iPlayer Released for Mac, Linux; Adobe Announces AIR for Linux 231
Zoxed writes "The BBC reports that their iPlayer has just been released for Mac and Linux (download page). It is based on Adobe Air, but unfortunately the service is only available to UK IP address, so I can not test it out from my adopted homeland of Germany. Perhaps a UK-based Slashdotter could review it?" In related news, an anonymous reader writes "Adobe has announced a Linux version of its AIR 1.5 runtime environment that is supposed to allow rich web apps developed on it to run on Fedora Core 8, Ubuntu 7.10 and openSuse 10.3 with no modification. The company released versions for Windows and Mac OS X back in November."
Fedora Core 8 and Ubuntu 7.10 -- EOL? (Score:4, Insightful)
Isn't this release just in time for support of those 2 versions to be discontinued?
Having finished a Flex/Air app... (Score:3, Insightful)
I have to say it's decent approach to the problem of deploying Web Apps. Granted we did all the backend work connecting the Flex/Air front end to the database using AMFPHP, but it's definitely a decent platform for web applications and hybrid web/desktop apps. However it still suffers one flaw: it requires a third party platform that doesn't run on everything. (think mobile devices)
I see the Support OpenSuSE 10.3, but what about 11 and 11.1 (currently downloading the ISO).
The other approach is what Google and Apple are taking with HTML/Javascript based web applications that try to be browser/standards compliant. The entity that figures out how to make it work as a standalone desktop app has a winner.
Re:potential of Air ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Flash has its problems, obviously; it breaks the whole browsing paradigm. However, there's just nothing else out there right now with the same mix of capabilities; it has its niche. (Maybe java applets, but those universally suck. Maybe Silverlight could, but nobody seriously uses it.)
Re:Air/Flash License (Score:3, Insightful)
Adobe spends money to develop these technologies as does Microsoft. They are not going to hand out that much for free, even as in beer.
I wish every developer would look past proprietary things like Flash and AIR and use web standards instead, but I know this will never happen.
Re:Having finished a Flex/Air app... (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry to pick on you, but this is a bugbear of mine.
Applications written in AIR/Silverlight/whatever are not web applications. They're thick client applications that happen to use a bit of http and javascript.
Web applications run in web browsers. Not in one particular browser, and not in a third party runtime.
I'm glad AIR was a good fit for your problem.
Re:iPlayer for Mac Third Party much better (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, it's usage can't be illegal; all it does is allow you to watch the content available to iPhone users.
Of course you can't save stuff on the iPhone, but the BBC offers these downloads. We just allow you to get them. Kinda like changing your browsers user-agent.
I paid my licence fee, I can tape stuff off the TV. Why the hell do they use DRM when they already allow you access??
Re:IPlayer UK only (Score:3, Insightful)
Because then it'd give way to British people wanting ads instead of the license tax...er...I mean fee. The BBC have a good thing going revenue-wise and they'll not let up. I'd love for it to become subscription or advert payrolled but this would mean the BBC have to work for their money.
All BBC programmes are paid for with the license fee money, not advertising. IIRC any advertising outside of the UK to non-British audiences is because the BBC sold a show overseas (and the buyer network is the one advertising) or are using it for money to operate in that country.
Re:What about anonymous proxies? (Score:3, Insightful)
I am disappointed that all distros quoted are "old" versions of their existing ones strictly speaking. Why do software companies do this all the time?
Err... Because those are the minimum supported versions? It would be like if a program came out that only ran on Vista, not XP everyone would really question the reason why. Similarly, its not bad that it doesn't require Ubuntu 8.10 to be installed, its quite good in fact that it doesn't.
Re:potential of Air ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Abstraction and cross-platform targeting are both "lazy" and "smart."
I mean, we could all write code in assembly language for every architecture we could ever want. Or we could use Flash/.NET/Java/whatever to target everything we might conceivably want with less hassle. Tough choice, that.
Re:Fedora Core 8 and Ubuntu 7.10 -- EOL? (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't know about Ubuntu, but for Fedora, stuff that works with Fedora N doesn't necessarily work with Fedora (N + 1). They sometimes make rapid changes between releases and you'll have to do a lot of reconfiguration.