IPL is the biggest thing to happen in India, and this year it is gonna rock more with IPL back in India and tie-ups with Google, MiMobi, Live Current Media Inc and others showing IPL allying towards technology. Even Lalit Modi tweets all through the day and in one of his tweet he anounced
Watch out for itunes apps and android and blackberry apps. All coming soon for ipl.
And after the wait IPL App for iPhone has been landed, I took quite a time to look over this App and my review is based on how the App worked on 1st match of IPL season 3.
Looks
The App has a plain bland look, with only use simple black and gray colors, the UI of the App is not so happening and looks boring. Though nothing new is expected from App made by Indian designers, though it is ok. The Apps starts with Signup screen which is mandatory in order to use the App, after signing up a password is mailed to Inbox, then after logging in you can start using the App.
Categories
The App is divided into 10 categories IPL Live, Top Performers, News, Teams and More.
IPL Live
In this category the current score of the match is shown with detail score card of each innings. There are three option present within this screen namely Video, Audio & text commentary whcih are right now not usable but according to the developer site it will be updated soon.
Schedule
Here you can view the schedule by team, venue and dates.
And others are like teams and news, where you can get more information on individual team and latest news from iplt20.com
There are also options like video, gallery, Top performers, Team scores, Scores etc.. After the completion of 1st match of IPL season 3 video, scores and Top performers are yet to be updated as they show blank pages. Gallery has the snaps from iplt20.com and Team Score give a good chart to tally all the points.
More
The App also supports Push Notifications, the Push Notification are not editable or cannot be changed from the user side, they are automated from the developer side. basically it only pushes the update of the score time to time, though it is good. But the developer advertises that Push Notification are customizable but I shuffled through the whole App but was unable to find it.
Verdict
By now I think I have completely described the whole App and what it does. This is the first version with many things to be updated like Live commentary, ball by ball videos etc. The App will support in App purchases for commentary and videos in future versions.
Pros
- The App works fast on EDGE and 3G networks.
- The Team Score is a good add.
- Push Notifications are always a plus
- Enough info to satisfy a fan.
Cons
- The App looks boring.
- It is costly and moreover in App purchase is unnecessary
- App needs to be re-subscribed every year
- The App freezes occasionally while refreshing
- Push Notifications are not customizable
- The gallery and news are only the RSS feeds of iplt20.com
The app costs $4.99(iTunes Link) but needs a lot of improvement. So it does not provide much value for money. We would recommend the app if it was priced at $1.99. If you are big IPL fan and you need something to satisfy your need you can try m.iplt20.com or else you can download the free App ESPN ScoreCenter(iTunes Link) and get the latest updates. And as of now it is not possible to watch live IPL match from Youtube on iPhone.