Ultimate Football 1.0 is our new app for keeping up with the NFL season. When designing the app we wanted to make it as simple, yet as full featured as possible. We looked at the other football apps out there (including our own ‘Pro Football Mobile’) and decided on how we could do better. We came up with Ultimate Football.
Ultimate Football lets you read the latest news, follow your team so you can keep up with any news related to them, and see the latest scores and upcoming games.
News
We have tried to make the news feature as awesome as possible. On the main news table you can see the headline, the publishing date, and a small summary of the story. This means that you can only open stories that interest you, saving you time, When you choose to read a story you are presented with the full summary. You are also able to email the story summary and link to anyone (from within the application) or connect to Facebook and post a link to the story on your wall. If you choose to read the full story you are presented the full web page within the application and also given the opportunity to save the story to your bookmarks. This is the greatest feature of the application. Stories saved to your bookmarks (which are accessed within the app) can be read at anytime; regardless of whether or not you are connected to the network. This is good news for iPod Touch owners who aren’t always in reach of wifi.
Team News
Team News boasts all the same features of News. On first launch you are prompted to open the main iPhone Settings application (located on the main home screen) to customise the application. From within the Settings application you can choose your favourite team. The Team News table is populated with your favourite teams latest news. You can also save these stories, email them, or post them to Facebook.
Scores
The Scores table lets you see the current weeks game information. If a game has been played the scores will be displayed. If a game hasn’t been played yet the two teams and starting time will be displayed. The Scores are updated every time you view them so you always have the latest results.
Bookmarks
The Bookmarks table shows the headline of any story you have saved. Viewing the story is as simple as tapping it. If you are connected to the network all the images/graphics will also be downloaded to give you the best view of the story. If you are not connected to the network (e.g. you are an iPod Touch owner not in a wifi hotspot) the full text of the story will be displayed. Stories on the Bookmarks table can be easily deleted by swiping the cell or pressing the edit button.
Coming Soon
We have many more features we want to add to Ultimate Football but we also want to get it out for the start of the regular season. Expect regular updates with new features such as videos, photos, and more. Check out the video below to get an idea of how Ultimate Football 1.0 works and let us know what you think.
Things have been quiet on the blog for a while, but that is just because we have been extremely busy. Within the next few hours our new game ‘The Frog Puzzle’ will be available on the app store. It is 100% FREE! Before the start of the new football season we will also be releasing Ultimate Football. You can view a video demo of v1.0 here and we will be doing a full blog post on the app and our plans for it tomorrow.
In the coming weeks we will also be releasing 1-2 new games and possibly an entertainment application. More on them closer to their release.
Now on to something we promised a long time ago. We have had an update to F1 Mobile Lite (a massive update) in review with Apple for 9 weeks now. We can’t understand the reasons for this and have been in constant contact with them trying to sort out the issue. They tell us they are working on it now so hopefully we will see that release soon as well. I’m sure all our Lite users will be very satisfied with it.
We will be trying to post more regularly but follow us on twitter @hotrodsoftware to keep up to date.
We currently have an American Football application (Pro Football Mobile) which many users are satisfied with, so why create another?
Well when we looked at all the American Football apps on offer we didn’t find any one (including our own) that met all our needs and focussed on the small details. With Ultimate Football we have tried to create the Ultimate American Football app.
The first feature is News. News is very important and will be one of the most used features in any sports application such as this. Most apps implement it in the same way and we think we have made it a lot better. When you launch Ultimate Football the app does not fetch news. It shows you the most recent 10 stories from the last time you launched the app. You can read the summary for each story, and if you are connected to the network you can read the full story. If you want the latest news just shake the device to update. In Ultimate Football you can also save stories your interested in so that you can read them later when you are offline. This is particularly useful for iPod Touch owners who do not have the benefit of the cellular network.
In the settings for the application (located in the iPhone settings app) you can select your favorite team. Ultimate Football can then present you with a news feed containing only stories affecting your team. This feed works in the same way as the news feature described above.
The third feature is photos. Ultimate Football ships with a small collection of photos from games and the collection will be added to over time.
We also have a videos feature. With each release we will add more videos which will be viewable directly within the application.
We also have a Standings feature. Here you can view the standings the AFC and NFC via the ESPN Mobile site.
We can’t post any pictures at the minute because the app is still in development and the UI hasn’t been finalized but we would like to hear your thoughts and any other features you would like to see.
