NBC Olympics iPhone App Review

With the 2010 Olympics underway it’s time to review the NBC Olympics app, appropriately called NBC Olympics.  Powered by AT&T and MobiTV, the Vancouver 2010 Olympic games are right at your fingertips.  First off, the Olympics app is divided into 5 main sections: Now, Sports, Favorites, Social and Schedules.  When you first download the app to your iphone or itouch you are reminded that it’s build for use in the USA and the video, updates and pushes aren’t going to work anywhere else (at least not as well as they are supposed to).

Now: Includes current Top Stories, slideable topics and highlights from the current day, some featured stories on Olympians or event highlights, a current medal count, videos and photos from the most recent events (or analysis) and officially the coolest part of the Now section – Team USA SocialStream which has a Twitter feed from any and all American Olympians tweeting (ApoloOhno is a crazy twitterer).

Sports: From Alpine Skiing to Curling to Luge to Speed Skating, this section of the Olympics app let’s you look at the Olympics by sport with sport specific updates, stories, highlights and more.  It’s really handy if you are most interested in a typically less media friendly Olympic sport like Nordic Combined or Biathlon.  The insights are great and there’s even some educational elements to the app with information about each sport at the bottom of the highlights, medal counts etc.

Favorites: You can star your favorite sports, athletes and nations in this part of the app and get quick access to the things you care most about.  Popular suggestions of what is being added to favorites include Shaun White (snowboard/skateboard mogul), Ice Hockey (go Canada!), Lindsey Vonn (US skier and medal favorite) and Team USA.  Get news highlights, social updates and anything else specific to your chosen sport or athlete.  It’s a nice touch and easy way to get to know athletes, teams and events.

Social: You have to love social networks to want to use this part of the app.  You can easily create facebook groups, join facebook fan pages, tweet and follow twitter groups as they talk about the Olympics and a whole lot more.  Social everything is a good way to describe it.

Schedules: A day-by-day event schedule for the entire Olympics.  It even includes delays, in progress notes, postponed events and you can tap into any event to see placements, official standings or starting orders etc.  It’s a great schedule overview of the entire Olympics and one of the primary reasons this app is awesome.

The NBC Olympics app is worth having for the next 2 weeks as Vancouver hosts the 2010 Olympics and credit is due to NBC for making one, caring about the content and allowing us to have access to the Olympics and Olympians like never before.