So is this offering something that isn't available on other platforms?
For UK viewers, the BBC have at least written applications for multiple desktop and mobile platforms. The Iphone etc only need their own applications, because they're not capable of common standards like Flash. (Although if it's true that the Flash applications run poorly on other platforms, they should sort that out, just as they do for the Iphone.)
But I wasn't aware of a current way by which non-UK viewers can subscribe to Iplayer?
Come on now - when the BBC favoured only Windows on the desktop, there was an uproar. But at least you could say that Windows is (a) number one, and (b) covered 90% market share. Neither is true for Apple - for (a) the Iphones are way behind Nokia and Android, and (b) even if we only look at "smart" phones, the share is just 15% (less than 5% if you look at all app-capable phones). For the Ipad, it's outsold by Windows netbooks.
dotdavid: "I'd program my own app that used the iPhone streams, but you know they'd just get it removed from the Market"
Actually I believe that they've now prevented that - there used to be a desktop application that would download Iplayer videos via the Iphone API, but now it's blocked!
Eponymous Cowherd: Hmm, the Flash Iplayer application works fine on my Nokia 5800, and that's with an old ~400MHz processor. Does Android struggle with Flash?