91Èȱ¬

Will there be an Android app any time soon?

Yay! I've been waiting for this for ages! Good work.

Oh yay. More vendor and device specific support. Can you really not just run the website on open standards and let everyone play?

Glad to hear they're almost available. When will it be hitting the App Store?
Can't believe the 91Èȱ¬ Trust wasted so much time and probably money pointlessly reviewing these.

No mention of the Android platform? Android is as popular if not more popular than iPhone - how about versions of all the iPhone apps for Android launched at the same time?

And it would be nice if the iPlayer app for Android worked on all versions of the phone not just the most recent one owned by the wealthiest few?

Just so people are aware Android apps are in the pipeline as indicated in this blog post - /blogs/aboutthebbc/2010/07/bbc-mobile-apps-go-live.shtml

Been waiting for this so should be good!

If these are anything like the US versions they will be excellent. But cue 50 blog posts about how the 91Èȱ¬ is killing off competition.

For my '2 pence', I've paid my licence fee, I consume media from my Ipad - I've already paid for this and should be able to use it!

When the "official" 91Èȱ¬ app comes along, lets hope it will run on all Android devices and the 91Èȱ¬ won't start C&D-ing the (often very good) unofficial 91Èȱ¬ News apps that are currently on the Android market.

I'm rather concerned there will be a repeat of the BeebPlayer fiasco where the 91Èȱ¬ kills off the unofficial competition with C&D orders while providing an "official" app that will only run on a small subset of Android devices.

Please .... Android! Android is now outselling iPhone, so please 91Èȱ¬.

Also make it for Android 1.6 - not 2.2. My phone (SE X10) is BRAND NEW and still only has 1.6. Very, very few phones at the moment have 2.1 or 2.2, and the carriers seem to take ages in updating the phone OS

Another thing.

What it the need for the iPad app. The iPad is perfectly capable of displaying the full news website....

Well, it would have been before the 91Èȱ¬ made a right royal bolognaise of the layout....

As said above, Android!! Or even better, build a nice open architecture and let the world develop the apps.
Why on earth do you want to develop your own apps? You will have to develop, support versions for each platform. Not very cost efficient, and irritating for those who don't have an supported platform (like Android at the moment...)
What makes it even more irritating is that you remove 3rd party apps without replacing them! Luckily I saved my copy of Beebplayer and will treasure it until you finally get round to supporting the non-Apple market.

I commend the 91Èȱ¬ on providing a brilliant online service but the budget cuts are well overdue if this is what our money is being wasted on. A mobile version of the website would suffice across all operating systems for a fraction of the cost.

Why Apple only? Are apple devices unable to access the current websites? Surely it can't be that hard to support all devices rather than just a select few from a single manufacturer.

Hopefully the Android apps won't be too far behind. It's on an increasing number of devices and has a massively increasing userbase.

"Please .... Android! Android is now outselling iPhone, so please 91Èȱ¬." (@Joe Adams)

Presumably you're basing this on a recent that gave Android a 7% lead in market-share?

The biggest smartphone platforms in the UK are likely Symbian and BlackBerry - those are the platforms that the 91Èȱ¬ should be targeting.

The "Live" button doesn't work - it says I am outside the UK...? Is this just the US version added to the UK App Store?

Other than that, this app is far more advanced than, say, the Guardian's app.

Well done!

@Kurisu

Can't argue with your logic. At least the 91Èȱ¬ should stop this iPhone/iPad/everything Apple love affair. As you point out there are bigger mobile operating systems out there, but the 91Èȱ¬ loves all things Apple.

Also, it looks pretty fuzzy on an iPhone 4. remember the resolution in the next update!

OK now we know why the 91Èȱ¬ wrecked their website last week (see the relevant blog for 1000's of negative comments): by adding all that white space at the sides their target was to make it possible to read the content with this app. on mobile devices without using any sideways movement or magnification on their small screens.
Any chance of incorporating a switch in the 91Èȱ¬ website to allow desktop / laptop users to get sensible pages of information?
Maybe the 91Èȱ¬ are only looking to the long-term future when they expect all access will be via mobile devices.

@Joe Adams : "Very, very few phones at the moment have 2.1 or 2.2"

Actually nearly 60% of Android handsets worldwide now run 2.1 or above, around 40% are using v 1.5/1.6 of Android, so still a significant number. hopefully SE will get a move on and upgrade your X10.

It's great to have this at last. With Sky News and ITV having had iPhone apps for ages, the objections in April were clearly hypocritical. Nice implementation too - the quality of the live stream on iPhone 4 is amazing!

Just downloaded it.

Annoying that you can't watch News24 other than on WiFi - you can watch it on 3G with TVCatchup.

Would be nice to also have access to the Blogs.

OK so would you just give me a summary as to how it's fair to spend license fee payers' money on developing an application for a device which only launched that was only released 3 months ago (the iPad) long before even thinking about developing an application for a platform that was launched around the end of 2008 (Android)?

And no, the fact it shares the same OS as the iPhone is not a valid excuse when you've only just delivered a form of accessing the iPlayer for Android users, which is only usable by a very finite percentage of users at this time (with 2.2 on Flash-capable chipsets, which I'm lucky enough to have on my Nexus, few others are yet), and yet you appear to be planning to deliver both this and at least two other applications to both the iPhone and iPad before releasing anything for Android?... I'd better hope Apple don't release another form factor iOS device, or you'll probably be delaying thinking about Android even longer to work getting something out for that... (and I can't help but feel sorry for BlackBerry users probably feeling offended by getting a browser shortcut...)

Hope that the Android version is released soon!

About time! Am very excited to have the 91Èȱ¬ app on my blackberry, will be much easier to keep informed on the move

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

There is an easily replicable bug in the iPad app which dans that if I launch it in portrait and turn it landscape, or even launch it landscape (sometimes) instead of the left-hand list of stories I simply get a green screen.

The app is wonderful, apart from this bug.

I love the 91Èȱ¬ News App. I think it looks great, is easy to use and the video quality is really good on the iPhone 4. I'll be using this every day!

The "live" button doesn't work for me, yet I am in the UK and on a wifi network. I got the error message about needing to be in the UK the first time I clicked the "live" button, and now the button is greyed-out and can't be clicked. I don't have any problems watching video from my laptop on the same wifi network!

It looks nice on my iPhone but....
The phone now takes at least 15 seconds to turn on and the same to switch off. I presume you are loading your stuff during these periods because when I remove the app the phone reverts to its normal immediate switch on and off.
Pity. I quite liked it.

Very disappointing app. Thinks I'm outside of the UK, and the news grid quickly turns to a green screen of death. Obviously rushed out without thorough testing. 91Èȱ¬ devs, hang your collective head in shame.

Not impressed at all. It is incredibly slow on my iPhone 3G model, has crashed on me several times, and when I try to view the live feed, it says I am outside the UK!

As others have said, nice that it thinks I'm outside of the UK even though I'm well and truly not. I'm not even on an edge!

I do so agree with others who use Android devices. I expect platform neutrality. Some developers have tried to set up 91Èȱ¬ related apps for Android: I'd like to hear that the 91Èȱ¬ will encourage and help.

I also get the green screen problem described in /blogs/bbcinternet/2010/07/bbc_news_mobile_apps.html, for the first 20 mins of using the app I couldn't get rid of the green screen, now it only happens when I change iPad orientation

Why shaft the Android version and prioritise Apple products? Android is by far the fastest growing OS and it's been around two years! Yet Crapple release the ipad and click their fingers and the bbc runs.

Taxpayers money is being spent yet the 91Èȱ¬ deem it right to prioritise a proprietary OS over the open source OS which is causing a revolution in the phone industry at the moment.

What's worse, is when you do release the Android version, you will probably build it with less functionality of the iphone version.

What it comes down to, is possibly the richest news organisation in the world can't fairly divide it's resources to release an Android application at the same time.

What they choose to do instead is send cease and desist orders to the few who try and put a 91Èȱ¬ app in the market to enable people to see a bit of content from iplayer. Because look at all the harm that was doing.

Bit buggy, use in landscape mode on the iPad and the sections are replaced with a nice green rectangle.

At least the layout is more enjoyable to use than the browser version, and finally we can watch video clips.

You say: "We have developed a neat personalisation feature which lets you re-order the news categories to suit your needs."

Please could you go tell the people at the main news site how to do it.

Whilst the app is currently slightly buggy both in terms of the ...

1) Green screen issue in the iPad app

2) the app on both iPhone and iPad thinking you are outside the UK when you try and stream the 91Èȱ¬ News channel

... once these are ironed out the app will be truly brilliant. 91Èȱ¬ Online Team doing great work again!

These applications only list a fraction of the latest content from the 91Èȱ¬ News website. Why is there no ability to read local news?

Great app but when I click on the lice button an error message comes up saying "cannot view from outside the uk".

I am in the UK and get this on my wifi and 3G vodafone - iPhone 3GS I have no problem with the iplayer when connected to the same network.

When I re-install the app it works once and then get the same error again

Can anyone actually say what "today we are launching" actually means ? The iphone app is not available from apple (unless you live in the US) and there are no links to download. The 91Èȱ¬ has made a hash of the launch of this app already by making us unreasonably wait. Now it looks as if the people who pay for the 91Èȱ¬ are having to pay second fiddle to our friends over the pond.

Although the app looks lovely and does work most of the time, it also goes blank from time to time, makes my phone seize and tells me I'm outside the UK. I'll remove it for now and wait for the update.

Great app, troublo is when I click on live I got a message saying the live function is only supported in the UK, last time I looked North Yorkshire was in the UK and now I can't click the live button to try again.....

The apparent quality of this application is hilarious. How on earth does something as buggy as this get through a quality assurance process? Is this what our license fee goes towards. UNBELIEVABLE........

On this page ( the features list mentions world service radio. The same features list within the app itself makes no mention. I can't figure out how to get radio - is the web page wrong and this feature has not been included? Enjoying the app - been waiting ages for this! Liking the new news site design too.

@26

re: your link.

or at the least to be available on all major platforms.

So why no mention of Symbian, you know, the UK highest OS for smartphones?

Please explain.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

@Kuriso

"Presumably you're basing this on a recent US-only survey that gave Android a 7% lead in market-share?

The biggest smartphone platforms in the UK are likely Symbian and BlackBerry - those are the platforms that the 91Èȱ¬ should be targeting."

I agree that Blackberry and Nokia/Symbvian should be targetted as they are most popular in the UK at the moment. Also I should imagine there are many more iPhones in action than Android phones, simply because iPhones have been widely sold for much longer.

However, many large phone companies have reported that the HTC Desire outsold the iPhone in the UK in the second quarter of the year and remember the HTC Desire is only just one of many Android phones (eg other massively selling Android phones are the SE X10, SE X10 Mini, SE X 10 Mini Pro, HTC Wildfire, HTC legend, HTC Hero, Google Nexus One, Samsung Galaxy S and Motorola Milestone to name just 10 other such phones. As such it appears to be odds on that sooner or later Android will overtake the iPhone in phone use in the UK.

However, even then, the likes of Symbian and Blackberry may stay out in front. Surely the best thing to do would have been to do like the Evening Standard and release apps for Blackberry, Symbian, iPhone and Android all at the same time (ignoring the fact that the Evening Standard Android app is truly substandard!). This would have at least been the fairest option and the one least likely to lead to complaints.

Never seen the need for an app.
I've always been able to view the full 91Èȱ¬ News website on the last 3 handsets that I've owned since 2006, and it hasn't been a half baked WAP style effort either.

WAP is an old antiquated APN that mobile manufacturers are trying to kill and bury for good. With some of today's handsets WAP is a thing of the past and creating these so called "apps" is just holding back progress in the mobile market.

Just as an example, with my current handset I can use the full, unrestricted Facebook; I have applied for jobs via online application forms including typed out the covering letter, edited my CV, uploaded them both to the site and submitted it, then received the confirmation email. I can even go to the forum/message board that I run and perform administration duties there.

Short and sweet:

It's not fair to critise an app as 'buggy' without giving details.

To claim that a platform is more popular because it is the fastest growing is not accurate. Android 2.2 is not stable yet nor the mainstream. Developing an app for old versions would be a waste of effort.

Likewise for Symbian 3 - the N8 isn't launched yet.

The Iphone 3G is slow with every app if you have updated to IOS4.

Those in the UK, it might be worth checking the location of your ISP. You may live in the middle of the country but your proxy might be offshore 'for tax reasons'.

MyVoiceinYrHead said "Those in the UK, it might be worth checking the location of your ISP. You may live in the middle of the country but your proxy might be offshore 'for tax reasons'."

Did you miss the part where I (and another poster) stated the video is just fine using a laptop on the same wifi network?

Also, I'm on iOS4 on a 3Gs and haven't noticed any global slowdown in the apps I use.

"Developing an app for old versions would be a waste of effort."

thats not technically true for Android devices, the OS framework has been built to be backwards compatible, so you can build an app for 1.5 devices and it will work perfectly fine on the latest 2.2 phones.

Obviously it doesn't work the other way round so if the 91Èȱ¬ build an app for 2.2 devices as they are suggesting it means thousands of people will miss out...

Really the 91Èȱ¬ should have released an app for all the top devices (iPhone/Android/Blackberry) at the same time to ensure product impartiality, but as always the 91Èȱ¬ are firmly in bed with Mr Jobs (anyone else noticed how many presenters are now carrying iPads around? licence fee abuse anyone!) and so Im not surprised the iPhone apps are out first.

@53 GuitarChick_UK

No, the 3Gs is fine, the 3G is slow - I've been through the pain before upgrading to IPhone 4.

...and I only said it might be worth checking the ISP... ;)

The app for iPad is good, but I think the 91Èȱ¬ should take a leaf out of the app known as 'Pulse' the interface is similar but much smoother and less glitchy... Also please sort out the green screen that takes over when I turn it portrait, not always but sometimes.

It's a shame that the app only shows 10 articles for each category. That's not enough. I think that the (non-91Èȱ¬) 91Èȱ¬ News app on android is already better than this. It's not quite so visually appealing, but it does a better job of showing you the news, which should be the primary purpose of this.

Dear 91Èȱ¬ Team,
On several writings by me, i have requested to provide mobile version of 91Èȱ¬ News from I Phone mobile devices.,
Gladly to note that, you have made provisions in I Phone mobile sets to get 91Èȱ¬ news and able to watch some vital videos from them.,
Many thanks to you and your team for bringing lot of modern changes,and easy applications by many available modern communication gadgets.,
Now a days, i am reading all news of 91Èȱ¬ from my I Phone,and,occasionally, i am writing some comments on 91Èȱ¬ News Hour through face book websites.
Many South African and Kenyan friends had already started to watch 91Èȱ¬ world service programs,reading my comments to 91Èȱ¬ world services,and encouraging, recommended to surf 91Èȱ¬ world services and 91Èȱ¬ Radio services to their relatives,friends and other users to be in touch with 91Èȱ¬ world services.,
I am a freelance writer, and very much interested to see,grasp,watch and some scribblings to these world famous news channels.,
Best wishes.,

That's a Blackberry Application?
More like a glorified shortcut to the Mobile Web Page.

Other OS's are noticable by their absence.

Why isn't the app accessible to blind voice over users. The only thing I can manage to do on this app is play the live stream. I pay my licence fee too!

Anything coming for symbian devices ?

You've gone from a website that works well on any device to one that requires specially written apps. That's an odd strategy ?!

A J2ME application is a mobile app, a Symbian application is a mobile app even a Flash Lite app is a mobile app as they run on multiple devices carrying a common standard.
The apps you mention are "Apple iOS" apps, they aren't mobile apps and they run only on Apple devices as long as Apple of California "app store police" reviews them to compatible with Apple's guidelines which even includes companies long term interests. E.g. air some big scandal involving Apple on 91Èȱ¬, put it into 91Èȱ¬ "app", Apple has power and right to remotely disable your application and put it out of app store.
I really wonder especially about Symbian users/developers as Symbian is one of technologies UK came up with. It is British as 91Èȱ¬ is.

Although this much anticipated app is good I much prefer the standard mobile website version for these reasons. It loads faster, is easier to navigate, doesn't bombard you with video and updates quicker. Here at Wumpy (www.wumpy.co.uk) we are on the front line of switching websites to become mobile phone friendly and also produce iphone apps. With our knowledge and experience their is no doubt that the benefits are far greater for mobile friendly sites. Either way the future is defiantly all about mobility!

bbc news ipod touch app is great but how do you keep listening to live radio when the screen has timed out?

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Just one question, when the Android app will be available will it be able to watch 91Èȱ¬ News live outsidde UK? I'm in italy.

thanks

I for one think the app is superb both myself and my wife have it installed on our iPhones. I also plan on writing a full review on our blog once the app is available on the Android platform as well.

I too have developed iPhone apps having worked for Apple in the past and I think the 91Èȱ¬'s in house app is well designed and implemented.

Love the 91Èȱ¬ news iPad app but not too keen on the Latest revolving bar at the top. It is really distracting when your truing to read a story. It reminds me of all the ticker tapes they have on Sky tv. Could we have a option to turn it off please?

The 91Èȱ¬ News app is great.

For "other news" I use these 3 iPhone apps:

Humor:

Headlines:

Pictures:

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

is the fastest growing OS in the world being ignored by the bbc?!?!
will there be an android app coming anytime soon?

It states in the blog post that "soon it [the app] will come to Blackberry and Android phones in addition to other devices later in the year." Well unfortunately 'soon' and 'later in the year' have come and will soon be going again as it's December now and we are yet to hear of a release date for other mobile operating systems. From my computer, my only source of news is the 91Èȱ¬, however Sky is the only reputable British media outlet with a high quality app (even if the content is somewhat questionable) for android. There are many people who are awaiting the release of the 91Èȱ¬ apps for android. DON'T KEEP US WAITING MUCH LONGER!!!

The most useful thing an app could possibly do would be to download content ahead of time so people jumping on the tube or into their car in a rural area can get content when there is no signal. That's what the Guardian app does.

Is there any indication of when Android and Windows Phone 7 users can hope to see apps for their respective platforms? Evidently, Android users have been waiting some time without any updates from Auntie Beeb, and although Windows Phone 7 is a much younger platform, it's also deserving of some dedicated app action.

It seems somewhat inappropriate for the 91Èȱ¬ to provide dedicated apps for only two mobile platforms. On Windows Phone Marketplace, the gap is being filled by third-party developers, at least one of which is using the 91Èȱ¬ News logo, and which may be perceived by some to be the 'official' 91Èȱ¬ News app - which isn't a good thing as it's not exactly brilliantly designed.

It would be nice to at least get an update on what's happening behind the scenes.

Discoverability and Stability
I use both your website and your iphone app and i think they both have a problem. When i read news on your website i rarely get beyond the top three headlines. Below this point on your website i find the fragmentation of he page make it very hard to read. The structure seems efficient for getting to a particular category or story if you know what you're looking for, but it seems limited as a newspaper replacement for discovering news.
This is where i think your iPhone app shines. The consistency of layout through sections and arrangeable nature of sections allow me to easily read many headlines across many areas and find stories that interest me. I voluntarily use my iphone for news even when sitting at my computer. However, it is the most unstable app on my phone, it crashes at least twice every session and i don't really understand why. i both love and hat your app, its so easy yet so unstable, a problem your website never suffers.
Another thing i would be interested in seeing is in either is the ability to log in like on iPlayer and have my reading tracked, in order to identify new stories that i would find interesting.
so in conclusion, i think your website needs to be a lot more like your iphone app, but your app needs to be more like your website. Each holds the solution to the others problem.

THIS IS AN OUTRAGE!

How Dare the 91Èȱ¬, a publically funded organisation, show such BIAS towards APPLE products. They aren't even the most popular smartphone operating system anymore.

They write "Apps" for "iTunes" and then threaten developers who put 91Èȱ¬ iPlayer viewers (n.b., not rebroadcasters, but feed off the official 91Èȱ¬ iPlayer streams) on Google Marketplaces.

91Èȱ¬ SHOULD FOLLOW THIS DOCUMENT UP WITH A LIST OF HOW MUCH BIAS THE POSSES TOWARDS APPLE (THE WORLDS LARGEST IT COMPANY).

Please post a follow up with lists of Apps (1. News App, 2. Football App) they develop for the iOS and a list of Android Apps they have served "Cease/decease" notice on.

91Èȱ¬: I want my License fee back.