iOS / iphone6s / BBC iPlayer radio - huge battery usage

[jeremy]

Hi I really like being able to use iPlayer radio - works great and
unlocks such a variety of content.

All has been fine

But I noticed a couple of weeks ago my phone battery was completely
destroyed from starting with 90% ish charge within just 2 hours of
streaming Johnnie Walker's Sounds of the 70s[1].

I updated the app to make sure i was on the lastest but it does appear
to have become a massive battery drain all of a sudden - so am reluctant
to use it out and about.

Spotify seems completely as normal and general battery life seems pretty
much as usual (the battery health check shows 87% capacity relative to
new).

Anyone else experienced similar with iPlayer?

[1] I observed this with other programmes too :)

--
jeremy

[Chris]

Not noticed it myself, but then I only listen to shortish programmes like
the News Quiz or Just a Minute.

[Paul Sture]

I use the web interface with Safari to the Beeb's radio output and from
time to time that definitely consumes more CPU than normal. I dread to
think what that does to a laptop's batteries.

Just yesterday I was listening to R6 Freak Zone (broadcast on Sunday)
and the fans on my Mac mini were busy for the first few minutes.

--
In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future.
The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no
longer exists. –– Eric Hoffer

[juneke...@gmail.com]

I've also experienced this also app keeps running even when I've closed it so I have to turn my phone power off otherwise I completely drain the battery

[Ian McCall]

<juneke...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I've also experienced this also app keeps running even when I've closed
> it so I have to turn my phone power off otherwise I completely drain the battery
>

Well, it’s getting turned off soon in favour of this Sounds thing. I
haven’t downloaded it and likely won’t - what’s annoying me is the
aggressive “for god’s sake let us slurp all your data and track your
viewing/listening habits” relentless advertising they’re doing, and the way
they’re making their services worse by pulling perfectly working streams
from places like TuneIn etc..

Bah.


Cheers,
Ian

[Chris]

I honestly don't understand this "furore". The Sounds app is just a new
interface to exactly the same features plus some extra ones. It takes a
little getting used to, just like all new interfaces, but it is no biggie.

I deleted the iplayer radio app weeks ago with no regrets.

[Chris Ridd]

I think Ian's point is that previously you could get the BBC's streams
in other apps and you didn't have to use whatever BBC app it was. Now
you can't and they're in their own little silo.

If the BBC's app isn't available on your hardware or OS version - it
isn't on Sonos for instance - then you're screwed. It'd be like if BBC
programmes only played on BBC branded TVs.

--
Chris

[Mark]

Wait - what?!? BBC are pulling their radio streams from 3rd party apps??? I
can find mention of TuneIn, but it’s not across the board - or is it?

--
Cheers ... Mark

[Ian McCall]

Mark <captai...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Wait - what?!? BBC are pulling their radio streams from 3rd party apps??? I
> can find mention of TuneIn, but it’s not across the board - or is it?
>

Yep - they are.
<https:www.theregister.co.uk/AMP/2019/10/01/bbc_tunein_radio_streams_pulled/>

I quite like the part where they will keep the streams, but only for
outside the UK. ‘Thanks’.

I await the nicely voice-controlled BBC Sounds app for my Tesla, to replace
the nice big TuneIn buttons. I’ll be waiting a long time I feel.


Cheers,
Ian

[Mark]

Ah.... my radio player of choice didn’t suffer the same fate - I can still
get BBC radio (I left TuneIn last year sometime after they’d removed a
couple of things via an update).

I use https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/radio-net-prime/id526364858

--
Cheers ... Mark

[Chris Ridd]

On 05/10/2019 20:50, Alan B wrote:

> Ian McCall <i...@eruvia.org> wrote:
>> Mark <captai...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Wait - what?!? BBC are pulling their radio streams from 3rd party apps??? I
>>> can find mention of TuneIn, but it’s not across the board - or is it?
>>>
>>
>> Yep - they are.
>> <https:www.theregister.co.uk/AMP/2019/10/01/bbc_tunein_radio_streams_pulled/>
>>
>> I quite like the part where they will keep the streams, but only for
>> outside the UK. ‘Thanks’.
>

> I’m sure there are ways around this. Victor Papa November?

From your car? From your speaker?

--
Chris

[Chris]

Sadly with the BBC being undermined at every opportunity by the government
and the license fee probably being abolished means they're needing to be
much more corporate. No more freebies. If you want BBC streams outside of
their platforms you'll need to pay for them.

[Mark]

On 2019-10-06 14:13:07 +0000, Chris <ithi...@gmail.com> said:

> Chris Ridd <chri...@mac.com> wrote:
>> On 05/10/2019 12:54, Chris wrote:
>>> On 05/10/2019 08:05, Ian McCall wrote:
>>>> <juneke...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> I've also experienced this also app keeps running even when I've closed
>>>>> it so I have to turn my phone power off otherwise I completely drain
>>>>> the battery
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Well, it’s getting turned off soon in favour of this Sounds thing. I
>>>> haven’t downloaded it and likely won’t - what’s annoying me is the
>>>> aggressive “for god’s sake let us slurp all your data and track your
>>>> viewing/listening habits” relentless advertising they’re doing, and
>>>> the way
>>>> they’re making their services worse by pulling perfectly working streams
>>>> from places like TuneIn etc..
>>>
>>> I honestly don't understand this "furore". The Sounds app is just a new
>>> interface to exactly the same features plus some extra ones. It takes a
>>> little getting used to, just like all new interfaces, but it is no biggie.
>>
>> I think Ian's point is that previously you could get the BBC's streams
>> in other apps and you didn't have to use whatever BBC app it was. Now
>> you can't and they're in their own little silo.

Bugger. Wonder how long I've got left? Anyway to find out when they're
likely to cut everyone off?

>>
>> If the BBC's app isn't available on your hardware or OS version - it
>> isn't on Sonos for instance - then you're screwed. It'd be like if BBC
>> programmes only played on BBC branded TVs.
>
> Sadly with the BBC being undermined at every opportunity by the government
> and the license fee probably being abolished means they're needing to be
> much more corporate. No more freebies. If you want BBC streams outside of
> their platforms you'll need to pay for them.

--
Cheers ... Mark

[deKay]

Soni tempori elseu romani yeof helsforo nisson ol sefini ill des Sun, 6 Oct
2019 14:13:07 -0000 (UTC), sefini jorgo geanyet des mani yeof do
uk.comp.sys.mac, yawatina tan reek esk Chris <ithi...@gmail.com> fornis do
marikano es bono tan el:

>
>Sadly with the BBC being undermined at every opportunity by the government
>and the license fee probably being abolished means they're needing to be
>much more corporate. No more freebies. If you want BBC streams outside of
>their platforms you'll need to pay for them.

But on the other hand, if they're not on the platforms we use, we won't listen
to them.

[Steve H]

Chris Ridd <chri...@mac.com> wrote:

> I think Ian's point is that previously you could get the BBC's streams
> in other apps and you didn't have to use whatever BBC app it was. Now
> you can't and they're in their own little silo.

This is annoying - I often use the TuneIn app to listen to Radio 2 in
our campervan. In many places, you can get 3/4G or Wifi, but radio
signals are poor. I liked TuneIn as you can select a stream which
matches your data connection and data allowance.

It's good that I'll still get BBC stations on TuneIn whilst abroad, as
Sounds would just suck up too much data - although I have unlimited data
in the UK, roaming is capped at 19GB a month.
--
Steve H

[Mark]

Looks like it’s only TuneIn (and, one assumes, any other company that
doesn’t provide it with “meaningful data directly”) - the radio app I use
still gets BBC.

--
Cheers ... Mark

[Ian McCall]

On 7 Oct 2019, Mark wrote
(in article <qneavg$1h64$1...@gioia.aioe.org>):

Picking up on this long dead thread now that HomePod can do radio streams...

HomePod can still do BBC Radio 3, but cannot do Radio 4. Radio 4 has gone
from TuneIn on the iPhone, and I’ll bet they’re just not sophisticated
enough to do the distinction between iOS on iPhone/iPad and iOS on HomePod.
Haven’t checked with the AppleTV yet.

Result is that Radio 4 is now a car-only thing for me. Bah.

Cheers,
Ian

--
Checkout the new single Something out There and more, plus the albums Voix
Sans Voix and Proto, all at:<http://studioicm.com>, stream
at<https://soundcloud.com/mccalli> and<http://ianmccall.bandcamp.com>

[Mark]

*Sigh* ... I’d completely forgotten that TuneIn had stopped the BBC
streams! :( and I’ve just reinstalled TuneIn after long-time use of
Radio.Net! May have to go back to using RN.

--
Cheers ... Mark

[Michael Phillips]

On 2019-12-15 10:24:00 +0000, Ian McCall said:

> Radio 4 has gone from TuneIn

Is that a UK thing? I get all the BBCs via TuneIn here in Ireland,
although some live sports events aren't broadcast on BBC5.

--
mhphillips at gmail dot com

[Ian McCall]

On 15 Dec 2019, Michael Phillips wrote
(in article <2019121515523251861-me@odtaacominvalid>):

> On 2019-12-15 10:24:00 +0000, Ian McCall said:
>
> > Radio 4 has gone from TuneIn
>
> Is that a UK thing? I get all the BBCs via TuneIn here in Ireland,
> although some live sports events aren't broadcast on BBC5.

Yes, UK only. ’Thanks’.

[Savageduck]

On Dec 15, 2019, Michael Phillips wrote
(in article <2019121515523251861-me@odtaacominvalid>):

> On 2019-12-15 10:24:00 +0000, Ian McCall said:
>
> > Radio 4 has gone from TuneIn
>
> Is that a UK thing? I get all the BBCs via TuneIn here in Ireland,
> although some live sports events aren't broadcast on BBC5.

Yup! I get all the BBC Radio services via TuneIn here in California. That
includes Radio 4.

--
Regards,
Savageduck

[Mark]

It is just TuneIn though (and whatever others don’t feedback data to the
BBC) - other radio apps still carry the BBC streams (just tried three
others - all worked).

--
Cheers ... Mark

[Savageduck]

On Dec 15, 2019, Mark wrote
(in article <qt5rvl$1roq$1...@gioia.aioe.org>):

I used to access all sorts of radio including various BBC via iTunes, but
that avenue has been dead for several years now. I was disappointed when
Apple terminated iTunes radio & web streaming, that included some
interesting oddball & historic stuff. That is the main reason I migrated to
TuneIn, that works well enough for me so I have not bothered with any other
apps.

--
Regards,
Savageduck

[Ian McCall]

On 15 Dec 2019, Savageduck wrote
(in article<0001HW.23A6AEB202...@news.giganews.com>):

> I used to access all sorts of radio including various BBC via iTunes, but
> that avenue has been dead for several years now. I was disappointed when
> Apple terminated iTunes radio & web streaming, that included some
> interesting oddball & historic stuff. That is the main reason I migrated to
> TuneIn, that works well enough for me so I have not bothered with any other
> apps.

Exactly the same. I also put my own streams in - did you know there’s one
that plays Just A Minute all day, every day, forever? Or one dedicated to
Commodore 64 music remakes? You get the idea.

BBC used to be advanced in this stuff, developing the Dirac codec for
streaming and then doing Ogg-format streaming as well. All gone in favour of
BBC Data Slurp, err...BBC Surveillance...no hang on, BBC Sounds. That’s it
- BBC Sounds. Not the other two at all.

[Sn!pe]

Ian McCall <i...@eruvia.org> wrote:

> On 15 Dec 2019, Savageduck wrote
> (in article<0001HW.23A6AEB202...@news.giganews.com>):
>
> > I used to access all sorts of radio including various BBC via iTunes, but
> > that avenue has been dead for several years now. I was disappointed when
> > Apple terminated iTunes radio & web streaming, that included some
> > interesting oddball & historic stuff. That is the main reason I migrated to
> > TuneIn, that works well enough for me so I have not bothered with any other
> > apps.
>
> Exactly the same. I also put my own streams in - did you know there's one
> that plays Just A Minute all day, every day, forever? Or one dedicated to
> Commodore 64 music remakes? You get the idea.
>
> BBC used to be advanced in this stuff, developing the Dirac codec for
> streaming and then doing Ogg-format streaming as well. All gone in favour of
> BBC Data Slurp, err...BBC Surveillance...no hang on, BBC Sounds. That's it
> - BBC Sounds. Not the other two at all.
>

This is good for all sorts of exotic radio stations:-
<https://radio.garden/>

- including many BBC stations, e.g. BBC R4:-
<https://radio.garden/listen/bbc-radio-4/>

There are iOS and Android apps available.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Garden>

--
^Ï^ My pet rock Gordon just is.

[Ian McCall]

On 15 Dec 2019, Sn!pe wrote
(in article<1oin54p.1t4xajcg2girpN%snip...@gmail.com>):

> Ian McCall <i...@eruvia.org> wrote:
>
> > On 15 Dec 2019, Savageduck wrote
> > (in article<0001HW.23A6AEB202...@news.giganews.com>):
> >
> > > I used to access all sorts of radio including various BBC via iTunes, but
> > > that avenue has been dead for several years now. I was disappointed when
> > > Apple terminated iTunes radio & web streaming, that included some
> > > interesting oddball & historic stuff. That is the main reason I migrated
> > > to
> > > TuneIn, that works well enough for me so I have not bothered with any other
> > > apps.
> >
> > Exactly the same. I also put my own streams in - did you know there's one
> > that plays Just A Minute all day, every day, forever? Or one dedicated to
> > Commodore 64 music remakes? You get the idea.
> >
> > BBC used to be advanced in this stuff, developing the Dirac codec for
> > streaming and then doing Ogg-format streaming as well. All gone in favour of
> > BBC Data Slurp, err...BBC Surveillance...no hang on, BBC Sounds. That's it
> > - BBC Sounds. Not the other two at all.
>
> This is good for all sorts of exotic radio stations:-
> <https://radio.garden/>
>
> - including many BBC stations, e.g. BBC R4:-
> <https://radio.garden/listen/bbc-radio-
>

> There are iOS and Android apps available.
>
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Garden>

Handy - thanks.

Unfortunately doesn’t cover my original use case (not a criticism -
genuinely thanks) of just saying “Hey Siri play BBC Radio 4” in the
kitchen and having the HomePod start playing it. I can, weirdly enough, do so
for Radio 3 at which point it says “Now playing Radio 3 provided by
TuneIn”. For my actual favourite ‘radio’ station, SomeFM’s Groove
Salad <https://somafm.com/groovesalad/> it works seamlessly, In the car I
frequently switch between Radio 4, Groove Salad via TuneIn, podcasts via
TuneIn and my phone’s audio for my own music library. On the HomePod, one
of those options is missing thanks to shortsighted policies from both the BBC
(asking for these terms) and TuneIn (not distinguishing devices properly).

Bah.

[Tony Hall]

FWIW I can still stream BBC radio in iTunes, after a small amount of
faff to set up.
(Mojave and iTunes 12.9.5.5)

Here's what I did a few years ago, which looks like it should still
work...
(Pasted from some old notes I've stored for reference.)


For iTunes, there may well be better ways, but...

- iTunes: File > New > Playlist (cmd-N)
- Name the playlist eg. 'BBC Radio'
- iTunes: File > Open Stream... (cmd-U)
- Enter the desired stream address into the address box
(BBC streams noted below)
- The stream should start playing
- iTunes: Song > Add to Playlist > 'BBC Radio'
- Repeat to add other streams
- Edit the song information (cmd-I) into more legible and user friendly
format, also add other desired metadata

These BBC stream addresses can be used in other apps such as VLC etc.
but replace "itls://" with "http://"

BBC Radio 1
itls://a.files.bbci.co.uk/media/live/manifesto/audio/simulcast/hls/uk/sb
r_high/ak/bbc_radio_one.m3u8

BBC Radio 1Xtra
itls://a.files.bbci.co.uk/media/live/manifesto/audio/simulcast/hls/uk/sb
r_high/ak/bbc_1xtra.m3u8

BBC Radio 2
itls://a.files.bbci.co.uk/media/live/manifesto/audio/simulcast/hls/uk/sb
r_high/ak/bbc_radio_two.m3u8

BBC Radio 3
itls://a.files.bbci.co.uk/media/live/manifesto/audio/simulcast/hls/uk/sb
r_high/ak/bbc_radio_three.m3u8

BBC Radio 4
itls://a.files.bbci.co.uk/media/live/manifesto/audio/simulcast/hls/uk/sb
r_high/ak/bbc_radio_fourfm.m3u8

BBC Radio 4LW
itls://a.files.bbci.co.uk/media/live/manifesto/audio/simulcast/hls/uk/sb
r_high/ak/bbc_radio_fourlw.m3u8

BBC Radio 4 Extra
itls://a.files.bbci.co.uk/media/live/manifesto/audio/simulcast/hls/uk/sb
r_high/ak/bbc_radio_four_extra.m3u8

BBC Radio 5 Live
itls://a.files.bbci.co.uk/media/live/manifesto/audio/simulcast/hls/uk/sb
r_high/ak/bbc_radio_five_live.m3u8

BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra
itls://a.files.bbci.co.uk/media/live/manifesto/audio/simulcast/hls/uk/sb
r_high/ak/bbc_radio_five_live_sports_extra.m3u8

BBC Radio 6 Music
itls://a.files.bbci.co.uk/media/live/manifesto/audio/simulcast/hls/uk/sb
r_high/ak/bbc_6music.m3u8

BBC Asian Network
itls://a.files.bbci.co.uk/media/live/manifesto/audio/simulcast/hls/uk/sb
r_high/ak/bbc_asian_network.m3u8

(Please excuse the line wrapping for the addresses above.)


I hope that makes some kind of sense and works for someone who hasn't
migrated to a non-iTunes soultion.

[Mark]

I have the BBC streams in my iTunes. Whether this is because I'm on
Sierra, or because I previosuly manually added the streams (I seem to
remember doing so - or thinking about doing so - a good 10 years ago),
I don't know.

Odio <https://odio.io> carries the streams of course, if anyone is
still looking for a desktop solution..
--
Cheers ... Mark

[Mark]

I was excited to just find out Receiver Radio had a desktop app - until
seeing it needed 10.13 or later (10.12 here). Oh well. It does however
have HomePod support (and CarPlay, etc).
--
Cheers ... Mark