大象传媒

A great app.

Will there be a Windows Phone version?

Disgraceful 大象传媒. "The Android app is for handsets with OS 2.2 and above. Android users need to have Flash installed to be able to watch the video." Not available via the Google Play store for Galaxy Nexus with Jelly Bean installed.

Why the reliance on flash ? The iPhone doesn't have flash, why should Android users require it. Just like iPlayer on Android. Is this what I pay my licence fee for ?

Apparently it's not compatible with a Galaxy Nexus running Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean). That's a shame as I was very interested in taking a look.

Are there any plans to make the iOS app universal so iPad users can view at native resolution?

Oh. No Window Phone version. :(

Just to be predictable: Any chance of a Windows Phone version?

As with the previous comments, I was hoping for a Windows Phone version also. A few developers have embraced the 'difference' between Windows Phone (well Metro) versus the other platforms, to create some nice deviations from their iOS and Android counterparts.

#fail x 2

I have two mainstream Android devices.

I have the Samsung Google Nexus with Jellybean and an Asus Transformer TF101 tablet with Ice Cream Sandwich.

And neither will install the Olympics Android App.

I'm guessing that the Nexus 7 that's "in the post" to me won't work either.

Its a good app, shame I will have to watch it on such a small screen as its not available for my Archos tablet!

Thanks :)

Just needs a few more tweaks to make it more Androidy and less iOSy;
大象传媒 logo needs to act like the home button and home button can go hide鈥�
Menu needs the treble dot icon instead, and please, put a share button at the top and remove the custom share links at the bottom of posts鈥� I don鈥檛 want to use your limited set of share options, but rather the apps I have on my phone that I use!

So, Jelly Bean arrives for my Galaxy Nexus this morning, and then incompatible 大象传媒 Olympics app arrives at lunchtime.

It requires Flash?! What a stupid move 大象传媒, shame on you. Releasing an iOS app at the same time makes a mockery of needing Flash as well...

Works perfectly on my 4S, to all those moaning about it not working, buy a proper phone!

Great! It looks fab, well done. But why no iPad version - surely the bigger screen would be just perfect for it? Can you let us know why you decided not to do this? And will the 大象传媒 Sport app you mentioned also be just for phones or are you planning tablet versions?

1) An iPad version? That would be good.
2) If the 大象传媒 Sport app is going to be a serious competitor to others out there then there will be a need for an iPad and non-flash video functionality.
3) Speaking of which, will live streams available from the 大象传媒 website during Olympics be available for stream without the need for Flash so iPad can be used to watch coverage.

I second all the comments relating to the requirement of Flash. Just means I can't watch any 大象传媒 video at all on my HTC Wildfire S, which is incredibly annoying. Sort it out!

A correction:

The Android app is for devices with Android 2.2 to 4.0 running on ARMv7 based processors that support Adobe Flash.

While it is rather short-sighted of the 大象传媒 not to take into account Adobe pulling support for Android 4.1+ , this isn't such a big deal as there are relatively few Jellybean based devices out there and this isn't likely to change for the duration of the Olympic Games.

Far more annoying is the way this app disenfranchises users of mid to low end (i.e, more affordable) devices that do not support Flash (because of their ARMv6 architecture).

By only supporting high-end Android devices and the iPhone, you have produced a rather elitist app. What about the licence payers who cannot afford a 拢300+ phone?

What a shame. If you can develop for iOS without using Flash, why not for Android?

What a complete failure from the 大象传媒. The lack of support for the Galaxy Nexus and other 4.0 devices such as the Asus Transformer is appalling. Hardly cutting edge is it? And it's not as if non-flash streams aren't available, given the fawning Apple support as usual.

I own three Android devices. The two recent ones I use - Galaxy Nesus and Transformer - cannot install the app from the market because I'm told they don't have flash support (both have flash installed and working).

Apparently my ancient HTC Desire will install the app, should I be bothered to clear the dust off it from the drawer it's been hiding in for two years.

Rubbish work 大象传媒.

for those diappointed about the flash only support with jelly bean not compatible but you can't really blame them since support was pulled from jelly bean rather late and app development may have been well under way but I am sure the 大象传媒will update it to HTML5 soon

Further to 12:53 13th Jul 2012, Eponymous Cowherd comment:

I found this page useful to help understand whether it is available for my HTC Wildfire ( why it doesn't appear when I search Android Market) : . It lists what devices are Android 2.2. + ARM v7 compatible - which sadly my HTC Wildfire apparently isn't.
I wonder how much of the UK mobile audience have compatible devices ? Lucie ?

Mike

Motorola Atrix on Gingerbread: Not compatible
HTC Flyer on Honeycomb: Not compatible

Poor show 大象传媒.

I can get Netflix running on pretty much everything, so there is no reason you shouldn't be able to too.

Doesn't work on android tablets. Why? I have an Asus eee pad transformer with Android 4.0 (not jelly bean) and the latest flash player, so why do you prevent me from downloading it?
If it works on a Desire, Wildfire etc then it will work on my device, you've disabled larger screens for no reason at all.

Doesn't work on Jellybean (4.1)? c'mon 大象传媒 you can do better than that...

No iPad app, Lucie?

Works great on my HTC Desire! It's just what I need for my commute to and from work during the Olympics (that's if I can get there through the crowds).
My only quibble is that I can't move to SD card!

Excellent initiative, but will be a damp squib without an iPad version!

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Whats the point of an ios app with flash, how daft
It looks dreadul on an ipad tablet, will there be an ipad specific app

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

@27. A silly thing is using "of" instead of "have".

You say use the bbc sport website or ipad, but video wont be any good if it uses flash
Must admit id given up using the bbc sport website, just find the new design very busy
Just had alook at he sport olympic site, its too busy to comprehend, could not find any of the 24 channel links

i've got a samsung galaxy tablet pt1000 running gingerbread and with flash installed but the app won't download as it is not suitable for this device.any idea why?

Why don't the 大象传媒 just concentrate the resources on 1 good web based production, instead of OS specific ones?

Still plenty of Symbian and Windows mobile devices being ignored, and yet it is in the 大象传媒 charter that you should not be favouring specific platforms....

Is the minute by minute text commentary like the old website use to have wth differIng reporters each day and the little icons, that was great, really missed that?
For me this worked really well for previous big events, and great for an ongoing commentary and quick links for busy people.

I have just tried out the iPhone app on my iPad and it looks and functions very well; clearly a lot of work has gone into it. It is a great shame there won't be a native iPad app. It's true that the 大象传媒 Sport website 'looks great' and works fine on the iPad but that isn't a very good justification for not having a dedicated app.

The main problems I have with the Sport website on iPad are that the video player doesn't go full screen (discovered when using it for Wimbledon coverage) and that it is much less intuitive to navigate than a native app would be. Also, the features you are highlighting for the smartphone apps won't be available; offline viewing would be perfect on the iPad.

I suppose I will put up with a scaled version of the iPhone app which fortunately doesn't pixelate too much on the 3rd gen iPad but it is disappointing the 大象传媒/your team didn't think a dedicated app was necessary for such a major event.

I would like to 2nd Jonathan's point above. Although the ability to view 大象传媒 Sports website videos on the iPad is a very welcomed addition, the fact the you can't view them in proper fullscreen on these devuces is a really annoying issue.

The 大象传媒 is using a custom video player on the iPad. I don't understand why, especially as the don't use a custom player on the iPhone or iPod touch. This is the same case on iPlayer, 大象传媒 News and the 大象传媒 Sports websites. The sooner the address this the better.

Also Lucie Mclean says there's no iPad app because the 大象传媒 Sport websites looks great on the iPad, but tho I agree that's true it still doesn't provide some of the great features that only an App can such as offline caching and customising favourite sports etc.

Hi
I am using a samsung galaxy tab7.7 running android 3.2 and i have flash installed why the hec does this not run on my tablet?

and for that matter neither does the iplayer app for android whats the point of saying this runs on 2.2 to 4 when it blatantly doesn't!

What a naff app can't believe the beeb could fail so badly after making such a big pr splash about this app when it doesnt do what it says on the tin. Especially when there are two-bit companies out there developing apps that work across multiple android devices on a shoestring budget. Sort it out!

Jonesy

Hi,
Looks very nice on my iphone 3gs, which for the olympics is probably what I will use, as most of us I expect will be working while its on.
I did not see the airplane icon in my app though for downloading offline content, but I always have a good 3g/wifi available signal so I dont see the need for that. But, it defeats me if you are offline, how in your video you say it updates the headlines, surely it only has what you previously downloaded when you were offline.
The drag idea is really nifty and works very well, 10/10 for that.
It was a shame that I had to find a pc to view the 'lucie demonstration of the app' video on how it worked, as it did not show up on this blog on my iphone or ipad. Might be a good idea to include that up until the olympics start on the first page of the app, as it was a good introduction.
It looks pretty bad as a x2 app on the ipad and the drag icon fails.
I know you can use the bbc sports pages on the ipad, but I agree that the olympics pages on there are pretty daunting with so much content to trundle through, hard to navigate with no customization.
Thanks for making a bit of the olympics coverage for me customizable

This sounds really great, but I only have an ipad. Will you be releasing an ipad version as the x2 app isn't very good.

No one mentioning Blackberrys! No chance for me to watch 大象传媒 video!

So I can watch it on my Android phone with its piddly little screen but not on my Android tablet. Pointless

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Why is it incompatible with my Galaxy Note on gingerbread (2.3.6) here in the UK on Vodafone?!?!?! GRRRRR!!!

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

A good explanation of why you should remove pull鈥恡o鈥恟efresh in the Android app,

When developing something - a website, an app, a product - it's a good (and pretty basic) idea to try asking the users what they want and need, not to just press ahead with what you *think* they want and need. The two are seldom the same.

It's pretty clear from the comments that your users want a) versions on all major platforms, including common Android phones, b) tablet versions including (indeed, especially) the iPad, and c) the ability to watch full-screen video on the 大象传媒 sport website.

Can I ask what user research you conducted before developing this app and/or the 大象传媒 Sport website, and what led you to think that the functionality above wasn't required?

Surely the way to make video work on non-flash devices is to switch to the same streams that are used for the iphone....

Doesn't work on my Galaxy tab 10.1 with Android 3.1. Why not?

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Really disappointing to see no Jelly Bean Support from any of the 大象传媒 apps really... Just because android had Flash Support I think it is disgraceful that the 大象传媒 ever required it and now look at the situation we are in, flash support has gone and so everyone updating will be left with no iPlayer or other apps like this.

On Samsung Galaxy Nexus upgraded to Jelly Bean the 大象传媒 Olympic app seems to continue working -although there's not much activity yet to test it.
But 大象传媒 iPlayer -surely a key 大象传媒 service - is incompatible with Jelly Bean and the app by all accounts has been very glitchy on all Android for months.
I'm surprised the 大象传媒 can't put together a decent app that doesn't require Flash -maybe they should outsource to a private company...well, maybe not.

I cannot seem to find the blackberry shortcut you mentioned.. has this been rolled out? Any chance of including an RSS stream of related blog posts.. came across a [off-topic URL removed by Moderator].. would be great to have link to content like that as part of the app!

@55 Toby77

As fas as I understand it, the 大象传媒's use of Flash for content delivery is required by the rights holders of the various programs because of the security it affords.

The fact that the programs in question have already been broadcast in the clear (unencrypted and unprotected) and in far higher quality than the mobile iPlayer streams seems to have escaped them.

As does the fact that giving users a poor experience (which the Flash iPlayer does), or disenfranchising them entirely because they have devices that cannot run Flash, makes it MORE likely for them to turn to the "pirates"

Just got the app which looks brilliant. Is there going to be an iPad version?

When trying to install from the Google Play store on my Samsung Galaxy S3, I get "Error, insufficient storage available. When i look at Settings/Storage, I have 6.08Gb available of the internal storage, and 12.78Gb of SD card storage available. My S3 is not rooted, or modded in any way. It has the latest Samsung ROM on it (I9300XXLFB); Android 4.0.4, Kernel 3.0.15-782020-user; build IMM76D.I9300XXBLFB.

Can someone tell me why I can't install it?

My last post was censored for apparently breaking the house rules, I will try in this instance to not break a rule that I don't know I'm breaking.

I'm disappointed (to put it mildly) that the 大象传媒 hasn't ported the android app over to the blackberry playbook. I have used it on the playbook and it seems to work just fine.

The process for converting android apps in to playbook apps is very simple and it smacks of a developer that cant be bothered or has some other sort of agenda.

Surely Microsoft would pay the 大象传媒 to develop apps for its platform to keep people on it?

Has this been suggested?

Just bought a HTC Wildfire s, downloaded the bbc olympic app from google play market, and cant play any video's. Says loading media, then just end up with a totally white screen. Have had to uninstall

Was very disappointed with the app yesterday on my iphone, video failed to work a lot, had good wifi signal, not buffering, just came up not available. hope this improves.
But, I like the schedule and results tab, that looks brill and works very well with instant and detailed reports
thanks bbc so far so good for this, looking forward to using this app a lot over the weekend while im out and about.

@63 david.

The Wildfire S, being a budget Android device, is powered by a Qualcomm MSM7227 ARMv6 based processor. This is not capable of running Adobe Flash and, hence will not be able to show Flash based video. You will also notice that 大象传媒 iPlayer is not available for your phone, either, for the same reason.

This is useless using outdated flash, will not work on my Google Nexus 7 tablet

I like the 大象传媒 Olympics app, it has everything I want. It's just that most times it doesn't actually work - well the live video part. 7/10 times I get a "Content not working, please try again later" message. I get this on the 大象传媒 website live streaming as well (actually there it is more like 9/10 failure rate).

Any clues? Thanks

Sunday afternoon & just been watching the ladies cycling road race. Why don't the cameras have the same technology as car windscreens, where the wipe works automatically? Beats a passenger in the camera car leaning out of the car, giving the screen a pie with wrag, in front of the world stage

Re 300inside: I think the blame lies outside the 大象传媒. The IOC have awarded the broadcasting contract to the well-known broadcaster OBS, who presumably have a great business plan to offset their lousy delivery. I think the commentary team seem to be in the dark as much as we are.

I'm having trouble viewing the live streams via the Olympics app and the website.
I get this error: playback aborted - corruption/encoding problem
Content from the iPlayer app works fine.
I'm using an iPad with the latest firmware.
Any suggestions greatly appreciated.

The Olympic app is not available for non UK iTunes stores users. Strange !
should I have re-register with another Apple id for the UK store and then download this App?

OK, I have just registered for comments, specifically to write this:

大象传媒 I'm very disappointed that you are still not supporting the Windows Phone environment.

Please start developing for WP, the user base is becoming much larger. Also, with the upcoming release of Windows 8 & Windows Phone 8 it's only going to get bigger!

@72 TheresOnly1

I can't blame the 大象传媒 for ignoring Windows Phone. Microsoft have made a complete sow's ear of their attempt to enter the smartphone market. They persisted with the outdated Windows Mobile until the competition (mostly iOS and Android) have an almost unassailable lead, then introduce Phone 7, which is 100% incompatible with Windows mobile and with rigid requirements that force manufacturers to use already outdated hardware.

Then they compound that mess by introducing Phone 8, which is (again) 100% incompatible with Phone 7 (phone 7 apps won't run on it, and vice-versa). Developers (me included) are staying away in droves until we see evidence that Phone 8 is going to be anything other than a lead balloon.

The app works pretty well, including streaming, on my Huawei Ascend G300 which cost all of 拢100 so that's the 'elitist' argument demolished.

One slight niggle, there doesn't seem to be a way to sign in to the app with my 大象传媒 ID so there's no way that I can see to carry my favourites over from the desktop site. Admittedly I'm new to this android lark so might be missing the option, if it is there.

And with the release of Android 4.1 and the Nexus 7 you cannot use this app unless you use the workarounds. Well done for favouring iOS AGAIN.

So far this app has been good on the iphone, really made good use of it
But most days it has had trouble with video, and yesterday it was very bad, video failed to load 9/10 times and crashed quite a lot, hope this gets fixed going on

I have been extremely impressed by the 大象传媒's Olympic coverage. Simply as a technical achievement, scaling up to the levels of traffic that must be required has been impressive. The new online web player for sports has been fantastic for catching up. I watched the men's road race live on my Android, and it worked perfectly. I only have one quibble - but it's a big one. Let's say that I've been at work all day, carefully avoiding the news, eager to maintain some tension when I get round to watching some sport in the evening. Why make it so hard to navigate to the video of an event without finding out the result? I cannot work out how to do it in the Android Olympics app, which makes it almost useless as far as I'm concerned. I want to be watching this stuff with some tension, not navigating to page that says "Bolt won the 100m final, here's a link to the video". After getting all of the difficult technical bits so right, HOW can something so basic be so completely stuffed up? The website isn't much better in this one respect, but at least I can get to a video without learning the result if I work at it. Perhaps you do not have the time to fix this in the Olympics, but please fix this in the forthcoming 大象传媒 Sports app. For that matter, the website could also be better in this respect. The Android app really should be fixable inside the current Olympic timeframe: we're just talking about a few pages that can list links to videos, sorted either by sport or by date. If you could add in a preference to let me make that page my front page on the Olympics app, I'd be happy. How hard could that be? If the app can do something like this, and I've just been silly, please post how it can be done, as I'd like to know!
Thanks for all your efforts - leaving this important point aside, the Internet offering from the 大象传媒 has all been very impressive.

When my dad tries to open the app on his Android Galaxy S2, it doesn't work. It just shows the loading screen. It has Flash and 2.3.5 version of the OS. Any ideas why?

Just like to say thanks to bbc for the iphone app for the last two weeks of great gb performances, the live updates on there were great, so good when out and about.
Shame the video failed most of the time whether on wifi or 3g, did mention this last weekend, but it didnt really seem to improve.

great article

Doesn't work Samsung Galaxy Nexus running Android Jelly Bean - very disappointing

Too many people jump to conclusions too quickly... Need to wait and see what comes down the line, esp with the 大象传媒 International version. People were jumping down the throats of the 大象传媒 and they did it correctly!!! Same with those whose device is not supported... there are OTHER ways to view the Olympics rather than on your device. It was great app and i really enjoyed whole Olympic. Thanks to 大象传媒. Regards, Manager Joe