Formula 1 fever is on again and today saw the first of 19 races for this year’s season, which was held in Melbourne – Australia. I have been a great fan of the championship for many years and will be for many more to come. Last year I was fortunate to be able to attend the Barcelona race and hopefully will be attending it this year again in May.
The races have always been transmitted on local and international television services, radio and the Internet and this year is no exception. What I was grateful though in seeing is a number of mobile apps that have popped up for mobile users, this year – so being a staunch Nokia user, I took a browse through my Ovi Store account on line and came across a number of apps available for Symbian touch screen devices. There are two in particular that stood out for me the most. One was the official Formula1.com app and the other – the ESPN Formula1 app, both of them free to download and install. Each with their individual characteristics and I will be sharing both with you over the next few days – I landed up installing both on my Nokia N8 device earlier on today 😎
The first one I would like to talk about today, is the Official Formula1.com app which streams real-time data directly to your Symbian device from the Formula One Management’s Technical Center at each race track which is also the same information that is supplied to the teams from every session of the weekend.
When starting up the app for the first time you will have to register online to use the services – registration is free and even provides a virtual portrait and landscape keyboard within the app to use. After confirming your registration via email, you will be able to login and access the various services available, like the main timing screen which lets you track the progress of every driver, from their position and best lap time to their latest sector times and lap count. Other features include a track status indicator, informing you of yellow/red flags and safety car phases, plus straight-line speeds and text commentary.
Then there is the circuit data screen which lets you know what conditions the drivers are facing out on the circuit, with the current air and track temperatures, rainfall, air pressure and humidity levels, plus wind speed and direction. Graphs also allows you to see how conditions have changed throughout the session.
Other features include results for every session of the current season, the season calendar, timetables for every Grand Prix, current championship standings as well as live commentary during each race.
In a couple of days, I will be sharing with you the ESPN Formula1 app, which is also my favourite of the two apps available on Nokia Ovi Store.
To download and install today’s app, just follow the following link: http://store.ovi.com/content/44744