BBC iPlayer mobile apps: Reviewing operating system support

Hi, my name is Andy Hulstone, Senior Product Manager for BBC iPlayer Mobile Apps. I’d like to take a little time to explain some difficult decisions we’ve had to make recently regarding operating systems, and how they may impact certain BBC iPlayer users.

BBC iPlayer apps

BBC iPlayer is available on a large range of devices ranging from desktop computers to games consoles to mobile and tablet devices. This blog focuses on the BBC iPlayer products that are available to download from the Apple App Store, Google Play and the Amazon Appstore. BBC iPlayer is currently supported on five generations of Apple iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad running the iOS operating system as well as many thousands of phones and tablets based on the Android operating system including those manufactured by Amazon, Asus, HTC, Huawei, LG, Samsung, Sony, Tesco and many more.

Operating system support

A little over a year ago, Chris Tangye wrote about a refresh of the BBC iPlayer apps for mobiles and tablets. As the team set to work coding and testing this experience there was an internal debate about the operating systems that the applications should support. To achieve the user experience and resilience that we all expect, it is crucial to find the right balance between reaching the largest possible audience and the additional complexity of supporting an ever expanding set of devices and operating systems.

So, we studied the usage numbers and analysed the impact of supporting each operating system version on the development and test process. Our conclusion was that our apps should continue to support iOS 5.1.1, Android 2.2 (Froyo) and UK editions of Kindle Fire tablets.

This decision was sound at the time but it has become increasingly difficult to maintain and improve the apps for this range of devices and operating systems. For example, because of issues with the playback component, it became necessary to remove support for the Android 2.2 (Froyo) operating system earlier this year.

In addition, downloads will cease to operate on devices running Android 4.0 (ICS) and second-generation Kindle tablets in August. This is due to a significant overhaul of the downloads playback architecture to address some of the issues that have plagued users of Android 4.4 (KitKat) devices and later Amazon Kindle tablets.

Development of features has been impacted too. We have found it increasingly difficult to build a single solution that can span the range of supported operating system versions. Many of the third party components that we rely on to build BBC iPlayer have also ceased to support all but the latest operating systems.

A major factor is the software tools provided by Apple, Google and Amazon that are used to build and test mobile applications. The Android tools currently provide good support for Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), however support for iOS 5 and iOS 6 in the latest Apple toolset is limited.

Changes to iOS

Faced with a growing number of issues with our iOS application, we analysed the usage numbers for iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad once more. The graph below illustrates the breakdown of operating systems running on Apple devices that are used to access the BBC iPlayer application. We have observed a rapid take-up of iOS 8 that is largely mirrored with a comparable decrease in iOS 7 usage. Over the same twelve-month period, BBC iPlayer usage on iOS 5 and iOS 6 has decreased from 10% to less than 4% of the total usage on iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad.

Based on this data and the significant issues we have encountered in recent months, it is no longer tenable to support this range of iOS versions. New versions of the BBC iPlayer app from the Apple App Store will work with iOS 7 or higher.

Anyone using an iPod Touch, iPhone or iPad with iOS 5 or iOS 6 will see a message saying the app will stop working on their device after August 10th. In the unlikely event that we need to change this date, we will let people know with a message in the app.

The data for the Android versions of the application will require further consideration as we research options to improve video playback performance. In the short to medium term, we will continue to support a minimum of Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) and all UK editions of the Kindle Fire. However, a reduced range of operating systems will be supported as we reengineer playback on the Android and Amazon platforms for the future.

The mobile and tablet landscape continues to evolve rapidly. We will continue to regularly review the range of devices that the BBC iPlayer apps support to ensure that both development and testing is sustainable in the long term.

The team keep a watchful eye on industry announcements, such as those at Google I/O and Apple WWDC. We are looking forward to gearing up to support the next iterations of Apple iOS, Google Android and Amazon Fire OS that will be in widespread use this autumn.