It has been creeping on us slowly but now it’s almost here, the 2010 FIFA World Cup! The whole planet is getting excited by the minute, counting the hours, showing off their favorite team’s flag, tweeting… In order to keep up with the excitement and the slew of information that will definitely drown you during the full month of the WorldCup, we’ve put together a full guide that will help you check the news, follow the scores live, keep the spirit going when there’s no match played, all from the comfort of your Nokia Symbian phone.
[Note: Sorry for the lack of screenshots in this post. My Nokia N97 Mini's screen got bricked by the ZAGG Invisible Shield and I can't use my phone anymore]
The Must-Haves
1. AP WorldCup 2010
If there is one application you should install on your Symbian device, AP WorldCup 2010 is it. Developed by Associated Press, with some overt advertisement from VISA, this is the ultimate check point for the full WorldCup happenings. Providing News, Score tables, Photos, Videos, Tournament schedules, Team information, Voting systems, there’s nothing missing here. It even lets you pick your own language, and tailor the experience to your favorite team. A definite winner. Get if for free from the Ovi Store.
2. Final Whistle World Cup
It’s not free but it is darn well worth it! Final Whistle is available for S60 3rd Edition as well as Symbian^1 and provides all the killer information you need, with live coverage, news, schedules, team and player information, as well as essential information from past World Cups. Get it for 1EUR from the Ovi Store.
3. Nokia Goal 2010
Available also for touch and non-touch Symbian devices, Nokia Goal 2010 was first a Latin-America football application but has now shifted a bit of focus to let you follow the WorldCup in all its happenings on your phone. As with Final Whistle and AP WorldCup 2010, you get everything here, although the auto-update feature for live scores isn’t free apparently. Get it for free from the Ovi Store.
Follow Match Scores LIVE
We’ve already mentioned them before, but there’s a lot of Football news and scores apps making their way onto the Ovi Store. For keeping up to date with the latest match scores live though, there are only two great solutions.
1. ESPNSoccernet
When it comes to following every match play by play without really watching the video live (are you at work? in an environment that requires silence and concentration? but your favorite team is playing?), there’s nothing better than ESPNSoccernet. Sure, it has News, Scores, Schedules and all of that, but the stellar feature is the live game visualization that lets you see a graphic of all the game plays with commentary and keep updated to the second on the score. I’ll be using that to follow match scores during my work hours ;) Get it for free from the Ovi Store.
2. LiveMobile Soccer
It lacks the UI beauty and touchscreen usability of ESPNSoccernet, but don’t let this fool you. LiveMobile Soccer is also a great tool to follow all the happenings in every match live as they go. Get it for free from the Ovi Store.
Just The News – Goal.com
If you only want to read the latest news, nothing more, Goal.com is your best bet. It has a dedicated pane for WorldCup news, and lets you share those via delicious or Twitter. Simple but efficient. Get it for free from the Ovi Store.
Heat Up The Competition!
Oh chucks! Your friend insists that Germany won the 1990 World Cup. Is he right or wrong? Only one way to find out. Fire Nokia Goal 2010 or Final Whistle on your phone and check all the previous World Cups statistics.
Oh double chuck! Your friend thinks he/she knows more about the WorldCup than you do, you, the almighty football fan! Challenge him to a game of Trivian World Cup, a series of trivia questions just about your favorite sport.
And finally there is only one way for you to challenge others in guessing the WorldCup match scores and bragging that you know what will happen before it happens. Heat up the competition with your friends with Foo-Cup, an app that lets you predict match scores and awards you points (with global rankings) depending on how much your prediction was accurate.
Quotes, History & Awesome Goals
1. The Special One
Oh words of wisdom! The Special One is basically a series of quotes from the famous, self proclaimed “Special One”, José Mourinho, one of football’s well known coaches. Get his wisdom for free from the Ovi Store.
2. Awesome goals in history
If you love Football and want to see the best of the best, you finally can. In 3 volumes, you get videos of the best goals in history. Here they are: Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3, free from the Ovi Store.
3. The Road to South Africa
Perform, a publisher on the Ovi Store, is offering a slew of content related to the WorldCup, the most interesting of which being their “Road to South Africa” apps. There’s one for each country in the competition, detailing how they got there through the qualifications.
Games, Games & more Games
There’s no match currently being played but you’re craving the WorldCup and Football fever? There are a lot of games in the Ovi Store that will help you pass those dreaded hours, but if you want us to name a few, here they are: Real Football 2010, EA Sports FIFA 10, EA Sports 2010 FIFA World Cup, Soccer Pinball.
Dress Your Phone For The Occasion
Ok now, there is a TON of themes and wallpapers on the Ovi Store for the WorldCup, but let’s just say that they lack the delicate touch of professional theme developers known in the Symbian community. I was able to track down 3 such high quality themes for your Symbian device:
- Zakumi by IND190 which is the WC2010 Mascott
- WorldCup 2010 by Larsson (featured in the image at the beginning of the post)
- World Cup 2010 by Blue Ray
- And a nice World Cup 2010 wallpaper by TehkSeven
If you want something more specific for a country or a player, Pepsi has a slew of free wallpapers and themes on the Ovi Store. Check them out!
Tweets, Twitter & Twitteratis
You don’t need us to remind you that every single event in the world now can be easily followed on Twitter, up to the second, do you?! In case you’re still not interested in joining Twitter, but would really love to follow the news from the players & teams, there’s TweetGoal WorldCup, an app just for that.
But if you’re an entrenched Twitter user, here’s what you need to know about following the WorldCup on your Symbian phone through Twitter:
- Applications: of course our highly recommended Twitter application is Gravity, but if you don’t want to shell the money, Nimbuzz offers a good free Twitter client in addition to its regular multiple-IM client support.
- Users: @WorldCupCNN, @intheworldcup, @toptweets_wc, @FIFAWorldCupTM, @WCup2010
- Lists: WorldCup by CNN, Footballers by CNN, Players by TopTweets, WorldCup by TopTweets
- Hashtags: English hashtags being used are #worldcup and #wc2010, Spanish is #copamundial, French is #coupedumonde, German is #WM2010, Portuguese is #copadomundo and I bet there’s more in other languages.
Want more? Seriously?
If all of the above isn’t enough, there’s more and more content popping up on the Ovi Store Football Channel and all over the Ovi Store. Just take a look there, search for the keywords Football, World Cup, Goal, Soccer, or your favorite team or player’s name, and you’re bound to stumble on at least dozens of content in terms of apps, games, or personalization items.
What about you? Have you found a killer way to follow the World Cup 2010 on your Symbian device that we didn’t mention here? Be sure to tell us about it!
