CNN launches iPhone app for $2

CNN has launched a news application for Apple Inc.’s iPhone that the media giant thinks could be a benchmark to measure the success of future mobile applications.
The company’s iPhone app offers users live breaking news, push notification, can be customized to feature local news, traffic and weather, and enables users to easily upload content to CNN.com’s iReport feature. The $1.99 fee is cheap enough for the company to expect to see a return on its investment, but also enable mass-market adoption. CNN has had a mobile application since 2000, but the iPhone app is video and photo heavy, and augments that coverage with text, whereas the CNN Mobile focuses more on text-based content. CNN Mobile is already the No.1 mobile news destination, according to Nielson.
“This application was built not only for a smartphone, but with the iPhone in mind,” said Louis Gump, vice president of CNN Mobile. As such, the service showcases photos and video, and takes advantage of the iPhone’s ability to shift between horizontal and vertical viewing frames. “We expect live coverage to be a huge part of this.” The app features CNN.com’s sections, like technology and entertainment, as well as bullet points at the top of the story for people who just want to read the main points of the article.
The application is only available to U.S. customers today, and can run on AT&T Mobility’s 3G, Edge and Wi-Fi networks, Gump said. Different encoding technologies have been embedded into the app to optimize the app depending on the network connection. CNN plans to expand the app for other Operating Systems but is more concerned about developing the application properly for those platforms than getting to market quickly, Gump noted.
Chevron and Lexus are initial advertisers on the iPhone app, with advertising banners built into the screen. Users who click on the ad to learn more can go back to the same spot they were previously with a click back.