BBC News Mobile, an app that make it easy to browse, read, and share the latest news from the BBC, has been updated and optimised for Windows Phone 8. The new version includes lockscreen support, voice commands to read news headlines, support for small and double wide Live Tile sizes, and much improved performance.

New users will also appreciate the new welcome experience that, the first time the app is launched, walks you through setting up and customising the app to your requirements (e.g. which sections of content to show). In the absence of an official app from the BBC, Lawrence Gripper's unofficial third-party app is the next best thing... or perhaps, given the attention that's been lavished on it, it's even better.

In the new version (from 3.8.0 to 4.0.2.3), which is only available for Windows Phone 8 device, the main focus is on improved performance and optimising the app for Windows Phone 8. For most users the most welcome addition will be support for Windows Phone 8's new tile size. The new double-size Live Tile shows six news headlines at a time (three on the front and three on the back), allowing to keep up with the latest news at a glance. 

Voice integration is also included in the new version. Tap and hold the start button and say "BBC News read headlines" or "BBC News read most read", and your phone will read out the appropriate news headlines, a clever way to keep up with the news if you are in a hurry. There's also integration with Lockscreen, which comes in form of showing a different picture each day from the BBC's In Pictures blog as the background image when you lock the phone. 

The core features of the updated app, which we talked about in our review earlier this year, remain much the same as previous versions. However, the user interface layout has had a number of small tweaks, such as the use of a lists rather than tiles on the most read and section pages, which give the app a cleaner and more polished feel. 

Under the hood there have been some major changed to the way the app collects and delivers content. These are not immediately apparent to the end users, but they do significantly improve the performance of the app when downloading and viewing content.

Windows Phone Store description:

Quickly and easily browse, read and share the latest BBC News.

Select your favourite feeds to find them quickly. Read the articles from within the app or click to see them in the browser. Send an article to a friend using SMS or Email. Get the latest updates through push notifications or Live Tile support. In short get the news quickly and easily and share it with friends. All in a quick, responsive and beautiful interface.

BBC News Mobile can be downloaded from the Windows Phone Store for free.

Update

Almost as soon as version 4.0 was released it was quickly pulled from the Windows Phone Store due to a bug that caused it to crash on launch. This issue didn't affect everybody, so if you are using this new version without issue then you do not need to take any action. According to WPCentral, a fixed version of BBC News Mobile has been submitted to the Windows Phone Store and should be available soon.