Fantasy Apps Review: Introduction

Back in days of fantasy football yore, when league business was conducted in the basement and living room, the only tools an owner had at their disposal was a pen and paper, a fantasy football magazine or two, and perhaps a big board to track draft picks. Lineups were literally submitted to the commissioner on a piece of paper or over the phone. A simpler era for sure, but everything was also extraordinarily time-consuming.

Thanks to the wonders that are technology, leagues are mostly run and managed entirely online. Owners simply need to click a button and can get information instantly thanks to the web. Another click, and you’ve submitted your weekly lineup or agreed to a trade proposal. It’s truly a marvel how easy it is to set-up, run, and participate in fantasy football leagues thanks to computers. It truly is magical.1

Even more amazing now is that many of us carry what amount to miniature computers called “smartphones” in our pockets. iPhones, Droids, Windows Phones, Blackberries: whatever you have, you can now access your league any time and any where thanks to a mobile web browser and apps. There are literally dozens of fantasy football applications available, and as with any app genre, users are left wondering which is right for them. While freebies are easy enough to test drive, many require some financial investment. Given today’s economy, most of us can’t afford to gamble $5 on an app. We need solid intel.

As an iPhone user, I did some digging, and except for a handful of old reviews (and most of them very cursory), there really isn’t a whole lot to go on except a handful of one-line user reviews on the App Store.2 So I decided it was time a seasoned fantasy football veteran and Apple techie explored the genre to determine which apps are worthy of a download let alone hard earned currency.

I have decided that I will write both individual app reviews and a three-part series grouping all the apps by category for comparison. These groups I have found are as follows:

  1. Draft Applications
  2. Team Management Applications
  3. Fantasy News Applications

Ground Rules

To help avoid any questions and to be as transparent as possible, I am laying down the following criteria for which apps I will review and under what conditions:

  1. These reviews will be for the iPhone only.3
  2. Apps must be ready to go for the 2011 season.4
  3. Apps must have been updated since January 1, 2011.5
  4. Apps are being tested on the latest hardware and software: my iPhone 4 (GSM) running iOS 4.3.5.6
  5. If bugs are fixed or new features are added, I will endeavor to update the review accordingly. Keep an eye out for tweets to that effect.
  6. While a number of apps are freely available, I am sending requests to developers for free copies. Such generosity will not influence my review in any way.

These will apply to all reviews and comparative articles. I will make sure to reference this post though for easy reference.

I hope you enjoy this series. If you have any requests or if you have an app you’d like me to review, feel free to follow and contact me on Twitter.

Update: I am now testing apps on the latest iPhone OS, 4.3.5.

  1. Sorry, but I couldn’t resist a Steve Jobs reference. ↩

  2. And honestly, “This app sucks!” or “This app is the best!” doesn’t provide a whole lot of insight, especially when that one review might be from a competitor or the app’s developer. ↩

  3. I don’t own Android, Blackberry, and Windows Phone hardware, so I will not be covering apps for those devices. Perhaps others will be inspired by this series to do the same for those apps. ↩

  4. An unfortunate theme of the fantasy football app genre, for better or worse, is to release a new version for every season that requires a new purchase. Worse, the old app becomes obsolete and essentially unusable. Personally, I would prefer it if developers would simply offer in-app purchase updates for each season at perhaps half the cost of the original app. Draft app purchases would grant user access to the new player rankings. League management apps would grant access to the new leagues (often using a new url structure). Fantasy news and articles apps would require a subscription. Perhaps I will expound on this issue at a later date, but sufficed to say, this is something that annoys me to no end. ↩

  5. If an app hasn’t been updated this calendar year, I am making the assumption that a new version is either still in the works (e.g., ESPN) or that the app has been abandoned. Either way, not worth the time and effort until there’s something new to review. ↩

  6. I sadly do not have an iPad, so I cannot comment on compatibility or on iPad-only apps. I will, however, note when an app is universal, which is always a good thing. ↩

Notes

  1. gridironmeanderings posted this