Museums and Stuff

A grumble: Just when you think you are cresting the technology wave…

I recently got a smartphone. It wasn’t the iPhone that I so desperately wanted, but then androids have come on in leaps and bounds in the last years and almost all apps are available for both. 

I was now able to download and play with all the museum apps I have been reading about for what seems like an age. Museum of London’s Streetmuseum for example, a great app that I can’t wait to try out in London. But technology is moving so fast, that there is always something newer. Do not get me wrong, I am all for development and progress, but when does the constant development of solutions for the very newest technology become exclusionary?

The example that prompts this post is the new BBC international iPlayer. The service costs either €6.99 per month or €50 for the year. It is not the same as the iPlayer in the UK due to licensing issues, which means that you have access to BBC-produced material, at the moment that is 150 old and new programmes (it’s a different grumble entirely that some of the material is shown on BBC Entertainment - the international channel - anyway). So this is a paid for, limited version of the UK iPlayer. Oh, and it’s only available on the iPad. Now, this baffles me. We all know that it is perfectly possible to produce a programme like this for the computer, it’s not like lots of phone apps that require GPS or other technology a computer doesn’t possess. A lot more people have computers than iPads, there are more people have iPhones than iPads. The decision was obviously not based on how most people would like to access the service. So why would they launch an exciting new product, which has been hyped since the beginning of the year and only mention a week before that it’s iPad only?

I know the parallel between the museum and the BBC is a little forced, but you do see this happening in museums too. Until three weeks ago I longed for a phone that would augment reality for me, or find me on a map. Does anyone else feel this way? Or are you all smugly reading this from your iPad??