If you read Laura Marieee’s review of the new F1 timing app for mobile devices from Vodafone, you may be wondering how well it works or if you should download it. It’s a free app and that makes things very enticing but I hadn’t tried it until this weekend.
Laura found it to be a very nice app but I thought I would be the judge of that and so I downloaded it for the Australian GP. How did it go? Well I’m glad you asked:
The timing app was actually very nice. Instant updates that seemed on par with the official website and like Laura, I certainly found it to be quicker than my local TV coverage but that isn’t hard, Speed TV delay their broadcast by 10-15 minutes. This presents a real issue for Americans to be honest.
As Americans, we have an odd and somewhat frustrating situation in that Speed TV delays their broadcasts in order to offer pre-event commentary and specials. Instead of starting a half hour prior to the actual event, they start in time with the event but delay the actual live element in favor of talking heads and special interviews. Don’t get me wrong, those are great but it does render live timing useless in America for practice and qualifying.
F1B is a global community of F1 fans and as such, we have lots of fans worldwide who frequent the site for live race chat. This makes it very difficult for Americans to join because we know the results long before we see them as the British folks are chatting real time (as they should). This is really a buzz-kill as live timing is rendered ineffective with video due to delay etc.
I do not have the other F1 timing app from Soft Pauer for $39 but someone did tell me you can pause and play live timing so technically you could start it with your video feed via Speed TV. Not sure if that is true or how effective that is but it may be a neat feature that Americans could use to watch timing along w8ith their video. The two features are very nice to watch together. I’ll have to ask Laura and see if this feature is indeed available with that particular app.
The free F1 timing app was very nice, slick interface, informative and well thought out. I found the top speed features and track info very helpful as well. The only issue I had was the registration portion. It took several tries and after I did register, Is till couldn’t log in; even after receiving confirmation email and clicking the verification link. This meant I had to use the ‘one free weekend” feature. I hope the registration delay doesn’t thwart me next when as I have used my “free” weekend now.
I’ll keep you posted as to the app’s usability but so far, it seems to be very well done so a shout out to F1 and Vodafone. There is a third-party app out there that purports to do the same thing but I have not DL’d it yet so if anyone is using it, feel free to post your thoughts below.
