The Good
- Live U.S. Open video
- Comprehensive course profile
- Nice interface
The Bad
- Player profiles are short
The official U.S. Open app (Free) from the United States Golf Association is one way to follow the much-anticipated golf tournament. Since the app hadn’t been updated for 2010 when we looked at the best iPhone golf apps, we thought we’d take a look to see how it stacks up.
U.S. Open live video
The U.S. Open Golf Championship runs from June 14th-20th, 2010, in Pebble Beach, although the real action doesn't get started until June 17th. If you can’t catch the tournament on television, the new iPhone app offers live video over the weekend, in addition to on-demand video highlights. The live video will be viewable over EDGE, 3G or WiFi, but for your own sanity, you’ll want to stick with 3G or WiFi -- streaming video over the EDGE network is usually pretty painful. The app won’t start streaming video until Thursday, June 17, so we’ll update this review once we can catch some of the coverage.
The U.S. Open iPhone app will also include live scoring, in addition to a constantly updated leaderboard and tee schedule. Player biographies and a course profile (with flyover videos) are also included. The app also integrates with Twitter so you can view tweets posted from the tournament.
Nice interface
In terms of usability, the U.S. Open app is pretty slick. The homepage includes tabs for videos, scores, news, a course profile, player biographies, and on-course tweets. The app is well designed and very responsive. The news section includes several articles, mainly press releases, for the upcoming tournament. The articles are illustrated with a thumbnail photo when available, and you can adjust the text to one of four sizes. The course profile is also very well done, and features illustrated photos and videos of each hole. Total yards and the par for each hole are included as well.
There are few ads in this free golf app, save for a small American Express logo in the bottom right-hand corner. Some free apps go crazy with the ads, but the USGA keeps it understated here. Overall, we can find few downsides for the U.S. Open app, although that might change once we check out the live video in a few days. The text on the scoring page is a little small, and it might be hard to read if you have poor eyesight or are reading outdoors, but that’s a minor quibble. The player profiles are also pretty brief, covering only the player’s country, birth date, and best U.S. Open finish.
The Bottom Line
Golf fans will be happy with the official U.S. Open app. It is not the most exciting app on the iPhone, but you can’t go wrong with live video and score updates -- plus it’s free! Unless there’s a major glitch in the live video (which we’ll check out in a few days), the U.S. Open app deserves a spot on your iPhone, at least for the next week. Overall rating: 4 stars out of 5.
What You’ll Need
The U.S Open app requires iPhone OS 3.0 or later, and it’s compatible with the iPad, iPod touch and iPhone.