The iPlayer app is noticeably more limited than the browser version, for example you can’t download shows and programs for offline viewing, like you can on a computer. However from Tuesday, that all changing. Users will be able to download iPlayer content onto their iPads/iPhones for offline watching, even out of the UK, The Guardian reports.
iPlayer downloading, which also come to Android ‘in the near future’, will only be available over WiFi for now but users will be soon be able to choose programs for offline viewing via 3G.
Daniel Danker, BBC general manager of on demand programs:
This fundamentally changes one of the most annoying restrictions about viewing programmes. It means audiences are liberated from the constraints [of online-only viewing] and it fundamentally changes what it means to go on holiday.
With mobile downloads, you can now load up your mobile phone or tablet with hours and hours of BBC programmes, then watch them on the road, on the tube, on a plane, without worrying about having an internet connection or running up a mobile data bill.
Programs will then be available for 30 days after download, or within seven days of being watched. However depending on the capacity of your iDevice what exactly you can download will be limited, so you might have to make some room if you have a 16GB iPhone or iPad.
Nevertheless it’s a cool feature and I’m sure it will come in handy to many who go on long car trips or flights.
