SportsTap is in the upper-echelon of sports-based iPhone apps – it’s a simple app that’s pretty useful for the sports fan. It excels at giving you the score, and really, sometimes that’s all you have time to check.
Icons for all major sports are found on the home screen, which looks a bit like the home screen of your iPhone. That mimicry makes it easy to find the sport you want: tap on the bat-and-ball icon for MLB scores, for example.
There are more features to discover when you have time to check for more than a score. You can browse past scores, access news stories, league standings and a list of transactions. The app also provides an array of excellent pre-game stat info, such as weather conditions and even the head-to-head record of the two teams playing.
The information is delivered in an attractive black-and-gray background that makes simple statistics look much more enticing than they have any right to be.
The only place SportsTap doesn’t function as well as rival Sportacular concerns the ease of accessing in-game box scores. The box score is not the first thing you see when game scores, so it takes an extra tap for more detailed information. Another drawback: The app doesn’t monitor a baseball game pitch by pitch. Many, including the fine MLB At Bat app, provide this feature.
Those issues may be nit picking, but details matter in a crowded sports app field.
Still, SportsTap gets so much else right and delivers the score so efficiently that it’s a worthy addition to any iPhone.
