Apps: Sports
 Sports fans will love the apps in this section. You can have the latest scores pushed to your iPhone, track game action live, and access just about any stat you can think of. But these apps aren't just for fans. There are apps that let golfers use the iPhone's GPS capability to pinpoint their position on the golf course and tell then the distance to the pin—and to potential hazards. There are apps that help you improve your performance in various sports, keep score, learn the rules, and find out if weather conditions are favorable.
As the app store grows, apps are being developed to fill all areas of our life. From astronomy to hunting there's now an app for that. This is the first of what i hope will be a regular column looking at apps for niche markets that may surprise you. This first blog will look at a niche market that's near to my heart-- Ultimate Frisbee.
Ultimate is the fastest growing sport in America. For those of you who have never heard of ultimate, here is a brief description from the USA ultimate website.
While attending CES, I blogged about the trend of using an iPhone or iPod touch as a universal remote. Since then, I have had a chance to play with the Rē from NewKinetix. I really wanted to like the Rē. I am the gadget guy, who always has the latest of everything. I have owned numerous high-end universal remote controls, from Philips, Sony, Logitech (Harmony) and Monster Cable. I am not opposed to spending $100 or more for a device that can connect all of my audio and video equipment and displace multiple remotes.
Shakespeare wrote "The play's the thing", in Hamlet, but with CrowdZone (FREE, http://www.crowdzone.com), that could easily become "The CROWD's the thing". CrowdZone is a social networking tool focused on sporting events. In fact, CrowdZone is probably the ultimate tailgating app! You create a profile and see what events are happening today. You join an event, whether you are at the game or watching at home or at a sports bar. You can leverage the location-aware capabilities of the iPhone and find like-minded users nearby! Root for your team, chat with others, and earn "trophies" for your own comments. You can even earn real world rewards, like tickets!
If you're a fan of the NCAA basketball tournament, you'll want to take a look at this app. PocketBracket ($1.99) lets youcreate brackets, organize pools, and follow the NCAA men's basketball tournament with game and score updates. In addition, you can compete among thousands of users on the PocketBracket Network as well as your friends and coworkers. PocketBracket comes preloaded with 2009 tournament data so you can test-drive the application before the 2010 tournament. You can create sample brackets and begin organizing your pools.
A few days ago I posted about the free Winter 2010 app for following the Olympics. Another option available is Games 2010, a $0.99 app that gives you up-to-the-minute news from over 30 news sources, ranging from the New York Times and ESPN to the BBC and the Associated Press. In addition, the app includes a range of other content, including pictures, videos, medal standings, latest results, TV schedules, event schedules, and interviews.
Winter 2010 is a free app with a number of great features that give you about everything you need to follow the Winter Olympics. It gives you access to all the news and information, event schedule, and a medal tracker, which lists the countries with the most medals. A neat feature is push notifications, so you can get instant notice for winners by nation or by sport. The news feeds offer general news as well as news by sport.
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