Yes, we’ve all felt the hype over the Olympics during the big lead up, and now it’s finally here. Within today’s society, EVERYTHING needs to be made into an App, so, of course, the London 2012 Olympic Games have their own applications that allow the world to stay up-to-date with their favourite sports, and see how well their country is competing against others.
Alas, one application is not enough to satisfy the cravings of the entire fandom.
Results
First up is the Results Application. This nifty app is my favourite of the two, as it has practically all the features that I personally care about.
It contains a schedule tab, which will tell you when each of the different sports are played, and whether or not they are playing for a podium position.
The next tab across is the sports tab, which, essentially, tells you what sports are actually held at the Olympics this year. Tapping on a sport will take you to each event, and furthermore when that event will take place. You can also flag the sports that are your favourites.
The medals tab brings up a leaderboard, boasting the overall winning country, and showing off what medals have been won. Tapping on a country will bring up information on what medals were won in what sport. The medals can also be sorted by individual athletes, and by individual sports.
There is an entire tab dedicated to biographies of the athletes themselves, so you can follow up on your favourite competitor.
The ‘My Games’ tab allows you to set-up the country that you are supporting (of course, New Zealand) and the timezone that you are in, allowing the schedule you let you know the local time of the events. You can even set up an option to get a Push Notification when your team wins a medal.
Join In
This Application is more to do with physically getting involved. This app is virtually useless to us, unless we’re actually at the events in London, or we just want to stick out nose in and pretend that we’re important enough to know all of this. The “What’s On” tab lets the users know when the sports are on (same as the Results app), but also keeps us informed with tourist-y adventures, such as GEOMETRY, a kinetic installation which exploits wind-farm technology to drive two masts which cross on which mirrors are attached. Like I said – useless to us.
This application comes with a map, which is pinned with important places, such as the stadium, places where the torch has been through, and other tourist destinations.
The “Buzz” section is probably going to be the most useful to us, but still as handy as a tennis racquet with no strings. It lets us see read up on the Official London 2012 news, view photos, and embeds links to YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and the official website.
The “Guide” section is used to plan a day at the Olympics, letting you know about the ceremonies, the Olympic Torch relay, and the ever-so-controversial safety and security.
You can mark everything in this app that you find to be important, and have it saved in the separate “My Games” section, where it is all sorted and organised for easy access later.
My least favourite of the apps, but I guess that’s because I’m too lazy and poor to actually get myself to the games.
Download the Applications (Will Open in iTunes)
http://itunes.apple.com/nz/artist/london-organising-committee/id519766803
