CTV is one of Canada’s largest media conglomerates, operating a number of television stations across the country. This means expectations are high for the company’s new Olympic news iPhone app, CTVOlympics (free), as the genre is currently littered with bland efforts that are little more than a news feed.
And as far as presentation goes, the CTVOlympics iPhone app absolutely delivers. It’s got a simple, yet effective, design that is much more colorful and professional than its competitors. All news stories open within the iPhone app, and it’s not buggy or slow.
You can’t say the same about the iPhone app’s content – at least not yet. CTVOlympics is understandably heavily biased towards Canada, and is simply not the iPhone app to go to if you want detailed information about another nation.
In addition to the news section, the iPhone app has photos, information on athletes, and schedules. The athletes section is nice, including information such as past performances, but the schedules provide limited information – specific times aren’t mentioned and team sports such as hockey don’t mention who will be competing.
I should mention that the iPhone app isn’t entirely devoted to Canada, though. While the “photos” and “athletes” sections are exclusively for those who live north of the border, the news section does include general Olympic news that doesn’t necessarily deal with the country.
Still, as of right now, CTVOlympics will only be of serious interest to those who are rooting for Canada. I say as of right now, because the iPhone app is scheduled for a huge update that could make it the must-have Olympic iPhone app, regardless of your rooting interests.
Once the games begin, the iPhone app is scheduled to get new features such as push notifications, a live play-by-play feed and live blogging. This is much needed, as despite its nice presentation, the iPhone app now offers little more than limited athlete information and news stories.
So non-Canadians can hold off on this download, at least for a couple more weeks. But as long as the February update goes as planned, we’ll be looking at one of the top sports iPhone apps in the iTunes App Store and the clear gold medal winner for Olympic iPhone apps.
