When we look for the app of the week, a lot of things come into consideration. We always like to see if there’s anything happening during the week that would make the app particularly relevant (Just see our review for the FIFA and Wimbledon apps). This week is, of course, the start of the 2014 Winter Sochi Olympics so when we found out there was an official companion app launched for it – we had to take a look.
When you first open the app there’s a nine stage setup process (not overly complicated, it just wants to know you’re favourite country, five sports, language choice and when you’d like to receive a notification etc.). Once you’re in, you can look at the calendar to see the schedule of events and (once the games have started) follow each of the countries and sports medal achievements.
A slick pull out sidebar lets you navigate through the app, aside from the schedule and results section, there’s a sports tab for more information on any of the sports happening during the Olympics, my personal favourite being the biathlon. Information about the Athletes competing is available, including which sport they are competing in and some other personal stats; if you wanted to, you can mark them as favourites to see how well they are doing over the competition.
Tickets can be bought through the app, using quite a well thought out calendar & time of day interface, my only complaint about would be that you can’t search for individual events and buy tickets that way. Merchandise fans won’t be disappointed either, a shop lets you order as many keyrings, hats, gloves and almost any other conceivable item with the 2014 Olympics logo on it, delivery is available internationally unless you live in Brazil, for no apparent reason.
All together then, the Sochi 2014 app is really the complete companion app for the games. It’ll be interesting to see how well it performs and how quickly it updates once the games have started. In the run up to them however, it’s a great tool for getting as much information as you could possibly want.