I’m almost always a proponent of apps that try something new. And while, on the surface, Realtime Pro Football ’09 is just another NFL news app, at its core it is a NFL news app with a serious twist.
You won’t find AP-style news articles here, but instead Twitter feeds (lots and lots of Twitter feeds) and blog posts. While plenty of other apps offer these features, Realtime Pro Football instead bases itself on these features.
Essentially, this free app is broken up into three sections – team and player tweets, reporter tweets and blogs. You can either view league-wide tweets or team-specific ones, and the blogs come from the Fansided.com network.
What this leads to is lots of content that is updated all the time. This is very much a good thing, and the media section alone (which includes reporters such as Adam Caplan, Jay Glazer and Adam Schefter) almost makes Realtime Pro Football worth owning.
The graphics and layout are very simple, but they work. This app isn’t going to blow you away, but you’re not going to get frustrated navigating your way around it either.
Still, I’m not entirely sure this app works. While some of the Twitter feeds are great, the mixture of news-style team tweets and not-so-newsy player tweets is odd. Some of the blogs are decent enough, but in many cases they simply don’t stand up to more mainstream news sources.
Furthermore, there are no stats or standings included. That alone puts this app behind the Sportacular’s and Sporting News Pro Football’s of the app world.
Tons of up-to-the-minute content is great, and even if I’m not a huge fan of the blogs I appreciate the use of other forms of media. Even though I like that there’s a very different feel to Realtime Pro Football, I can’t help but think there are better alternatives out there.
