WRAL Unveils Redesigned News App

Capitol Broadcasting’s New Media Group on Friday released a new version of its WRAL Raleigh, N.C. (DMA 25), local news app to Apple iTunes and Google Play stores.

The redesigned mobile app, which has been downloaded more than 250,000 times, includes features such as WRAL News’ coverage of local news, weather, sports and politics. It also includes a host of new features the station says are designed to deliver a better user experience. They include:

• Easier access to live video streams, including all WRAL newscasts.

• Enhanced push alerts that take users directly to the corresponding story.

• Location-aware weather section that defaults to your current location.

• Option to store forecasts and conditions for multiple cities.

• Customizable push alerts — choose from breaking news, weather and video alerts — so you only get the alerts you want.

• Story comments inside the app.

• Larger Doppler animations.

• Continuously updated traffic video along the area’s busiest highways.

Also new in this update to WRAL’s most popular branded app: the option to customize the page that is shown when the app first starts.

“With the explosive growth in mobile usage, it is critical to provide an app that takes advantage of the user’s location and mobility,” said WRAL.com General Manager John Conway. “The new app emphasizes weather, traffic, live sports scores for users on the go, while also offering them more customization options.”

The time and resources invested in the production of this new iteration of the WRAL News app were made locally — and in-house — by CBC New Media Group’s technology team.

“Given the maturity of today’s cross-platform development tools, it has become more cost-effective to build mobile apps,” said Jason Priebe, director of technology. “It is no longer necessary to have separate developer teams for Android and iOS, and it’s now possible to leverage the same skillsets we use for development of sites like WRAL.com to build compelling mobile apps. Building and maintaining the code in house gives us a much higher level of flexibility in terms of meeting our end users’ needs.”

The WRAL News app is available for free to iOS users at http://bit.ly/WRALNewsiTunes. For Android users, free download of the app is available in the Google Play store at http://bit.ly/WRALNewsGooglePlay. Users who already have the WRAL News app installed should be prompted to download an update, which will overwrite the old version of the app with the new one. The new app icon reads “WRAL News APP.” The old version says “WRAL News Mobile.”

Additional free apps, including the WRAL Weather Alert app and WRALSportsFan app, can be found in the app stores and on the mobile download page of WRAL.com: http://www.wral.com/mobileapps.