The Newspaper Publishers’ Association (NPA) complained to the BBC Trust because the BBC was planning (read developed) three dedicated iPhone/iPad apps, for news, sport and iPlayer (the on-demand video catch-up service).

The NPA said the apps would “undermine commercial organisations’ ability to establish economic models on smartphones.” Outrageously, the BBC Trust, the governing body of the BBC, delayed the aforementioned iPhone apps because of the NPA complaint.

The Newspaper Publishers’ Association represents national and regional newspapers, magazines and business-to-business media, books and journals and data publishers, according to its website.

The NPA claims on the same site that its members, “publishers in particular, have grasped opportunities offered by the new technologies and are leading long-term investors in digital content and on-line services.” But that’s unless the BBC wants to offer free iPhone apps.

Building an iPhone app for a news site is ridiculously inexpensive and easy, especially for the smaller local titles which could be “threatened” by a BBC News iPhone app.

AppMakr is such an example: you can make a nice iPhone app for your newspaper within minutes (using RSS feeds, learn more about the process) and it starts from only $299. You can even insert your own ads within the content and set the price for the app. iSites is another great similar service.

Point in case — Newsweek and the Atlantic Wire, among many others, have created their iPhone apps this way. There’s nothing stopping NPA members to do the same, hence establishing themselves on smartphones, free of charge or paid for, with or without advertising. What more can you ask for?

The Guardian has its own great best-selling iPhone app (which I reviewed here). The Telegraph, Independent and Manchester Evening News have their apps as well, though arguably not as good as Guardian‘s. None of them are created using the solutions I suggested above, but some could do with a makeover.

The BBC News iPad app is available in the US though, where the corporation operates commercially, and paidContent says it’s already a big hit. Note that outside the UK, the BBC is not covered by the Trust review. The BBC iPhone apps will reportedly make it in the US as well, while the UK waits for its newspapers to get their act together.