BBC bringing iPlayer to Windows Phone 'soon'

The BBC’s excellent on-demand and catchup TV service iPlayer is available for both iOS and Android devices, although owners of phones and tablets running Google’s mobile OS remain slightly short-changed when it comes to features compared to their Apple OS counterparts.

Windows Phone users must feel perpetually short-changed at the moment I’m sure, but they too will soon be able to get iPlayer. There’s just one catch. Instead of releasing a dedicated app for Microsoft’s mobile OS, the BBC will be rolling out a shortcut application that will give users with a Windows Phone 7.5 or Windows Phone 8 handset access to the BBC iPlayer website via a live tile. According to Cyrus Saihan, Head of Business Development, BBC Future Media, "This shortcut will wrap the BBC iPlayer mobile website together with our media player.

Hopefully these and other developments will help to expand our online reach further. Our latest figures show that over 650 different device types can access BBC iPlayer". A shortcut application is hardly the same as a dedicated app, but it’s the best that Windows Phone owners can hope for. The BBC says it has no plans to create a special version of iPlayer for Microsoft’s platform.