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2013 · US · Enterprise · Mobile · Broadcast · News

Tribune Fox40 Sacramento

Fox40 Sacramento — a hybrid news channel app

A hybrid mobile news app for Tribune's Fox40 Sacramento station — reformatting existing WordPress newsroom content for native mobile with push notifications and rich media.

Enterprise Mobile Broadcast News
Fox40 Sacramento — a hybrid news channel app

In one breath

  • Hybrid news app reusing the Fox40 Sacramento WordPress newsroom as the content source
  • Custom URLs for seamless in-app navigation to web-published content
  • Push notifications for breaking news and rich-media stories
iOS + Android

Platforms

WordPress (existing newsroom)

Content source

Hybrid native + web content

Architecture

01 · The challenge

What was broken, what was at stake

Fox40 Sacramento had a busy WordPress newsroom publishing dozens of stories a day. They didn't want a second CMS just for mobile — but the desktop site didn't read well on phones. We had to bring mobile-native UX without duplicating content operations.

02 · The approach

How we thought about it

A hybrid app. The shell is native (push, performance, home feed), the article bodies are rendered from mobile-reformatted WordPress content. Custom URL schemes wired in-app navigation cleanly so links between stories, live streams and push notifications all Just Worked.

03 · What we built

The actual solution

Hybrid mobile app on iOS and Android with a native home feed, native push notifications, and mobile-rendered article pages sourced live from the Fox40 WordPress backend. Custom URL handling enabled deep linking between in-app and push-notification contexts.

04 · The results

What shipped, what changed

Fox40 got a native-feeling mobile product without having to maintain a second content pipeline. Breaking news flowed straight from the newsroom to push notifications on readers' phones.

Timeline

Phase by phase.

  1. 01

    Discovery

    2 weeks

    Newsroom workflow audit. Content-reformatting strategy.

  2. 02

    Design

    2 weeks

    Native home feed. Mobile-style article templates. Notification UX.

  3. 03

    Build

    5 weeks

    Parallel iOS and Android. Content template rollout on WordPress.

  4. 04

    Launch

    1 week

    Editorial team training, store submission.

Stack

Tools and tech used.

iOSAndroidHybrid container (native shell + web views)WordPress (existing CMS)Push notifications

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19 years · 10M+ lines of code · 240+ mobile apps · IKEA · ABC News · DaVita · SBM Industries