We thought it would be a good time to detail some of the stuff going on in our labs right now. We’re delighted with the success of the BBC Radio apps so far and we want to make your experience even better.

With the recent announcement of a major new release of Windows Phone (codenamed Mango), we will get new facilities to stream the radio in the background – even when the navigating away from the application. This has been one of the main requests from our customers, so we’re delighted to be building it in.

We’ve also taken a good hard look at data usage and one area we thought we could improve on was the Electronic Programme Guide (EPG) which loads fresh on every start. We’re now caching it, so if you use the app twice in the same day, it will pickup the EPG from its cache file the second time around.

Finally, we’ve heard that you want to be able to access more of the BBC radio stations. We’re excited to announce that a new version of the BBC Radio player with full selectable BBC stations is being developed. Changing a stations is as simple as dropping into settings and making a new choice. The full HD EPG guide is up an running for all stations in all its glory.

So when is all this goodness going to be available?

Well. Everything but the background playback should be available within the next 6 weeks. We’re doing testing right now to make absolutely sure everything works fine. We hope we will have thebackground playback facility available once the official Windows Phone “Mango” update starts hitting Zune.

Thoughts, suggestions on new things you would like to see in the BBC Radio Player series? Then let us know via the support email: support@igneoussoftware.com

Thanks!