BAYWATCH and Knight Rider star David Hasselhoff has become a cult download on the revolutionary iPhone thanks to a North-East technology company.

Never Odd Or Even has worked with the legendary actor, known as The Hoff, to create the Ask The Hoff application for the phone, which is now being downloaded across the world.

The company, led by Darlington entrepreneur Paul Smith and business partner Jon Nairn, has created an animated version of The Hoff, which appears on the iPhone’s screen and will answer any question with a pre-recorded response voiced by the Baywatch star.

The innovation is expected to gain massive popularity across the world, and came about after Mr Smith – best known as the Twitchhiker for his 11,000-mile journey to New Zealand earlier this year, solely funded by donations from followers on social networking site Twitter – met The Hoff’s agent on his 30-day “twitchhike”.

“It’s a very simple and silly idea, but the potential is huge,”

said Mr Smith.

“The popularity of the iPhone is increasing day by day, and The Hoff has a big following in the UK and around the world.”

It comes after Never Odd Or Even, based in Newcastle, gained acclaim for the development of its Instant Cities iPhone application earlier this year. Instant New York was hailed as “innovative and well designed” by technology critics when released in February, and spent several weeks in the top ten of most popular iPhone travel applications.

Mr Smith said the idea for the Ask The Hoff application – which is available to download for 59p – holds massive potential for the business. More than 50 million iPhones have been sold worldwide since they launched in 2007, and that is expected to increase with Orange and Vodafone due to follow O2 into operating the device in the UK.

Mr Smith said the creation of the latest application came as another boost to Never Odd Or Even after the success of Instant Cities.

“We’ve been working on ideas for the iPhone for over a year, and we’re still only one of a couple of agencies in the region that develop these types of applications,”

he said.”