The BBC is planning to roll out a range of free iPhone apps to bring its online content to an increasingly mobile audience, beginning with the News app which is due to launch in March.
The first apps will be news and sports
The BBC News app will provide breaking news stories and video for the iPhone but the organisation also plans to bring apps to other smart-phone platforms, including the Blackberry and Android devices.
This will be followed by a BBC Sports app for May and as indicated by Pete Clifton, head of editorial development, multimedia at BBC News, there will be more official BBC apps to come.
The sports app, says the BBC, will be out in time for the World Cup and like the news app it will be available on both a UK and international version.
It will have a combination of material form the BBC Sport website and the 5 Live radio station.
BBC has had a mobile friendly site for the past 10 years
“This is an exciting development for us and a natural progression after providing the best of our journalism – news, sport, weather, travel – on mobile devices for the past 10 years,” said Clifton.
“Our approach has always been simple: web equals mobile; mobile equals web. If we have made great content for our websites – with your licence fee money – then mobile is just another platform to make it available to you.”
Other media organisations also have iPhone apps to distribute their content, some free, some paid-for. The RTE News application, which was released on 18 January 2010, is free while the Guardian’s app costs €2.99.
By Marie Boran
