SportsManias
Latest
SportsManias is custom team feeds and news, nothing else
SportsManias Sports News app, available for free on the iPad and iPhone 5 in iTunes, is an app that will polarize sports fans. It is just as useful as it is flawed. I downloaded it, and after it installed, I was greeted by an app that was easy to navigate. I was prompted to choose my favorite sports teams, which I did, then I was taken to its main interface, which consisted of four tabs (Articles, Tweets, Videos, Rumors). I found that I could navigate between news stories about my favorite teams, tweets from and concerning my favorite teams and players, highlight videos, and even rumors about possible transactions. I could find the scores for my teams, as well as upcoming games. It was nice at first. It prompted me to choose my favorite teams. I picked a MLB team (Milwaukee Brewers), an NFL team (San Francisco 49ers), an NBA team (Chicago Bulls), and an NHL team (Anaheim Ducks). The other options available are NCAA, and Soccer. After setting my favorite teams, I started looking through the news articles. What I found was that it was mostly clouded with 49ers news. I scrolled down, and found mostly repeat stories with the same headline from different sources. I had to wade past about 15 49ers stories to get to a Milwaukee Brewers story (I understand the NFL starts this week, but the Brewers are in the middle of a pennant race). I didn't see anything about the Bulls or Ducks, but it is the offseason, so there isn't much happening. I moved on to the Twitter feed, and found it was dominated by Carlos Gomez (an avid tweeter, and CF for Milwaukee). It was mostly pictures he had taken with fans...not much of interest. Overall, sifting through News, Tweets, Videos, and Rumors, I found little to whet my appetite in the way of information about my favorite teams. It was later in the evening when I was checking this out, and I wanted to check scores for other MLB games. I couldn't. There is no option to look at anything outside of the teams you pick. This app is useful, but it limits itself. I do think it's nice that the twitter feeds, the team based articles, and the video highlights, etc. are easily accessible in one place, and it's very easy to use, but I would rather stick with my familiar ESPN SportsCenter app, or even league specific apps (Such as MLB AtBat or NFL Mobile) to find up to the minute news, social media posts, scores, and roster updates. SportsManias Sports News is good for diehard fans who don't care about the world outside their team, but if you would like to stay informed about rivals, or attempt to keep up with your fantasy team, look elsewhere.
