Robinson Communications and The Ballard News-Tribune announce a new iPad app that brings local news to this new publishing platform.
Developed by Sachmanya LLC in Santa Clara, California, the new app aligns the articles in titles allowing the reader to quickly glance at the most recent local news as posted on BallardNewsTribune.com and also provides direct access to the BNT's Flickr Photo Gallery and YouTube videos.
This app joins the existing iPhone and Android apps for the BNT as well as a new iPad app for one of Robinson Communications sister publications, the West Seattle Herald. Both papers' iPhone apps have also been updated with new graphic structures.
What makes the apps truly unique is the ability to capture news events with your mobile device to submit for publication through the app itself. Utilizing a service called 360 News registered users can submit photos, videos, and local stories to the BNT for publication. Submissions are reviewed and then posted on the site but may also appear on CNN iReport, YouTube, Flickr Twitter and 360 News. Users can see where 360News posts come from on a map and engage with other community members.
"The iPad is really the first tool to combine the best of what print publications offer in terms of image size and in depth stories with the speed and flexibility of the internet. We've been pioneers since the 1950's so this is in our DNA," said Patrick Robinson, Herald Web Editor for Robinson Communications.
"We were the first to bring a web offset press west of the Mississippi in 1958, among the first to use FAX machines in the 70's, in the vanguard of users of Optical Character Recognition systems for print production and the first to have an all digital video production facility in the mid 1980's."
Further updates are in the works with Facebook integration and a more streamlined news submission process for readers to be added in the near future.
To download the free Ballard News-Tribune application for iPad visit the itunes page, here.
The iPhone app is available through iTunes and the Android app is available via the Android Market.
