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• Red Bull's iPhone App

  Red Bull Racing seem to be having a bit of an online/interweb/computer makeover, a couple of weeks back they quietly launched their iPhone/iPod Touch app, it's pretty good, so I thought I'd share.

  

  It's a big download (I'd do it when you're on a wifi connection) at just over 48 megabytes, but thats due to the video and high resolution photos.

  

  Once downloaded, installed and all that malarkey, fire-up the app. It takes a couple of seconds to load then you are confronted with a big red start button - why, I'm not quite sure but it looks good and shoots off a sound effect when pressed.

  Next you're presented with the menu. The app is split into 4 sections, Garage, Pitter, Tracks, and Team.

  

  Garage

  In the garage are specs of all the cars (RB1-5), with photos and videos of the newer models. The videos are nothing new if you've pillaged every nook and cranny of the Red Bull F1 website, but even if you have its cool to have a copy on your phone.

  

  Pitter

  Pitter... Twitter, you see what they did there? If you know what Twitter is and are signed up I'd suggest you follow @redbullf1spy (the account used in the app), if you don't it's a great way to keep uptodate with the team in a quirky Red Bull kinda way. You can (if you're signed up to Twitter) even reply to the RedBullF1Spy chap from within the app.

  

  Tracks

  Just like you'd expect with a name like that, there's a map with all the races. Tapping a flag opens up a plan of the circuit, and depending if the race is in the future or the past you get a countdown, or the result. In addition to that - for a reason thats lost to me - on certain tracks there is also a list of bars and clubs for some "night life". Mind for Silverstone several listed are in London, again which makes me scratch my head.

  

  Team

  Short bios and some pretty cool snaps of Mark Webber, Sebastian Vettel, Christian Horner and Adrian Newey finish off the app nicely, although I'm not sure if the photos are updated or static - seem to be the same photos from Malaysia all the time I've been using the application (2 weeks or so).

  

  That rounds off the offering from Red Bull. While a lot of it is pretty static, I've been wracking my brains and I can't think of too much more that they could have included. I encountered a couple of little bugs while playing with it - mostly navigating the Tracks section - but nothing a press of the home button and relaunch didn't solve. Oh and for some reason you might get "Memory Low" warnings, whatever they might be, but they never amounted to anything.

  All in all a good little app, and at a good price too ;) Hunting around the Red Bull site, it looks like they're making some changes, embracing the Apple App Store, Twitter, new Blog and Forum, fantastic recent videos and just the other day a dabble with YouTube (video embedded below). It'll be interesting as a fan to see how this pans out and how they bring all these elements together, but for sure it has never been so easy to keep uptodate and interact with the team, and hopefully this is just the start.

  Nearly forgot, here's the link to download it [opens iTunes].

  • Date: 6:40pm Wed, 1^st July 2009
  • By: Richard
  • Section: Lighter Side