SportsTap – Review

Our rating:

By: Logan Rockmore

Version #: 1.0

Date Released: 2008-11-03

Developer:

Price: 0.00

User Rating:

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With winter each year inevitably comes football. High school, college, professional. To keep up with this pigskin onslaught, it’s more important than ever to have a reliable plug to the sports world. I’ve been using Sportacular since it first came out to quench my sports update needs; however, I have always been a little underwhelmed by Sportacular’s presentation.

So when I opened up Sports Tap for the first time, I felt my loyalty shift like a traded player in the major leagues. But is the flourishing interface enough to make Sports Tap my go-to sports application?

When you first open Sports Tap you’ll instantly feel at home. Sports Tap’s home screen mimics that of the iPhone itself. Except instead of each icon representing a different application, each represents a different sport. It works really well and even intuitively uses the update numbers to point out which sports currently have a game in session. The rest of the presentation follows suit. It has a very polished look, albeit that the color scheme is a little dark for my taste. I’m not a fan, however, of 1/3 of the screen being dedicated to the application name and advertisements, but I suppose that’s the price you pay for having a free app.
 
Unfortunately, presentation was the only area that Sports Tap outshines the competition. When it comes to actually getting score information, it is not in the same realm. I found significantly more lag when switching tabs, even when it was handling relatively little information. Another problem I encountered was that the stats were often incorrect or poorly organized. For instance, when checking on Larry Fitzgerald’s receiving stats I found that all of his receptions and their yardage were listed separately instead of a total, which is a major crime in the ease-of-use department.
However, while most apps would be sentenced to death for those kind of offenses, Sports Tap is able to slide past some of the accusations with its intuitive interface. But it’s still one good update away from being a contender for sports news on my iPhone.
 
Quick Take
 
Value:  7/10
Would I Buy Again:  With Sportacular downloaded, no.
Learning Curve: Small.
Who is it for:  People looking for a free sports news application.
What I like:  Top of the line presentation.
What I Don’t: Slow performance and nuanced stat retrieval    
 
Final Statement:  A great looking app that could be smoother around the edges.  Good alternative to Sportacular.