Spectrum Wine Auctions has launched an app for iPhones and iPads, joining other auctioneers using mobile technology to tap the growing number of itinerant, time-poor wealthy.

The California-based auction house announced the new free bidding app which goes live today, titled "Spectrum Wine", available to download via the iTunes and the iPhone App Store.

"As mobile technology infiltrates every aspect of our lives, we felt compelled to tap into the potential of the new medium to enable our customers to compete in real-time with collectors around the world, from anywhere in the world," said Spectrum Wine Auctions president, Jason Boland. "Our new app brings more convenience to our clients, and will ensure they never miss out on an important lot."

The app allows users to place online bids for both live and internet auctions. Auction lots are searchable by region, vintage, producer, classification, bottle size, and packaging. Once a bid is placed, users will receive status notifications on bids. The app also offers streaming video from Spectrum Wine TV and a pricing guide. It complements the firm’s growing online stable, which includes a website with real-time bidding software, streaming video of Spectrum Wine's Hong Kong sales to any computer with an internet connection, as well as 360-degree images of each live lot and semimonthly internet-only auctions.

The app is the newest addition to a raft of mobile bidding applications by auction houses including Christie’s and Sotheby’s.

Christie’s has been leading on auction technology since 2007. Among other innovations, its clients can make remote bids and zoom in and rotate any lot in its annual auctions of fine art, jewelry, wine, and memorabilia.

Christie’s LIVE, the four-year-old real-time multi-media bidding division, now generates nearly a fifth of bid registrations. In the first half of 2011, online bidding continued to deliver both a large number of winning bids and new registrants: registrants grew by 27 per cent while 19 per cent of Christie’s clients now bid online (up 2 per cent year-on-year) with the total value of lots sold online rising 24 per cent year-on-year to £37.5 million ($59.9 million).

Meanwhile at a Sotheby’s wine auction in New York last November, nearly half of the lots offered received online bids and 55 people logged on to bid online, the highest level of online participation at a Sotheby’s wine auction ever. Fifteen per cent of the lots were sold to collectors bidding on the internet.