BBC News iPhone apps now available - what about Maemo?
 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10738882

Android version to come later in the year.

Hopefully Nokia are petitioning the BBC to include support for Maemo/MeeGo - such high-profile platform support (even if it is UK only) would be a great feather in the cap for Nokia and Maemo/MeeGo.

Re: BBC News iPhone apps now available - what about Maemo?
 

How is the App better than just going to the website? It's light on details, but it doesn't appear to offer anything more than an RSS feed and a web browser would.

Re: BBC News iPhone apps now available - what about Maemo?
 

You only need an app if you don't have a decent browser! Why on earth would you need a BBC app with MicroB (at least so long as BBC isn't running Flash 10.1)? That's kind of the whole point, no?!

If you want apps it's porbably best ot go Android or that other one ;)

Re: BBC News iPhone apps now available - what about Maemo?
 

Is this from your experience or did you just pull that out of your nether regions?

Re: BBC News iPhone apps now available - what about Maemo?
 

I don't have an iDevice so can't tell myself, however even if the functionality isn't significantly better than the web browser the point is that it's yet-another-app - and a high profile one at that in the UK - for the competition. And no mention of any support for Maemo (or even Symbian).

Hopefully Nokia are pulling the strings behind the scenes to ensure there is an equivalent app for Maemo/MeeGo/Symbian too - get it written in Qt, prove the "write once" credentials that are the future of both Maemo/MeeGo and Symbian.

Even if the app isn't very good the free publicity and acknowledgement from the BBC - who don't seem to know that Maemo even exists judging by their non-stop fawning coverage of iPhone and Android platforms - would be a good thing.

Re: BBC News iPhone apps now available - what about Maemo?
 

I can think of one legitimate reason why a news website might choose to make an app instead of just making a good mobile website that everyone can use.

I was reading this article and the comments and both sides had great points. http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2...r-your-health/

Micropayments.

But anyway there's little information about what the BBC News app does so the whole whether it should be an app or a mobile website can't be discussed until someone actually tries it, or we know more about it.

Re: BBC News iPhone apps now available - what about Maemo?
 

The real question is if that battle really is worth fighting. The app-for-a-site really is trying to reinvent the web, and so far it is not much more than a bubble, done only to give an image of 'technological advancedness', when in fact, you're reinventing the wheel. You cannot win that fight - there are just too many sites that are 'important' and are changing way too quickly. As soon as novelty wears of and sofware development reality kicks in, someone will realize IE/FFox quirks were a pain, but re-developing and maintaining your site in half a dozen technologies, and, worse even, optimizing it for various versions, screen sizes and input methods is a Mission Impossible compared to that.

Re: BBC News iPhone apps now available - what about Maemo?
 

The iPad version uses Quicktime instead of Flash. Obviously the iWhatevers don't support Flash (which is one of the few things I respect Steve Jobs for). Flash support outside of Windows is awful, and not that good on Windows either.

Anyway, I sent an email to the BBC complaints department a few weeks back saying that the BBC oughtn't rely on Flash for their iPlayer precisely for reasons of poor support outside of Windows, and if they can Quicktime versions for the iWhatevers, then why can't other devices access those encodings.

Their response was:

"We can't commit at this time to which devices we will make available but we are
working on other ways to make BBC iPlayer available. It is our aim to make it
available on as many platforms as possible.

Nevertheless, I can assure that I have fully registered your comments on this issue. They have been made available to those responsible for maintaining the BBC iPlayer service."

Which is a bit of a brush-off, but at least it adds another voice to the dissent.
I would suggest that other people also send a complaint to the BBC stating that they can't access the iPlayer stuff on their N900 (or whichever device). The more people that make it an issue, the more likely they are to consider more open standards.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/forms/

Re: BBC News iPhone apps now available - what about Maemo?
 

I totally agree, although to be honest if a web site has a feed - RSS or whatever - then it's app just becomes a consumer of that feed and represents the information in an (arguably) easier to access format in which case maintaining that feed shouldn't add much complexity or overhead, certainly it should not for a site like the BBC.

And while we all know we can access sites like the BBC in all it's glory on our N900s using MicroB, being able to do so doesn't bring any kudos to the platform in the same way that a multitude of silly and pointless apps does.

These Apps that re-represent web site content in a dumbed down format are without question a major selling point to the average consumer of high-end devices and it's an area where the N900 is losing out massively, since few high-profile developers are developing for it (or Symbian).

Whether we think apps (that replace web sites) have a place on Nokia devices or not is a moot point - Nokia needs them if it's going to avoid becoming the next Palm Inc.

Re: BBC News iPhone apps now available - what about Maemo?
 

No, I just pulled it out my nether regions. Pardon me for having an opinion.

Maybe try and get some friends/laid and see if that improves your humour you miserable git.

Re: BBC News iPhone apps now available - what about Maemo?
 

Say hello to Ovi App Wizard. If that's what people want, that's what they will get.

This, though, brings us to another point - see how Apple for example makes it's flaws into features - by making users WANT their way/approach, no matter how flawed it is. I'm no marketing dude, but I can see that this wasn't a natural progression, it was shaped consciously - and that lesson must be learned - shaping user mentality/needs is today sadly at least as important as meeting them through features/apps.

I believe that to be a fallacy in this context as HTML5 will solve none of the fundamental problems. For example iPhone people often say HTML5 but they mean 'iPad/iPhone version'. While it will make a few things easier, the basic problem, the client-independent content distribution remains the same, you would still have to have a 'desktop HTML5 site', an 'iPhone HTML5 site', a 'MeeGo HTML5 site', etc.

Re: BBC News iPhone apps now available - what about Maemo?
 

I don't understand the part about 'meego html5 site'. Why would it need to be compartmentalized by platform?

As for different form factors, I think there are real merits for that.

Re: BBC News iPhone apps now available - what about Maemo?
 

I don't have an iphone, so have always wondered about thee kind of 'apps', so without seeming too thick, can someone explain?

the iphone has a browser, and most sites have mobile versions, or are more and more being designed with these in mind (a case of point being the recent disasterous relaunch of the bbc news site itself). So what exactly does an 'app' do in these cases?

if I'm reading it right, they replace flash content with something that an apple product can use?

if this is so, why can't we (900/810/800) users access these sites/streams/whatever that the 'app' is accessing?

hopefully this isn't too obvious and someone will respond in the spirit of the question!

Re: BBC News iPhone apps now available - what about Maemo?
 

BBC News app

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcintern..._copyright.PNG

Basically just a grid of pictures, scroll each section left and right for more pictures/articles, up and down for more sections. You can also watch streaming BBC News Channel live, which apparently works OK over WiFi.

So hardly an Earth shattering new experience but perhaps a nice way to consume news on a small screen device. Could easily be done for the N900 too, assuming the will was there (which it probably isn't).

Although to me the launch of this application isn't so much about the experience it provides, but the fact that once again an organisation such as the BBC are getting behind and supporting the competition while completely ignoring Nokia.

In the UK, the BBC are huge and their web site (for news and sport in particular) is massively popular, and this application (effectively an endorsement of the iDevice platform, and to a lesser extent Android with promises of support later in the year) will be welcomed by many, and Nokia owners must be left wondering "What about me?". Sh1t out of luck, as usual.

Re: BBC News iPhone apps now available - what about Maemo?
 

Because there is no guarantee that an iPhone-oriented HTML5 site will render equally well on MeeGo (note that under MeeGo I don't necessarily mean just handhelds). Add to this the dance around Flash, WebM/H264 and it's Internet Explorer all over again.

Certainly, but it's a step back. It has been a long and arduous fight (and not even completely over) to get the web to be resolution/aspect/DPI independent. Instead of truly addressing the problem of new form factors, we are simply discarding what has been learned with the web and going back to square 1, brute forcing the problem with specialized versions - a path that cannot be pushed on the long term.

Re: BBC News iPhone apps now available - what about Maemo?
 

I'm no expert on this, but I think they do it for 2 things...

1. Control:
- Access just for end users and not aggregators
- Better potential to monetize (targeted ads, subscription models, etc)

2. Usability:
- Optimized batch download + offline access(useful if you're in areas with spotty connection or for airplane ries, makes it quicker to go through a bunch of articles too)
- Optimized UI\UX (easier content consumption, less fighting with navigation schemes)

Obviously these apps come in different quality. So there are good and bad apps. The BBC app is pretty meh.

The better apps make it quicker to go through the headlines, find and read thru the articles you're interested in and to save/share them.

Personally, I think most of those sites will slowly abandon their bite sized proprietary apps and move to html5 implementation once the mobile browsers support it.

If that's the case, then it's definitely a step back. I don't know why you'd make that assumptions though.

Those are two separate issues.

Force feeding desktop websites (without modifications for handheld friendliness) for sub 4" screen consumption is an ergonomic abhorrence.

Re: BBC News iPhone apps now available - what about Maemo?
 

Experience ? :) I already see this on current web applications - on more serious (i.e. not just a list of pictures/articles) people tend to pixel-push. And since the resolutions don't match, and the HTML5 compliance levels/compatibility of various browsers are bound to be different especially in the early stages of adoption, no way is it going to look okay.

Certainly. BUT. What's preventing website authors doing it NOW ? You can already serve up completely different/adjusted sites with current technologies, and yet, people don't do that, it's more important to fit in the paradigm of the host OS than to adhere to standards - which (while not apparent at first) *wrong* - imagine for example that in Windows you would have to doubleclick URLs to open them or that the site's CSS would get completely overridden by the OS' theme. It's a step back because you bring in OS/app dependency the web fought so hard to get rid of.

Re: BBC News iPhone apps now available - what about Maemo?
 

I thought this is less of an issue with better GPU and prevalence of more flexible (and zoom friendly) mobile rendering engines?
There's even a huge dpi change between iPhone 3GS to iPhone 4.

I haven't been following mobile websites. I hate them for the most part and I change the useragent on my browsers to force full version (even on my iPhone) unless I'm roaming to a small country without favorable partnership with my mobile provider and charges an arm and a leg for cell data.

I think I would use them if they offer ("the promised") html5 mobile version though.

Re: BBC News iPhone apps now available - what about Maemo?
 

Either way, HTML5 needs to settle down so organizations can begin making websites complaint with it.

I work a little bit with it myself (not hired to do it but trying to future proof an internal web survey). Trying to integrate HTML5 accessibility, imagine my surprise when JAWs didn't read aloud ARIA Labels because IE7 doesn't support it.

>.<

Re: BBC News iPhone apps now available - what about Maemo?
 

BBC News iPhone app video demo:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5AuPO-901M

Coming soon for Android and BlackBerry, but any OS from Nokia considered irrelevant it seems.

Hard to disagree given how badly Nokia promote, market and support their various platforms these days - no doubt that may change with the launch of the N8, but will organisations like the BBC change their attitude unless Nokia become more pro-active about big name apps and go that extra mile to get them onto their platforms?

The BBC aren't stupid, for them to ignore Nokia completely (now and in the future) does suggest there's something rotten somewhere that needs to be addressed.