Which 10" tablet for BBC iPlayer?

[mozz]

Hi everyone. BBC iPlayer is no longer compatible with my Tab S3 and won't play.

Which 10" tablet would you recommend please, it's mainly for streaming.

TIA

[millerman]

Works well on my Tab 6.

[FlyingKiwi]

@mozz I guess it depends how much you want to spend but my Tab A (2018 10.5) works well with iPlayer and many other streaming/TV Apps (all those I've tried including from the terrestrial channels, Virgin Media and Sky over the last 2 years). How long it'll stay that way will be up to the app developers who may decide to stop supporting old hardware features in favour of newer technologies. If you buy the newest model, it'll likely be more future proof so there is a 'sweet spot' in terms of bang for your buck. It'll also depend on how fast you want the device to be and what extra bells and whistles you are willing to pay for but if its really just for streaming, I dont think it wouldn't be worth buying one of the top of the range models because you could buy a lower spec model and a subsequent lower spec model or two afterwards for less money in total.

Edit (a few mins later) I see on the BBC iPlayer support page that their Android App still supports much older versions of Android than the Tab S3 is capable of being updated to. Do you have Android 9 on your S3 and is it fully up to date using the software update function? What makes you think the S3 is no longer 'compatible' rather than this just being due to a bug or conflict of some sort? Have you tried updating the iPlayer app (and all the apps ideally) within the Google Play Store. From what I can see it looks as if a Tab S3 should still be more than capable of running iPlayer so this is puzzling to me.

[mozz]

Thanks guys, my Tab S3 is running Android 9. I think it's incompatible because iplayer is insisting on updating but the play store says "no longer compatible with your device". I was forced to buy an Apply iPad Air because their support was so much better than Samsung UK. It's a big change and I'm not loving Apple but as far as I'm concerned back up is more important than devices. I was appalled at how bad the Samsung customer care is.

The option was to go for a lower end but newer Samsung tablet because I would have preferred to stick to Samsung but I spent hours on the their customer care online chat and they couldn't recommend a suitable tablet???? Honestly, I can't deal with a company who has no interest in their customers. Not that I think it will make a difference in their lives.....

That's the way it went I'm afraid

I'll continue to try and update on my S3 but at least I'm able to watch BBC on my iPad.

[FlyingKiwi]

@mozz Glad you now have a tablet you're happy with. A quick check on the iPlayer support pages list some unsupported devices wrt the latest version of the iPlayer app but there's no mention of the S3. if you've copied all your valued data across to your new iPad, I'd give the S3 a factory data reset, run all Google Play Store updates then install just the iPlayer app and try again. iPlayer works with much older and lower spec devices than the S3 so I strongly suspect something else is going on.

[mozz]

That is an excellent idea and I'll certainly give it a go. I'm also puzzled and agree there might be another reason for iPlayer refusing to update.  Would love to find out and perhaps pass the info on for future reference.

Thanks for being super helpful

[FlyingKiwi]

As a user of a Samsung Tablet thats not too dissimilar to yours as well as BBC iPlayer, I dont want this happening with my device any time soon so I'm not posting here for entirely altruistic reasons!

I also found this statement under the BBC iPlayer help too - 'We know some Android users aren't able to update to the latest version of BBC iPlayer from the Google Play Store. The BBC iPlayer app is only available to people using the UK Google Play Store, so if you've changed the 'Country and Profile' in the Play Store to a different country, this will affect installing or updating BBC iPlayer'. This means you'll also need to ensure all settings relate just to the UK - no holiday home settings for Monaco permitted!

Once you've checked all this and if required, factory data reset the Tab S3 and find it still poses the the same problem, my next move would be to contact the IPlayer App support people at the BBC and ask for an explanation as to why your relatively high spec device has been discontinued. Please let us know how your efforts turn out.