Bloomberg has updated its iPad application with new features including a customized homepage for a tailored browsing experience.

Bloomberg?s iPad app was one of the original apps at Apple?s launch of the tablet. The app is available for free download in Apple?s App Store.

?We launched our flagship Bloomberg iPad app on April 1, 2010, the day the iPad went on sale," said Oke Okaro, global head and general manager of mobile and connected devices at Bloomberg, New York.

"Over the past two and half years, we have learned a great deal about our users, their interests and how to deliver experiences that smartly integrate with their lifestyles," he said.

"While pleased with how well the app has performed, we saw the opportunity to make it much better and are delighted to be giving our users a substantially better experience with more personalization, better tools and a more tightly integrated user experience."

Tablet refresh
With the updated app, a personalized center lets users control access to news and world market information. The section also includes a summary of a user?s investment, including earning updates from companies on a consumer?s watchlist.

By signing into the app with a Bloomberg.com login name, consumers can sync their watchlists and save their settings across all devices.

Users can also customize a rolling ticker of securities that runs while browsing the app.

Consumers can learn more about a company in an article by tapping on the page. Additionally, stock information for companies is now mentioned in articles.

Company pages include performance charts, statistics and earning updates.

The new Bloomberg iPad app includes more news and market data information.

Additionally, videos can be played while users browse the app. Slideshows and audio interviews from Bloomberg Radio have also been embedded into the app.

Content can be viewed in either portrait or landscape mode. Users can also adjust the font size of articles.

"People don't care about bells and whistles," Mr. Okaro said.

"They want speed, efficiency and features and functionality that fulfill specific needs or solve specific problems," he said.

Mobile publisher
Bloomberg has been active in mobile for a while.

Most recently, the company rolled out the Bloomberg Markets+ iPad app to mobilize the magazine?s print content (see story).

Additionally, last year the company rolled out an app specific for Android tablets to give business and financial executives an additional portal to access personal stock information and news (see story).

By incorporating features such as video and new charts, Bloomberg is able to give users a more seamless reading experience.

"Mobile is increasingly becoming a central part of everything we do since almost everyone has a mobile phone these days and it enables us to reach them 24/7," Mr. Okaro said.

"This applies not only to what we do with our customers ? consumer and professional ? but also what we do internally with the 15,000-plus employees that work here at Bloomberg," he said. 

Final Take
Lauren Johnson is associate reporter on Mobile Marketer, New York