Announcing the College Hockey News iPhone App!

[CowbellGuy]

After a very lengthy development process, we are proud to announce the release of the College Hockey News iPhone (and iPod Touch) App! We were hoping to get it into everyone's hands much earlier in the season, but we also wanted to get it right. Features include a full schedule for every D1 team, Pairwise rankings, conference standings, and of course all the latest CHN News. You can even pick your favorite team! The app is free and available immediately.

We'll have more features added before the next season gets under way, but we welcome any feedback before then. For more information and to download the app:

http://salsashark.com/chnapp

[Jim Hyla]

View the latest Pairwise Rankings and RPI updated daily.

So what's the deal? You can't have updates "on the fly"?:-}::bolt::

[CowbellGuy]

Well, I believe the data is updated after most games, or at least after the last game of the day. There's a script that then packages that info up for the app which runs automatically a couple times a day. "Daily" seemed like a more concise way to describe that.

[pfibiger]

Very cool. I had a bug where the tabs on the standings section didn't work. they'd highlight on press, but it always stayed w/ atlantic hockey. after a bit of flipping around, they worked fine. also, the order seems to have changed..i guess because i favorited cornell, it put the ecac first? if so, very nice touch. if not, i'll believe that was the reason

for the calendar view, it'd be nice to start on the next day with available games, the screen's a little confusing if you start up on a day that doesn't have any games and it's a blank view.

in general: bravo, very well done. it'll be my go-to place for scores (aside from the elynah twitter feed). speaking of twitter, it might be cool to bring in the data from CHN's live game twitter stuff, for people forced to leave their home when their favorite team is playing.

[nr53]

Any plans for an Android version?

[CowbellGuy]

Yes, it puts your favorite team's conference first in the standings view and at the top of the calendar view. I considered having it go to the first day with games, but that might also be confusing if you're not paying attention. Also, if you pick a date with no games, it should still go to that day even if there are none. Probably need to add a "no games scheduled for this day" or something. The data is coming from the same place as the Twitter feed, so the scoreboard should reflect whatever is on Twitter, unless I'm misunderstanding your point.

And at this point there's no Android version in development, but it's being considered.

[pfibiger]

What I meant about twitter was the bit where CHN did some sort of "live scoreboard" which was a collection of tweets from a group of people identified as tweeting a particular game. it'd be really nice not to have to follow 50 people across college hockey but know that if i wanted to check in on a game that was happening, i could click through to it on the app and see a timeline of action in the game and get updates.

[Josh '99]

Oh sure, just in time for Cornell's season to have recently ended.  THANKS.

No, I'm just kidding, it looks awesome.

[adamw]

What I meant about twitter was the bit where CHN did some sort of "live scoreboard" which was a collection of tweets from a group of people identified as tweeting a particular game. it'd be really nice not to have to follow 50 people across college hockey but know that if i wanted to check in on a game that was happening, i could click through to it on the app and see a timeline of action in the game and get updates.

You're referring to our "Tweetcast" (I can see the brand marketing is working) ... http://www.collegehockeynews.com/community/tweetcast/

Live streaming twitter feed of everyone tweeting about that game - all packaged nicely.  We didn't promote it much this year.  There may be technical hurdles getting that into the app - but it's something to think about.

[JasonN95]

I'll assume you're not working on the Android version because you're busily putting the final touches on the webOS version. On behalf of those of us who've been won over by webOS's elegance, thank you. :-D

[CowbellGuy]

web-O-what?

[JasonN95]

web-O-what?

I expected more from an Apple (i.e., critically claimed, relatively small following) supporter. ;-) Betamax was also good, dammit!

[CowbellGuy]

Version 1.0.1 is now available, which fixes a bunch of bugs. The app will now run on any iOS 4.x device. Bugs that caused the games to intermittently not appear on the schedule page, live scoreboard updates to stop updating, and intermittent instability fetching database information from the server have all been addressed. You will now also only see the "Updating" overlay when there are updates being fetched and not when it's simply checking if updates are available. Also, if there are no games scheduled for a day, the calendar will say so rather than just showing a blank page.

[billhoward]

Any plans for an Android version?

[CowbellGuy]

Not from me.