Daniel Eran Dilger
According to a report by Journalism.co.uk, the new app will even enable the broadcaster's journalists to report live from their iOS devices over 3G mobile data networks.
The app is expected to be available in about a month. Martin Turner, the BBC's head of newsgathering operations, told the site that the new iOS app was "a logical extension of what the BBC can do already" but noted that it was a "significant development" and that the capability to file live reports from mobile devices "is a really important one."
Speaking of Apple's iPhone, Turner said "we are using it at the moment because it offers us the best combination of features, but it is not the only solution," and added that the BBC was "not wedded to the iPhone."
While a variety of networks have made available iOS apps to enable citizen reporting, the BBC appears to be the first broadcaster to commission an app for its own reporters to use. Other reporters have already begun using the iPhone and iPad to file their reports however.
The BBC was also the first broadcaster to aggressively move to adopt Apple's recommended H.264 video on iOS devices, beginning with its iPlayer app for iOS apps in early 2008. Prior to that, the BBC and most other commercial content providers on the web were reliant upon Adobe Flash to make such videos available.
Malcolm Owen
Christine McKee
Amber Neely
13 Comments
Crikey - at this rate Aunty Beeb will try to charge me a license fee for my iPhone.
Curious there has been so much responsiveness for Apple-related technologies from the BBC in recent times as for what seemed like many years the BBC declined to stream content using QuickTime (even after it was adopted as the basis of the MPEG4-related ISO standard) and thereby effectively limited Mac and then iOS users access to various content. For a public service broadcaster in particular, it was never quite clear why that was. These new developments are therefore most welcome.
Interesting that AppleInsider decided to omit the rest of the interview, where he said:
Also, how will they get the application on to the reporters' phones? Presumably the application would either be in the App Store (unlikely) or every phone would have to be registered in the developer program. Either way, a lot more cumbersome and restricted than a similar application would be on another platform. Not to mention the lack of a physical keyboard that would slow down their ability to file text reports.
Crikey - at this rate Aunty Beeb will try to charge me a license fee for my iPhone.
Some iPhone applications do require a licence fee (if they are used while your phone is plugged in to a power source). Any application that can display live TV requires the fee to be paid, which is currently £145.50 per year.
In iWeb when you use the Gallery Widget on a page to create a window to an album on your MobileMe Gallery, you must use Flash to see the content. Maybe that's why Apple is reportedly killing iWeb? Easier to do that than make it work without Flash? A living embarrassment?
Also, how will they get the application on to the reporters' phones? Presumably the application would either be in the App Store (unlikely) or every phone would have to be registered in the developer program.
In fact all they need to do (unless they do make it more widely available on the app store) is to produce it as a BBC-developed app and enable its upload to any BBC-registered iDevice, which almost any organisation can do for its own iDevices.