The Guardian newspaper has released a new ad-supported app for Android powered smartphones.
In July the paper announced a deal which gave users of Amazon’s Kindle access to the paper and promised versions for Apple’s iPad and Android devices.
Speaking at the time, Guardian mobile site editor Subhajit Banerjee said the Android app would offer “an array of features and content and will be truly Android-native.”
The newspaper already has a paid-for iPhone app which it says has been downloaded 480,914 times since its launch in January 2011.
Available from the Android Marketplace, the app includes the latest news, sport, comment, reviews, videos, podcasts and picture galleries from guardian.co.uk.
Content can be downloaded for offline reading and users can schedule downloads to take place, for example, before they leave for work in the morning.
Future plans include a homescreen widget and improvements to the paper’s live blogging articles.