Sportacular Review: A Free Sports App for the iPhone
Sportacular Gets You The Scores and News You Need (4 out of 5)
So what do you do when your favorite sports team is playing a big game and you need the score, but all you have is your iPhone? You can go to ESPN.com, search for the sport and scroll through it until you find your team. That’s the hard way, because the much simpler solution is having Sportacular on your iPhone.
The people at Citizens Sports have created an application that actually stands out from the millions upon millions of other sports score trackers. Okay I may be exaggerating a little bit, but there are a lot. First and foremost what I like about Sportacular, is the fact that you can select exactly what scores you want. If you are going for a single sport, then you can choose NHL or NBA. If you want it more personalized then get ready, you can choose exactly what teams you want to follow, and you can add them to your favorites option. Then all you do is click on the sports icon at the top left of the application and choose favorites and you’re set to go.
Now keep in mind that this application is free so you will not be getting anything too fancy. Applications like the one from MLB.com, actually gives you video highlights moments after they happen. Yeah, not going to happen here folks. But that doesn’t mean this isn’t a solid application. When you are on the 3G network, the scores update quickly after they happen. You have the choice of just seeing the basic score, which is the teams playing, the score and where in the game they are. Or you can tap what game you wish to follow, and you can get stats like scoring summaries, penalties and so on.
Below the main screen you have more tabs. You can view scores, standings, schedules, stats and more. The News tab is a nice feature because you can look up all of the latest sports news from sources like Sports Illustrated, CBS and Yahoo. The coolest part is if you go to YouTube Sports Videos. You can select which team, from MLB, NFL, NBA or NHL and then view all of the relevant YouTube videos involving those teams. This is a great source to view highlights of games from a previous day, since many times people will upload highlights of games just hours or days after they happen.
A Few Problems
My few gripes come in the stat tracking system, and more so in the standings department. I am a die hard NHL fan, so when I look at standings I want to see the entire conference, not just the divisions. You are strictly stuck looking at divisions. I would also like to see an option like a playoff race. For instance, in the NFL, who is winning the division and what teams are leading the wild card and who is on the bubble to get in. All of these features would be nice in an update down the road. Other than that the application is solid. It rarely, if ever crashes. I can’t say I remember the last time it crashed, which is a great thing since there are many applications out there that you can barely get into.
Overall
Sportacular for the iPhone is a solid stat giving application. For those who need a score on the go will love this. It’s easy to navigate around and the ability to follow just certain teams is a nice touch. Add some cool websites to go to see other options and you are set with all the latest information you need. Sportacular is a free application and can be downloaded form the iTunes App Store.
