Just in time for July Fourth, the federal government this morning unveiled a sweeping redesign of its official portal website, USA.gov.

The redesign, notable for featuring 18 downloadable mobile phone "apps," represents the most significant change to the site since its debut almost a decade ago, Federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra said at a preview news conference earlier this week.

"It's very much centered around how the average American consumes information," Kundra said, "not how the average government employee makes information available."

The 18 apps include several that could be useful for holiday activities ranging from picnics to sunbathing. One, for example, offers easy access to calorie counts and other nutrition data for more than 1,000 foods. Another provides a 24/7 link to information from the Transportation Security Administration, including wait times in airport security lines, while a third features the Environmental Protection Agency's UV Index. Other apps include the FBI's Most Wanted list, and recall information for cars, food and drugs.

All are free and most are compatible with iPhone, Droid and BlackBerry devices, according to the Office of Management and Budget. Although third-party apps aren't available at present, "that's something we're deliberating," Kundra said.

The redesign, in the works since March, is part of a broader shift aimed at making USA.gov — and its Spanish-language counterpart, Gobierno.gov — more service-oriented.

Although based for now on Microsoft's Bing, the site's search engine is indexed to government information and is "nine to 10 times faster than what we had before," Dave McClure, the General Services Administration's associate administrator of citizen services and innovative technologies, said at a separate briefing Thursday. The new home page is also noticeably cleaner than that of its predecessor, although many of the old topic links are only a click away. Not including the cost of apps development, McClure pegged the redesign's price tag at about $280,000.

The initial apps lineup is "a modest beginning," he added. "Our anticipation is that we'll be rolling out more apps each quarter."

For Office of Management and Budget Deputy Director Jeffrey Zients, who is also the government's chief performance officer, a more user-friendly site dovetails with a broader quest to turn around Americans' steadily declining outlook on government effectiveness and efficiency.

When someone has a "good interaction," Zients said, "they're more likely to have a favorable view."