Archive for category iPhone Sports

ESPN Introduces World Cup 2010 App

Dec 6

Posted by Alan in News, iPhone Sports, iPhone Sports Apps | 6 Comments

The ESPN 2010 World Cup (free, iTunes link) app lets you follow the world’s most widely-viewed sporting event, soccer’s (or football’s, for Europeans) World Cup. My favorite feature of the app is Tournament History, which gives a thorough retelling of past World Cups. It’s worth downloading for that alone.

Besides the usual fare of news and scores, there is also a Bracket Predictor contest with a chance to win $5,000.

List of the app’s features:

Exclusive breaking news and analysis from ESPN and ESPNsoccernet
Extensive profiles of all 32 countries and the world’s top footballers
Full tournament schedule of matches and Group profiles
Personalization – select your favorite teams and show your support with ESPN conversations!
World Cup tournament history dating back to 1930
Profiles of the South African venues and cities
Fantasy Bracket Predictor – put your knowledge to the test and choose next year’s World Cup champions

ESPN 2010 World Cup is a free download from the iTunes App Store.

Review of 6 iPhone Apps That Provide Sports Scores

Aug 19

Posted by John Hawkes in Best iPhone Apps, iPhone Fantasy Sports Apps, iPhone Sports, iPhone Sports Apps | No Comments

One of the best things about the iPhone is being able to keep up with the latest news while on the go. If you’re a sports fan, you’ll want the latest scores too. You’d think there’d be a million great apps by now to pull down sports scores and news, but choices are still pretty slim. We’ve taken a look at six apps for sports scores and news, and our two Editor’s Picks are Sportacular and ESPN ScoreCenter. Check out the reviews below.

Sportacular

Rating: 8.8 out of 10

Sportacular (free, iTunes link) is a our top pick for gettings sports news and scores on the iPhone. It’s fast and easy to use, its interactive features are fun, and a recent update added push notifications. And, the notifications can be configured so you won’t get spammed. Our one complaint about the app is that its graphics and interface need a redesign, as webapps are calling, and they want their style back.

Sportacular‘s interface prioritizes scores over other information. The first screen you see upon launching is the day’s scores. If a game is in progress, tapping on it will bring up live coverage. Once the game is over, the app shows a game summary along with tabs that allow you to see more stats like boxscores and play-by-plays. You can also browse to previous days’ scores.

The app added push notifications in a recent update, and it’s one of the best implementations of the service I’ve seen in an iPhone app yet. The notifications are highly configurable, letting you choose from various levels of alerts, from receiving only a final score to being a updated every inning (or quarter) of a game.

Sportacular has two fun interactive features: Facebook Connect and My Picks. Facebook Connect simply allows you to chat or make smack talk with other Facebook users about during games.

The My Picks feature lets you vote on which team you predict will win. You can view votes by overall total or broken down my region (to weed out the hometown bias). The app stores a personal history so you can see just how horrible you are at picking winners.

Vote on who you think will win the game.

Although not pretty, Sportacular does a good job of gathering headlines and excerpts from various major news sources like SI.com, ESPN.com, Yahoo, etc, and presenting them in an easy-to-scan format. Tapping on a headline launches a browser window within the app and loads the article from its original source. The only downside to this method is it can be slow.

Conclusion: Sportactular isn’t the prettiest of apps, but it’s easy to use and has several unique features, including push notifications, that distance it from the competition.

ESPN ScoreCenter

Rating: 8.0 out of 10

Read the rest of this entry »

PGA Championship Streams Video to iPhone, Offers Notifications

Aug 8

Posted by Alan in iPhone Golf Apps, iPhone Sports, iPhone Sports Apps | No Comments

PGA Championship ($1.99, iTunes link) offers coverage of the golf tournament of the same name, including live streaming video and push notifications. The PGA Championship will take place August 10-16 at Hazeltine National Golf Club in Minnesota.

Follow Tiger Woods as he tries for his first major of 2009. From the official app description:

For four days, watch the PGA Championship’s Marquee Groups live at Hazeltine National Golf Club throughout their entire round, customize your leaderboard, receive personal alerts on your favorite players, and see who’s had the wildest leaderboard streaks each round. Plus, watch instruction videos from PGA of America Course Professionals and Instructors. You’ve never had this much access to on-course action with your iPhone/iPod Touch until now.

LIVE VIDEO
Watch up to 4 Marquee Groups Thurs-Fri. And another 2 groups Sat-Sun. and watch the entire field play through Hazeltine’s Par 3 holes Thurs-Sun.

PERSONAL LIVE ALERTS
Receive alerts for your 5 favorite players, even when you’re not watching. Know when they:
- Begin their round
- End their round
- Score a Double Bogey – or worse!
- Score a Birdie or Eagle
- and know how they score after every hole

Turn alerts on and off whenever you want. Turn some on, others off. It’s all up to you.

Receive Breaking News alerts to know when course conditions worsen, when a club record gets broken, and more.

CUSTOM LEADERBOARD
Search for your favorite players and add them to your custom leaderboard. Add or remove as many as you want. Change them as often as you want.

TRENDS
Know who moved furthest up the leaderboard each round, who fell the furthest, and see who had the longest birdie and bogey streaks of the day.

NEWS, HIGHLIGHTS and TIPS
- Watch key highlights, round recaps, and interviews.
- Replay key moments from PGA Championship history.
- Read Live Reports, Daily Updates, and other key news stories

Plus great features you’d expect, such as:
- Tee Times
- Scorecards in easy-to-read Front 9/Back 9 format
- Player Info
- Top 10 Leaderboard
- Hazeltine National Golf Club Course Overview

COMING SOON: Look for our pre-event update that will provide a finalized field list and final 1st – 2nd round tee times.

PGA Championship is a $1.99 download from the iTunes App Store.

Tags: PGA Tournament App for iPhone

MLB At Bat 2009 Updated, MLB.tv Subscribers Can Now Watch Every Game

Jul 20

Posted by Alan in iPhone Sports, iPhone Sports Apps | No Comments

An update to MLB At Bat 2009 ($9.99, iTunes link) has been pushed to the iTunes App Store. Version 1.3.0 allows MLB.tv and MLB.tv Premium subscribers to watch live video of every single game during the regular season (some games are subject to blackout). The video streaming works over 3G and WiFi. All At Bat 2009 users will continue to have access to the “AtBat.tv Game of the Day.” I took a look at the live video of the app last week and wrote up a review.

MLB.tv costs $50 and MLB.tv Premium $70. Both subscriptions offer video feeds of all games, but Premium has extra features like “HD” video, DVR functionality, compatibility with Boxee (pretty sweet for you Apple TV owners), multiple game viewing at once, and other goodies.

MLB At Bat 2009 is a $9.99 download in the iTunes App Store.

MLB At Bat 2009 Gets Live Video (Watch Entire Games)

Jul 7

Posted by Alan in iPhone Radio, iPhone Sports, iPhone Sports Apps | 1 Comment

As promised, MLB At Bat 2009 ($9.99, iTunes link) is now serving live video of 1-2 games a day in addition to offering audio to all MLB games. The video can be streamed over 3G as well as WiFi.

I’ve been testing the video the past two days, and because of the bandwidth it requires, I have a feeling many will find it unusable in mobile situations. Anything but a strong, constant 3G signal and the video is pretty unwatchable–unless you don’t mind severe gaps every 1-2 minutes. And we all know how reliable AT&T’s 3G network is. Over my solid WiFi connection at home, it works like a charm. So, if you’re working on the car outside and want to have the game on in the background, it’s a great app. Maybe not so much sitting at your desk at work.

The games are subject to blackout, so the app will first request to discover the iPhone’s location using GPS before it will let you watch the game.

The video’s quality is not that great–it’s heavily pixelated. But it’s good enough to read the score at the top of the screen. It’s no replacement for watching the game on a TV, but it’s better than no video at all.

MLB At Bat 2009 is a $9.99 download in the iTunes App Store.

Manage Your Yahoo! Fantasy Sports Team With Y! Fan Pro

Jun 23

Posted by Alan in iPhone Applications, iPhone Apps, iPhone Fantasy Sports Apps, iPhone Sports, iPhone Sports Apps | 1 Comment

*Update 7/6/2009* The name of the app has been changed to MyFantasyPro due to trademark claims from Yahoo!

Want to change the lineup of our Yahoo! Fantasy Baseball team at work but the Yahoo! Fantasy website is blocked? Y! Fan Professional ($3.99, iTunes link) lets you do just that. With Y! Fan, you can manage your Yahoo! Fantasy Baseball, Football, Basketball, and Hockey teams and do things like check your league or team stats, pick up free agents, make trade offers, and change your daily lineup.

Feature list:

Access to NFL Football, MLB Baseball, NHL Hockey and NBA Basketball pools (including Plus editions)
Supports Head-to-Head and Rotisserie style pools
Ability to manage your roster, moving players from active to the bench and vice versa
Ability to view your team’s performance for any day of the year or for last week, last month, the current or previous season
Ability to track your team’s progression up your pool’s standings
Ability to view Head-to-Head match-ups and season schedule
Ability to post and read messages on your pools message board
Access to your team’s player notes
Transaction support for adding/dropping players
Offer and accept trades
Access live scores, news, and league standings, and injury reports for NHL, NBA, MLB, and NFL

Y! Fan Professional is a $3.99 download from the iTunes App Store.

MLB.com At Bat 2009: Listen to Every Baseball Game on Your iPhone

Mar 30

Posted by Alan in Baseball, Radio Apps, Satellite Radio, iPhone Applications, iPhone Apps, iPhone Radio, iPhone Sports, iPhone Sports Apps | No Comments

MLB.com At Bat 2009 ($9.99, iTunes link) from Major League Baseball lets you listen to every radio broadcast, home and away, of every MLB game this season on your iPhone or iPod Touch. This is $5 less than the same feature, called Gameday Audio ($15), on the MLB.com website. And with the iPhone app version, you won’t get suckered into the autorenewal charges of the website every year like I do. MLB.com At Bat 2009 is a good tool for anyone on the go who wants to listen to their local radio station’s broadcast of their favorite team.

Watch video highlights in MLB At Bat 2009.

The app also offer real-time scores, real-time play-by-play, and video highlights. It’s basically the best iPhone app for baseball-info junkies. If you don’t want to pay the premium for the radio access, there is also a free version, MLB.com At Bat Lite.

Box Scores on MLB At Bat 2009.

Links:

MLB.com At Bat 2009 ($9.99)
MLB.com At Bat Lite (free)

Baseball Superstars 2009: Full-Featured Baseball Game

Mar 14

Posted by Alan in Baseball, Sports Games, iPhone Sports, iPhone and iPod Touch Games | No Comments

Baseball Superstars 2009 ($4.99, iTunes link) is a retro baseball game that offers an impressively deep list of features, including the ability to play an entire season, increase player skills, and save player stats. This is not a MLB-licensed game. Instead, it takes a cartoony approach that resembles the Nintendo classic Baseball Stars and focuses on giving a full baseball experience.

Baseball fans in particular who are looking for more than just a casual game will not be disappointed. Baseball Superstars offers the following features:

Baseball simulator and role playing with custom player creating, team management and trading, skill levelups, equipments, and special items
4 unique stadiums
12 hidden players to unlock
Create and customize your pitcher and batter in the My League mode.
Equip players with new items, increase popularity ratings, and groom players into superstars
With the new Team Management feature,manage your team and trade players.

The game utilizes simulated console-gamepad controls that work well. There is also a free lite version if you want to try it out before buying.

Baseball Superstars is a $4.99 download from the iTunes App Store.

Chicago Tribune News Reader and Sports Reader (Free iPhone Apps)

Feb 4

Posted by Alan in Free iPhone and iPod Touch Apps, iPhone Applications, iPhone Sports, iPhone Sports Apps | No Comments

The Chicago Tribune News Reader (free, iTunes link) offers the latest news from the Chicago Tribune newspapers. The app has two kinds of navigation: swipe and list view. With swipe, headlines can be browsed by swiping your finger right to left. The list view shows all the headlines at once in a list and allows for quick scanning. There are 9 categories of news to browse through:

top stories
entertainment
living
local news
nation/world
opinions
politics
travel

There is a separate app for sports called the Chicago Tribune Sports Reader (free, iTunes link). The app shows the latest scores at the bottom of the screen. You can scan through the latest sports headlines by swiping or in a basic list view. There is a focus on local sports, but the app also shows national headlines. The sports reader only shows today’s news, there is no way to browse previous day’s scores or headlines.

LED Football Free for Limited Time

Jan 31

Posted by Alan in Free iPhone and iPod Touch Games, iPhone Sports, iPhone Sports Apps | No Comments

In celebration of Super Bowl weekend, LED Football is a free download for a limited time. Relive the classic handheld football experience on your iPhone. MacWorld called it one of the top 10 iPhone games of 2008. I don’t know about that, but hey, it’s free. Deal ends February 2, 2009.

LED Football is currently a free download from the iTunes App Store.