YouView brings 'simplicity,' CTO says in interview

If YouView, which has finally launched in the U.K.--supposedly in time for the upcoming Olympics games--doesn't take off, it won't be for lack of trying or, for that matter, explaining what it is and where it expects to go, as CTO Chris Bramley did in an interview with TechRadar.

"Where YouView really excels is in its pleasant-to-watch simplicity. So all the great content that is aggregated from YouView is available at the press on one button wherever you are, in any navigation," Bramley said in the interview.

Simplicity, he continued, is different than what smart TV platforms like Xbox and Playstation provide … a "very segregated mass-related experience." With YouView, he added, "you don't have to feel completely isolated in an island of content."

Though Bramley wasn't with YouView from the start of the project (he joined in 2011, replacing Anthony Rose), he told TechRadar that the platform that finally came out is the one that was planned all along even though the only IPTV content comes initially from BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Five.

"The fantastic thing about YouView is that we have built a service, when you buy this box from retail or an ISP, you'll always be getting new features and updates from YouView. We have a long road of features we want to implement," he said..

Perhaps best of all, Bramley told TechRadar, YouView has "excellent focus" thanks to YouView Chairman Lord Sugar.

"We've always been very quality-focused with this program because we knew the demand for it, certainly in the technical sector," he said. The devil, he said, was in the details.

"We couldn't afford to put a product in the market which was not going to match up., so having Lord Sugar on board has been very valuable in driving that in. He's a details man."

For more:
 - read theTechRadar story

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