support is the main reason the download numbers were so high: "Last week, 20% of all requests on iPhone were on 3G. That's amazing in such a short period of time. And yet when we look at the audience feedback, nobody has really reported streaming problems over 3G."
Stuart Dredge's Guardian article shares more numbers from Danker along with the BBC's thoughts about on mobile television and developing for Android versus iOS. For those who are more interested in the creation of the app from concept to implementation, read this excellent post by Chris Elphick, Senior Designer of the BBC iPlayer iPhone App project.
BBC iPlayer for iOS is a free download, though the app is not yet available to US users.
