CNN Introduces New iPhone App

[Justin Thyme]

CNN's New iPhone App Puts Rivals to Shame

Daniel Ionescu

Sep 29, 2009 7:43 am

On Tuesday morning, CNN introduced an iPhone app that puts to shame similar products. Featuring live newscasts, video-on-demand, and a familiar iPhone interface, the CNN iPhone app also takes a step ahead of other news apps by charging $2 for the download.

NPR, Thomson-Reuters, Time Magazine, Associated Press, and Financial Times all have some snazzy apps delivering content to mobile users, free to download. CNN was late in delivering a dedicated news app for the iPhone, but now arrives in style with a novelty app that brings both live video from the news channel and on-demand content.

The $2 CNN iPhone app [iTunes link] is now available for download in the iTunes store (U.S. only at the moment). Besides the regular text and photo content that a free single-source news app usually delivers, the CNN iPhone app steals the spotlight with live video streaming for breaking news and on-demand video of recent newscasts.



(Continued)

---

I carry a Blackberry, not an iPhone, so this app means little to me. I know a few people reading in here do carry an iPhone so I thought I'd share this. I've tried using similar news apps before and have found most of them to be just too cumbersome to get into a habit of using. What do the rest of you think about these? And is any news app worth $2?

[NewsShooter]

I just downloaded it thanks to this post. (CNN owes you a cut). It's really great. Very fast and easy to use. Once you go to a video story, wait a sec and it will display the other stories in the flip-style like the iTunes album cover view. I am using it on an iPod Touch, not the phone, so I'm limited to using it where there's a WiFi hotspot, but that's cool.

WELL-WORTH the 2 bucks.

[daworm]

Won't buy an iPhone, but if the app delivers as advertised, sure I'd drop $2 on it.

[Bob]

the ipod touch is what I use, love it.

[daworm]

Until Apple allows their OS to be ran on non-Apple hardware, and allows their phones to work on any network, and stops locking iPods into iTunes with DRM laden storage formats, then I'll not hop onto the Apple bandwagon.

I'd counter the "hip young hot dude versus fat old stogy" commercials with ones that showed someone picking a PC to run their OS from Acer, Asus, Dell, Gateway, etc, a vast expanse of hardware providers, and then show someone with a copy of MacOS looking for a place to install it and seeing only one source for hardware with emptiness all around. Yes, I know they do that to avoid the driver hell can happen with Windows, and I don't care. I don't want to pay $4,000 for a computer with the exact same specs I can get for $1,000 just so I can pay $500 for a copy of MacOS to run on it.

Closer to the original subject, for handhelds, both Apple and the Windows Mobile crowd are just as big of a nuisance. Sure, it's easier to put third party apps onto a Dell Axim than it is an ipod touch (no Apple store that has to vet all apps before allowing you to decide if you want it or not), but neither lets you put on a whole new OS without jumping through more hoops than anyone should ever have to.

Consumer level hardware like that should never be locked to only running certain software, and consumer software should never be locked to specific hardware.

Of course, I don't run either Mac or Windows at home, and for many of the same reasons. Almost all of the things I want to do with a computer at home I can do with free software, and the few things I can't I can do without.

I also bought a 30G Creative MP3 player back when they first came out, and for about $100 less than the 1st gen 20G ipod, and its still running and I've not really needed another since.

[NewsShooter]

Geez, daworm, we must have hit a nerve.

I was very fortunate to be able to get a Mac and I don't regret it for a moment. I don't really dislike Windows ... I use it on my company laptop.

But I will say that DRM and iTunes lock be damned, the iPod touch is the coolest little piece of technology I've ever bought. And when Dreamy and I switch phone carriers later this year, we're both getting iPhones, simply because they work and are easy to use, and VERY versatile.

Yes, I really wish that Verizon was able to accommodate iPhones, because I would pay full price for one just to use it with their network. But AT&T doesn't totally suck (I've used them before) and if it means getting the iPhone, it's worth it.

And to get back on subject ... three days later and I'm still finding the CNN app cool.

[daworm]

I've been on AT&T before. Never going back again.

And I don't deny its a cool piece of hardware. It would be even better if it were open. I'm not going to pay someone for the privilege of granting them a monopoly.

[gridbug]

I'd counter the "hip young hot dude versus fat old stogy" commercials

Whenever I see those commercials it just reminds me that Mac still lives in PC's basement. Tried to fly the nest, boomeranged back.

[daworm]

More of why I won't have an iPhone...

[NewsShooter]

Oct 2, 2009 14:51:24 GMT -5 daworm said:

More of why I won't have an iPhone...

From what I read, it makes sense. Why invent five different phones for five different carriers. Just let the carriers provision the phone for what their system can handle.

I know that back in the days of LED wrist-watches, if you took the cheapest model apart, even if it only had one button on the side of the case to change from time to date display, the module inside had all four recessed switches available, and you could access the stopwatch and other functions as well. Design one, make it cheap and meter out the functions based on how much the consumer pays.