The Guardian shows it’s really serious about mobile media with iPhone application

The Guardian is one of those newspapers that has always made a great effort when it comes to on-line stories and media. You could rely on the Guardian to spread the word about emerging technologies, online behavior and amusing memes to those who were less likely to encounter them on-line. And now it is moving further towards new media with a brand spanking new iPhone app. How have they done? Pretty damn good.

My first reaction to this app was “oh, that’s good”. The Guardian has been paying attention to what people like, and has released a really solid application. Importantly, the philosophy behind the app doesn’t seem to be “how can we get people to access the Guardian on-line through their phone” – but rather “how can we turn the iPhone into a Guardian newspaper”.

I would say that the two best choices that the Guardian made are around customisation and portability. First of all, you can customise the front page of the app so that whenever you open it, the kind of stories that you are most interested are loaded first. While that’s cool, it also shows a seriousness underlying the basic structure and design of this application. Every single Guardian article published contains keywords. This means you don’t have to browse through category menus on your device (laborious when you’ve got a slow connection) but can instead set it up so that the articles with the keywords you want are pushed to you. On a side note, I wonder who does the keywording? Have the Guardian journalists been trained, or is the sub-editors or the on-line support crew?

Anyway, the second choice that the Guardian made is around portability, and I found it the most impressive feature. The “offline browsing” option is a very, very simple idea that works great with mobile. Ok, so it’s not the newest feature in the world, but it works. If you know that you’re going to be in an area with little or no mobile coverage, you simply click “offline browsing” and the app will go about downloading all the articles from those keyword categories that you’ve nominated. So if you’ve got a long train journey ahead of you, you don’t need to buy a newspaper. You just click “offline” on your app, and your iPhone grabs the newspaper straight to your mobile. Hence my “turn the iPhone into a Guardian newspaper” comment.

The application was custom built for the Guardian by mobile agency 2ergo. Here’s a video from the Guardian explaining its main features (with a voice-over in that coolly informative yet personable style that only English accents seem to be able to manage):

You can download the app now for £2.39 from the App Store for your iPhone or iPod touch.

What we think?

Hey, what can I say? I like it. I would have expected an app from the Guardian to be pretty decent, and it hasn’t disappointed. I think what I like most is the over-arching attitude behind this application. The Guardian is obviously very serious about new media, including both on-line and mobile. I’m not one of the crowd who believes that printed, or “old”, media is now irrelevant. In much the same way that TV didn’t kill radio, I don’t believe on-line news will kill newspapers. But newspapers will certainly need to re-adjust, re-design and start moving in a new direction. We’ll almost certainly some newspapers shut down or disappear – and those will most likely be the ones that are too rigid and unwilling to change. I don’t see that happening to the Guardian. Here is a paper that is showing some understanding of how their younger, future audience is going to interact with news – whether or not the papers are involved.

Just look at this graphic from the Guardian website:

Says it all, really.