The challenge
An online publisher of maritime news and knowledge published its articles on its own website. Its readers work in shipping, and many spend weeks at sea or in port with weak or expensive connections. The publisher wanted a news app with offline reading, so those readers could follow its articles and open its free e-books wherever they were.
There was one firm condition. The newsroom already published through a content management system, and the editors were not going to change how they worked. Any app had to take its articles from the existing website, not from a second system that someone would have to keep in step.
The team also needed a way to reach readers directly with alerts and to add new e-books without calling a developer each time.
What we built: a maritime news and e-book app
We built Android and iOS reader apps on top of what already worked, plus a small web admin panel for the publisher's team.
Fed by the existing website. The apps read articles through the website's content API, so a story appears in the app once it is published on the site.
Flexible sign-in. Readers register and log in with email, Google or Facebook.
Browse, categories and search. A home feed, category views and search across the publisher's articles.
Offline reading and starred stories. Readers save articles to read without a connection and star the ones worth keeping.
A free e-book library. Readers browse and open the publisher's free e-books inside the app.
Behind the apps sits a web admin panel with role-based login. From it, staff send push notifications to app users and upload new e-books. Ad placements bring in revenue, and Google Analytics shows how readers use the app.
How it works day to day
Take a ship's officer about to join a vessel. Before leaving port, they open the app on shore Wi-Fi, skim the home feed and save a handful of long reads and an e-book or two. Out at sea, those saved pieces open without any signal at all.
Back in the newsroom, nothing has changed. Editors write and publish on the website as before, and each article flows into the app on its own.
When a story deserves attention, a staff member sends a push alert from the admin panel. When a new e-book is ready, they upload it there too, with no developer involved.
The result
Readers now get the publisher's articles and free e-books in one app, with offline reading and alerts. Editors keep working on the website exactly as before, and the team sends notifications and adds e-books from the admin panel.
The working relationship continued after launch. The same publisher later asked us to build an e-book royalty and payout engine for its paid titles, and a career and crew hiring platform for seafarers that extends this app.
What the research says
Building on an API is now the norm. Postman's 2025 State of the API survey covered more than 5,700 developers, architects and executives. In it, 82% of organizations had adopted some level of an API-first approach (Postman, 2025). Reading articles through the website's content API lets editors publish once for the web and both apps.
Push reaches only those who allow it. Customer engagement platform Airship's 2025 benchmarks put the median push opt-in rate for media apps at 44.5%. They also note that Android 13 and later now ask users for permission too (Airship, 2025). Alerts sent from the admin panel have to be worth the permission.
Signal at sea is still patchy. In the Seafarers Happiness Index for the first quarter of 2025, crews scored connectivity at 7.29 out of 10, up from 7.05. They still reported slow speeds, data limits and no signal while underway (Mission to Seafarers). An article saved in port is the one that opens every time.
Where AI fits next
The app has none of these features yet. Short summaries could give busy readers the key points of a long article first.
Recommendations could suggest related articles and e-books based on what each reader opens. Search could answer plain-language questions from the publisher's own archive.
Planning a news app with offline reading?
Before you turn a content website into a reader app, as this maritime news publisher did, answer four questions:
Can your website expose articles through an API, or will it need one built first?
What should readers be able to save for offline use, and how much storage will that take on a phone?
Who on your team sends alerts, and what rules stop them from overusing them?
How will the app pay for itself: ads, subscriptions or neither?
Our mobile app development page explains how we build reader apps on top of an existing site. Before you pick a framework, compare native and cross-platform builds, or explore our media and publishing software work.
