iFooty - up to the minute football scores and news

App: iFooty
Released: 17th August 2008
Developer: Jeremy Debate
Price: Free
Rating:

The very first app to be reviewed on The iPhone Apps Blog is an app I have been waiting for for some time. For me, the iPhone is all about taking things that can already be done, but doing them in a way that integrates into your life a whole lot more conveniently. With the start of the football season I had been on the look out for an application that would provide me with score flashes for all the English football teams, and finally one has arrived ... iFooty.

I downloaded the app with a mixture of hope and fear - hope that this was going to be a killer app that would receive much use every Saturday for the next 9 months, and fear that, given the (current) lack of push services for apps, any app that attempted this task currently would be a botch job that just wasn't worth using.

I am very pleased to report that this app outperforms any hopes and expectations I had. The key is that it makes use of probably the best source of football news and scores on the net, the BBC's football website. (I suspect that this is the reason this excellent app is free). Things are kept nice and simple, starting with a choice of all the English divisions and the Scottish Premier division.



Select the division you are interested in and you are taken to the table for that division.




Here is one of the few shortcomings of this app, as even though the teams are listed in the order they appear in the division table, it does not include any stats such as points, games played, goals for and against etc.
Edit (21/08/2008): I have heard direct from the developer that iFooty version 1.0.1 has been submitted to the app store, and will be available to download as soon as it is approved. This will include games played, goal difference and points figures in the table data.

Ignoring this minor complaint, selecting of the team you are interested in brings up the good stuff. There are 4 tabs at the bottom of the team page, the first displaying details of the results, currentlly going back a full year. This is just a static list of scores, with no scorers information, and without the ability to click on a score and get more information. Still, its good stuff.



I'll jump to tab 3 quickly, which contains useful fixture information, in the same format as the results. However, the really good stuff is on tab 2, which is a mirror of the BBC's minute by minute Live Text page, complete with a nicely presented current score.



I haven't yet used this app while a game is underway, so I will report back after the games on Saturday on just how smoothly this page refreshes.

Edit: I am pleased to report the live minute-by-minute information works superbly. The page refreshes itself every few seconds so you can very conveniently keep uptodate with your teams progress.

I am unsure how useful the final tab is, though its a nice addition - it provides an RSS style list of the latest news articles for the chosen team, again taken straight from the BBC site.



The actual news articles themselves are nicely presented, so this may be a nice way to browse the latest news about your team if you want that rather than general Premier League news for example.



I was so taken by this app that I contacted the Developer to find out a little more, and I can bring some good news. New versions of the app are planned to provide new and improved functionality, and my number one request will definitely be added - the ability to view the live text for a whole division, rather than only for individual teams - this will be awesome for when Saturday comes. This will hopefully come as part of a whole bunch of new features to assess the data in the BBC Football web site at various levels, i.e. general football news and Premier League football news, as well as the news at the specific team level. I'd love to think that when the push service is finally released, this app will make use of it, and actually allow goal alerts at the various levels too..

This is already one of my favourite iPhone apps, but these new features would push a superb 4 star app into a perfect 5 stars.

Summary: This is a great app, that will only get better with future additions. Download it now and you won't regret it - how can you - its free.