BBC Apprentices will pitch mobile apps

HAIR GEL MODELS and estate agents from the BBC Apprentice TV series will dip their toes into the cut and thrust, pinch and zoom world of mobile applications developers.

The BBC TV show starts next week with a challenge that asks contestants to set up a business with £250 and make a profit, and then follows on with the mobile app challenge in week two.

We do not know whether the successful team in episode one starts a high vig loan shark company, and neither do we know whether the following week's victors created Angry Birds, although we are fairly certain that was Roxio. However, we fully expect it to be an interesting show for a variety of reasons.

Despite being chaired by the boss of UK technology and electronics firm Amstrad, the programme has shown a remarkably loose grasp on the fundamentals of technology.

In the last series Alan Sugar asked his technology adviser, and CEO of Viglen, Bordan Tkachuk to poll a contestant on his networking knowledge. And who better to ask than the boss of a 'computers, networks and solutions' company? Well, anyone really.

Tkachuk infamously defined ISP as "Internet service protocol", not the "Internet service provider" meaning that we have all come to know and recognise for that acronym.

Whether Tkachuk will be on hand to lend his technical expertise remains to be seen however, so perhaps no team will go blindly into the world of mobile developers proclaiming the benefits of their "Actually Portable Programme", while pitching to Researching Motion, or Microdroigle.

Whether the great minds, that in earlier series developed a book stand for the beach that wouldn't stand up in sand, come up with something more interesting than an app that tells you that the palm of your hand is at body temperature, will be interesting to see. µ