mobileu.co.uk

BBC is to launch news and sport iPhone apps

From April this year, BBC fans will be able to keep up with the latest news and sport through the broadcaster’s own iPhone apps.

The free applications will take advantage of the fact that more people now have “sophisticated handheld devices”, according to a BBC spokesperson. The apps will be followed by versions for phones running Google’s Android OS and RIM’s BlackBerry device.

The fact that the apps will be free and other news providers, such as the Guardian, offer pay-for apps, is likely to increase tension between the free and the pay-for news industries.

Emily Bell, the Director of Digital Content at the Guardian, said, “whilst the BBC's impulse to enter an already crowded news and sport apps market place is understandable, the move belies the fundamentally competitive nature of the Corporation's approach to new services.”

Erik Huggers, the BBC’s Director of Future Media and Technology, added that audiences, “want to access the digital services that they have paid for at a time and place that suits them". He continued, "today's announcement means that we are catching up with our audiences.”