Eurosport iPhone Application

As a big fan of the iPhone and sports I thought it would be appropriate to do my first review on a sports application for the iPhone. The application I have chosen is called Eurosport.

Let’s start with the technical bit. The seller is Eurosport SA. At the time of writing this review the latest version was 1.3 which was updated on the 09 Feb 2010. The application is compatible with the iPhone & iPod Touch. It requires you have OS 2.2 or later, with the current version having been tested for OS 3.0. It is available in 10 different languages and is offered as a free download.

This app is very well laid out and has an amazing amount of information to deliver. Most sport applications that I have come across are sport specific, i.e. you get and application for Soccer news, then another one for Formula 1 racing etc. However the Eurosport application covers 13 different sports including Football, Basketball, Motor sports, Tennis, Rugby, Ice Hockey to name a few.

Like all applications it has the standard button bar at the bottom of the screen with 5 buttons. Its initial default setting includes the “All Sports” button, 3 other sports buttons and finally the “More...” button. This more button works identically to the one in the iPod application, click it and a screen appears with a list of alternative buttons to use for the customisation of your button bar for quick access to your favourite sports. 

      

At the top of the screen there are 4 different options for viewing information on your preferred sport. Firstly there is Headlines. This is really self explanatory; it gives you all the main headline news for your selected sport. The next option is In Brief, this gives you all the news stories available for your chosen sport.  They are listed with just the story headline with the newest story on top. The next option for you viewing pleasure is the Live option, and it is here that you can view live scores, the scores of games that have finished and a list of upcoming live games. The final category is Results and again this is self explanatory.

This application does fall short in certain areas the main one being the absence of some popular sports such as Golf, which I believe is available on the application in Spain but not in the UK or Ireland. There is also no link to forums that a lot of other sports application have. With all that in mind if you are a sports fan then this is one application you should have on you apple device.

Twitter: Are people addicted or just committed posters?

I started wondering recently about the popularity of twitter and why some people seem to spend what appears to be the majority of their day posting on it. Yes I am a fan of twitter, I have a twitter account that I would check multiple times during the day, it gives me something to do for a few minutes while I am standing outside getting my nicotine fix. I would take advantage of this time to tweet my daily ramblings or join in with whatever topic is being discussed at that time. I would catch up with friends I follow, arrange pub outings or organise that weeks soccer match and that’s the extent of my twitter usage.  I would class myself as a casual user.

I like twitter; I get the concept of being able to get your views to millions of people instantly. A master stroke on behalf of Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams and Biz Stones. I don’t think I’m being too dramatic if I say it has revolutionised the way people communicate. It gives a voice to everyone.

I do have one problem with twitter that I can’t really understand, and that is the perpetual tweeter. I follow a few people who would post messages a lot during their day, I am talking about people with 40-50,000 tweets in just over 2 years, and in a way you have to acknowledge the effort the put in and I suppose they are the ones who keep the whole thing going. These are the people whom I consider to be committed to the twitter experience.

My gripe is with the people who seem to post ad nauseam about every little detail of their lives. You know the kind of thing I mean “leaving the house now to get the bus”, then they follow up with “Arriving at the bus stop now”, who gives a crap, and they go on like this all day. Is it really that important that we know every little detail of their lives? Personally I don’t think so. It’s not the fact that they tweet so often,  but it’s the, and this is just my opinion, the mindless drivel that gets posted every couple of minutes, and they seem to post the same thing every day “Leaving the house for work, must walk to the bus” yes thank you we know, you post the same damn thing every single morning and this is the crux of my gripe with these tweeters, the fact that they feel the need to tweet something no matter how banal  or random every few minutes. Why? Will they develop a nervous twitch if they don’t post something every couple of minutes?  Are these people addicted? In my opinion if they tweet about everything, all the time, then the answer is yes.

I followed a few of these people on twitter  just to observe, see if I was missing something, was there some other level to twitter that had passed me by. The conclusion I came to was no. What led me to this conclusion was the recent snow falls we had here in Ireland. I had tweets every morning telling me that it was cold outside, of course it’s cold outside there is 5 inches of snow everywhere, bloody hell tell me something new, it was at this stage I decided to unfollow these people and claim my sanity back, I would never understand the need to post these pointless tweets. Maybe there is some aspect of twitter I am missing but if that’s it then I am glad to miss out.

Well this is it.

As the title says This is it, my first post on my new blog. New blog may be the wrong phrase first blog may be more appropriate. In this post I suppose I will tell you a little about myself and what hopes I have for my new blog.


Who am I? Well I am husband to my wife and father to my son Digby Jnr. I am an avid footballer and Liverpool FC supporter, so expect some rants and views on that topic. I am a lover of gadgets and technology and a keen gamer.


The aim of this blog is to share with you my general day to day ramblings, views and thoughts. I also plan to do some reviews of any new gadgets that I can lay my hands on , also I will be making some recommendations on fellow bloggers, music that I hope you will check out and let me know what you think.


Anyway thats enough for my first post, I hope you come back and check out my blog.


Cheers
Slip Digby