Rapha iPhone app to hit Apple's app store this week

Cycle clothing and accessories brand Rapha is reportedly set to launch its l;ong awaited app for the Apple iPhone, according to a report on the website of the interactive marketing magazine, New Media Age.

As expected when Rapha first revealed plans to launch an app at the time it unveiled its Spring/Summer 2010 range earlier this year, the app takes the form of a social networking tool that will allow cyclists to arrange group rides through a messageboard.

Using the iPhone’s built-in technology, it also enable cyclists to keep tabs on each other’s whereabouts ahead of going on rides – and presumably, to see how close your Sunday afternoon ride’s lanterne rouge is to joining you and the other riders at the coffee stop.

According to New Media Age, the app, called Rendezvous, which has been developed by Future Workshops, will launch in the coming week – we’ll hopefully bring you some screen shots as soon as we can obtain them from Rapha, and the website quoted Rapha CEO Simon Mottram’s explanation of the rationale behind it.

“Arranging for groups of 8-10 people to meet is notoriously difficult and this helps them to stay in touch,” he said. “Our research found about 45% of customers have iPhones so we though this was a good platform to be on.”

That last sentence probably tells you all you need to know about the affluence and style-consciousness of Rapha’s target demographic – ownership of any type of smartphone is around the mid-teens, percentage-wise, across the entire UK population – and the company is said to be looking to develop applications for smartphones powered by competing operating systems such as BlackBerry and Google’s Android platform.