MLS Matchday 2012 – the Official Major League Soccer app
by Paul Wilks
Mar 22, 2012 10:35 AM –
Install
MLS Matchday 2012 is the official Major League Soccer app. If you’re a soccer fan and like to keep up to date with scores, fixtures, team news and more, this is the ideal app for your Android device.
Price: Free
Tested on: HTC Desire HD
Content Rating: Everyone
Pros & Cons:
Pros
- Great user interface!
- Lots of up-to-date information!
- News for your favourite team and general league bulletins!
- List of designated soccer pubs for your club!
Cons
- Could perhaps be a little more intuitive to navigate, but once you get the hang of it, it’s fine.
Features:
The Major League Soccer season has recently kicked off so if you want to keep up with the action on your Android device, where better to do so than the official MLS app? MLS Matchday 2012 is a superb little application that’s chock full of interesting and useful information. Being based in England, I’m massively jealous of this. Our own Premier League offers no such official app which, in 2012 and with Android being the most popular mobile platform, is just plain crazy.
First thing you need to do is pick your team. All the top squads are present, from Chicago Fire to the Vancouver Whitecaps. For the sake of testing, I went with the New York Red Bulls. You then get a kind of dashboard page which lists schedule, roster, chants, tweets and alerts. By touching the top of the screen, on the team name, you get more options including: scores, news, videos, standings and TV info. I actually thought the chants section was a great idea! It lists and plays the best known team chants. It made me think that this feature would never find it’s way to England, our chants are far more expletive-ridden!
The videos are also pretty cool. You can view highlights from previous games, previews of upcoming clashes and other promotional videos from your favourite team. In the video section, also in the news section, you can flick between dedicated team news and more general MLS headlines.
By pressing your devices menu button you can select between Alerts, Learn and Settings. Two items stand out here. Firstly the ‘Learn’ section is a trove of great info. You have access to the MLS competition rules and lists of local team pubs- for example, there are 10 different pubs for New York Red Bulls and their addresses are listed here. Additionally, there is basic information about each stadium.
Finally, and this is probably one of the simplest yet coolest things to include in ANY sports app, is the ability to hide scores. So, if you’ve missed the match- perhaps recorded it to watch later, opening the app up to check out match preview info isn’t going to ruin the game for you by telling you the score already!
Like I said, I’m insanely jealous. We need this kind of thing in England badly. If you’re into U.S. soccer or follow a particular team, definitely give this a look. It’s an essential download for anyone following the MLS season.
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MLS Matchday 2012 – News
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MLS Matchday 2012 – News view
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MLS Matchday 2012 – League table
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MLS Matchday 2012 – Scores
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MLS Matchday 2012 – Team profile
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MLS Matchday 2012 – Roster
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MLS Matchday 2012 – Schedule
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MLS Matchday 2012- Profile menu
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MLS Matchday 2012 – TV Info
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MLS Matchday 2012 – Tweets
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MLS Matchday 2012 – Select your team
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MLS Matchday 2012 – Upcoming fixture
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MLS Matchday 2012 – Chants
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MLS Matchday 2012 – Alerts
Usefulness:
If you’re a follower of a particular MLS team and like to keep a tab on team and league news, this is incredibly useful. There are a variety of other handy features such as hiding scores, team chants and league rules and information.
Ease of Use:
Usually with sports/news apps there are tabs aplenty and everything is intuitive. This isn’t quite the case with MLS Matchday 2012. You have three menus- one by pressing your team name, one of the team page and one by pressing menu. Once you’ve figured out which will present you the desired info, then it’s fine, until then it takes a little exploring to figure it out. It’s not bad, but I’ve seen navigation done better than here. To be fair, once you’ve sussed it then it’s fine… just requires some exploration to begin with.
Frequently Used:
Once or twice a week I reckon, obviously depended on your teams fixtures and your desire to keep right up to date with team and league news.
Interface:
The interface is highly polished and genuinely looks great. It’s very slick and smooth as you navigate around. The videos tended to be a little low on resolution (well, the ones I tried out) but the app has a very professional feel and works very well.
Tags:
Android App,
Android Apps,
AndroidTapp.com App Review,
Football,
Futbol,
League,
major League Soccer,
MLS,
News,
Roster,
Soccer,
Stadiums,
Team
Categorised in: Sports
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