10 Apple iOS apps for mobile journalism

By Jonny Evans

This year is seeing its fair share of major news events worldwide, historical moments in which you can play a part, using your Apple [AAPL] product to capture your own historical record of what's going on, sharing these for all to see. With that in mind I've curated this short list of ten essential iOS apps for mobile journalism (many have Android equivalents).

iMovie ($4.99)

You've made it to a danger zone. Using iMovie on your iPad or your iPhone you can quickly shoot and edit short clips of the events you might be seeing around you. Once you've created a clip you can easily export it to YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, and CNN iReport.

1st Video ($9.99, or $29.99 for Pro iPad version)

Apple might develop iMovie, but for a more journalist-focused solution some may want to take a look at 1st Video, which combines video, audio, image record and edit capability with broadcast quality audio editing to produce .mov video files. Video created can be shared via YouTube, the version for iPad seems especially interesting.

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CoveritLive (free)

This tool for live event reporting is used in the field by the likes of Sky, Fox, the Washington Post and others. It integrates with the CoveritLive platform (registration required). You can then use the app to publish photos, audio and video in real-time, approve comments, publish live commentary, post and manage Tweets and more. There's an offline mode, support for multi-tasking and other cool features in this solution.

iJournalist Pro ($94.99)

Far, far, far more expensive but equipped with some interesting professional features for radio reporters, this app lets you speak your report, write your script, and dispatch it to your media firm's servers (using email or FTP) for rebroadcast. Audio is recorded in .Wav format for wide compatibility.

Report-IT Live ($29.99)

Somewhat more affordable, this app helps you broadcast live. It records audio in HD quality, which it dispatches using a 3G or Wi-Fi network back to your IP-enabled audio set-up in the studio. This is an interesting solution because audio is bi-directional, so you can get messages from your studio. This solution also lets you save audio locally if you want to upload it for later broadcast. You do need to have specific equipment to make use of this solution.

Dragon Dictation (free)

Create written news reports on the go, speak them into the iPhone mic using this app and the software will chat to the Nuance voice recog server, where your utterances will be transformed into actual written words. Send Tweets, update status messages, send SMS or notes, write emails.

Transcriptions can be pasted into any application using the clipboard -- caveat emptor: you need an active network connection for this solution to work.

Evernote (app is free)

A great tool for researchers, Evernote lets you add text, images and audio to documents using your iOS device. The results can be accessed using other mobile devices or the Web. There's interesting features such as geo-tagging and the solution offers wide cross-platform support.

WordPress (free app)

The mobile Wordpress app will let you create new posts for yours or a compatible blog using your iPhone, iPod touch of iPad. This solution is a little limited -- you don't get a huge heap of database control options, for example. It remains a great way to update your blog on the move.

Dropbox (free, account required)

Better than iDisk, Dropbox makes it a dawdle to share files, images or other assets between you, your colleagues in the field and those back at the office. The solution also lets you sync your work between all your authorized devices and PCs. Be warned: recent events confirm Dropbox isn't the most secure solution, but as an asset sharing service, it rocks.

Twitter and social networking

When there's activity in your area you'd be surprised how effective Twitter can be as a tool to stay abreast of it. They say the London riots are being orchestrated by gangs using BlackBerry devices and the secure BlackBerry message service, but when it comes to ordinary people trying to avoid the conflict, Twitter has become a mine of information. Equally, if you are attempting to record events, you can share your information and shout for more using this and other social networking services.

What are your favorite creative apps in the field? Are there others you may already use for news reporting? Speak up in the new comments section. Please do follow me on Twitter so I can let you know that score and when I post new reports here at Computerworld.