Yahoo! App for iPhone/Touch - News

This app is a iPhone front end to Yahoo! services. I have only been using the app for a few days so there is a lot I haven't discovered yet. So let me focus on what I have used.

The app comes with a really cool interface to Yahoo! News. Basically it show the top news headlines, business, entertainment, and sports. All presented sequentially from the top of the page. Each category has options that allow you to drill down further into any topic you want. And at the bottom of the page is a more complete topical listing of news categories which you can select from. So if you like Yahoo! News, you will love this app.

As I see it there are two really cool things about the app.

1. The app is really fast. This is because the app does not try to download everything every time it connects to the Net. Each category page has a refresh button at the top of the page. Tap the button if you want to get the latest stories for that category, only that category is downloaded. Thusly, updates are quick and easy.
2. All the stories are in an easy to read iPhone format. You don't have to wait for a Web browser to load and render the page. Instead, you click a story and boom its there. Very nice.

So anyway, that's it for now. More to come on this app as I understand it better. Also, I expect to write about some other news oriented apps soon.

iPhone Apps for Sports News (Part I)

Yesteday I was at my niece's soccer game I tried checking the score of the Nuggets game. Well doing that on a web site, or even most of the mobile optimized websites, can be a bit clunky. So this morning, I thought I should check and see if there were any iPhone apps for showing scores. Boy was I suprised! There are several choices and evern a few apps by the sports leagues themselves

NBA Game Time

This official app from the NBA shows the scores for today's games. In addition, it provides live scores and stats for games in progress. Nice little box scores by team. It also includes the current schedule and standings. Really nice.

mlb.com lite

Similar to the NBA app, but it provides less stats. It still shows the live scores and schedules, who's hitting, pitching, and who is on base. However, it does not provide a box score.

However, they do provide a paid version of the application that provides a lot more detailed information. Stuff like live pitch locations, pitch by pitch commentary, etc... It looks really cool.