For the longest time, I used SportsTap to get scoring updates on Bills and Sabres games on my Android phone. At some point, though, the Sabres games stopped working completely. I could still view the score, but it wouldn’t alert. Removed completely, reinstalled, no change. I switched to Yahoo’s Sportacular, an oddly named and somewhat ugly app that nevertheless worked quite well for updates. However, the Sabres released their own official app yesterday, so I gave it a whirl with the Yahoo app still installed to easily compare and contrast.
Pros for the Sabres Official App:
- Integrates video, media and news from Sabres.com
- Scoring alerts include details like who got the goal/assists
- Alerts came just before or simultaneously with the Yahoo! app
- Many helpful extras, such as a map of FNC, a map of parking options around FNC, and special promotions for tickets or at the Sabres store
Pros for Yahoo! Sportacular:
- Yahoo! blog integration (Puck Daddy)
- Other sports available
I found myself uninstalling Sportacular in pretty short order. If I was a big fan of another sp0rt, I might want to stick with the Yahoo! app, but I don’t need the Bills score that badly, and they only overlap part of the Sabres season anyway. I hope future releases can pretty up the Sabres app a bit, and possibly make some of the menu choices bigger or easier to click on for those of us on phones with a smaller screen, but I was very happy with the experience using it last night.