BSkyB launches mobile apps for Android

BSkyB adds in mobile apps support for Android devices

British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB) today said it would support mobile devices running Google's Android operating system, allowing users to view in-depth video coverage of individual stories.

BSkyB subscribers can also watch the latest news headlines video, a top showbiz headlines video clip and an up-to-date weather report. Users will be able to send Sky News their own stories and pictures directly through the application, as well as get breaking news alerts on the home page of their devices.

David Gibbs, BSkyB general manager mobile, said that they recognised the huge potential of the Android mobile platform. "Building on the success of our iPhone apps, we're now planning to release a number of different applications over the coming months, all using the full capabilities that Android offers."

BSkyB's announcement follows last week's BBC launch of iPhone mobile applications for BBC news and live sport streaming. That service will go live in April, with support for Android, BlackBerry and Nokia devices later in the year.

BSkyB has had mobile applications since 2005, and its iPhone and iTouch app passed the one million download mark in January.

Quocirca comms analyst Rob Bamforth said: "The bottleneck is mobile operators' backhaul network and the base station/handset radio efficiency." This means large streamed video clips will have to wait until mobile operators' networks improve significantly.

That bottleneck will delay streaming of large video clips, although Google is trying to solve the problem by purchasing codec and compression specialist firm On2 Technologies for £80.5m, in a deal set to enhance its video capabilities.

Research firm IDC recently predicted that the number of people using mobile business apps would top one billion before the end of 2010. By 2011 IDC says that 1.2 billion workers will be using mobile enterprise tools, a third of the global workforce.