BBC Media Player for Android Devices

The “fast-changing environment” of mobile development has been well proved by the retreat of Adobe Flash from Android Mobile and the governing of HTML5, and BBC iPlayer’s permission for downloading as well.

Yet,Flash is still the best choice of media format to use, when taken so many factors into consideration: supports JellyBean and as well as earlier Android OS version like Gingerbread and FroYo; goes well with both websites and Android applications.

Thus, the BBC is launching a new media player for its iPlayer streaming app on Android powered devices: phones and tablets. In fact, BBC has supported iPlayer on Android since 2010 till its decision of removing the flash player plugin for Android.

The new media player is named BBC Media Player, which is already available on Google Play. BBC Media Player applies Adobe Flash’s “cousin” Adobe Air for streaming radio and video playback on Android devices.

“We want people to have the best experience possible when they're watching BBC TV programmes or listening to BBC radio programmes. This means, amongst other things, making them available on as many devices as is practical,” said Chris Yanda, executive product manager at BBC Future Media.

Facing the challenges of making services available across Android platforms as well as IOS, many broadcasters are trying to make that possible. BSkyB launched its Sky Go app for Android in January 2012 (8 months after its IOS version.)

Though many give priority to IOS platform, Android OS is quite a promising market as UK smartphone sales share in the 12 weeks to 10 June shows that: Android took 57.2% while iPhone accounted for a much less amount of 25.6.

"No technology is perfect. We've seen some of the challenges that other Adobe Air based apps have had in the marketplace and so we have worked hard, both internally and with our technology partners to build the best application we can," Yanda said. 

Samsung’s Updates: Flash Player still Exists

Days later after Adobe’s announcement of withdrawing from the battle of mobile devices browser player with HTML5, no Flash Player download available from Google’s app store Play could be found these days.

 Along with this decision, there is supposed to be no certified version of Flash Player for Android 4.1. For older versions of Google OS, limited use of Flash Player is still I use. However, users have no choice but removing the player after updating to Android 4.1.

That’ to say if your mobile runs Android 4.1 Jelly Bean OS, then it won’t go well with Flash Player any more. Even for updated users, Adobe suggested you uninstalling Flash as the uncertified version could exhibit unpredictable behavior.

Then when it comes to Samsung Galaxy S3, many users are worrying about losing Flash Player upon its updating to Jelly Bean 4.1.1. Will that take place in next month (September)? The good news is that: Samsung and Adobe have officially stated that all users of Galaxy S3 I9300 would keep their Flash Player, when upgrade from Android 4.0 ICS to Jelly Bean.

Actually, S3 users should know that Flash websites do work smoothly largely because of Samsung S3. Well, the updates would be set on the fourth quarter of 2012 and Galaxy S3, S2, Note, Note 2 are all expected to equipped with JB.Samsung confirmed during its IFA 2012 keynote today that a Jelly Bean update is coming to both the Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note 10.1 "very soon." It’s good to know that Adobe Flash Player still exists in mobile and of Android after August 15th.