I got an iPad tonight from my mom as a Chanukah present. I'm pretty excited to see what kind of applications I could get horse racing wise from the iTunes store (I previously had bought iPod apps and those would work on an iPad, but it just wouldn't be as good). When I typed in horse racing into my iTunes I was suprised to find the following.
Trainer Magazine has put up apps for their European and North America editons of the magazine. This got my interest since as far as I know this is the first horse racing magazine to put an app up on iTunes. DRF, Thoroughbred Times and Bloodhorse do not have apps for race fans to view their articles (DRF does have an app, but it's wager caculator and not an app where people can read articles and such). With the publishing intrustry struggling more then ever (especially in horse racing), now might be a good time to put up an app for horse racing fans to download so that they can view an issue at their convience.
With a quick search I found the following main stream magazines/newspapers have iPad apps (focusing on iPad apps for now):
People
Time
Sports Illustrated
(all three magazines owned by Time-Warner)
Newsweek
US Weekly
New York Post
New York Times
USA Today
Wall Street Journal
and many more.
As for Horse Racing apps out there, as I said before DRF has a wagering calculator, the Breeders' Cup put together a wonderful app that I think everybody enjoyed using and there are several games out there. What is holding up DRF, TT and Bloodhorse from putting out their own? I'm not sure, however one thing it could be is money. Because the Apps can only be made in a certin code and only on a Mac, there are a limited amount of app creators out there. These creators have to get updates and fix bugs pretty quickly which takes time, thus costing more then people expect. Both of the Trainer apps do cost money, and you will have to pay per issue. However, from looking at the prices it's 50% less then you would be spending on a hard copy issue.
I'm not saying that you should stop buying hard copy magazines, but iPod/iPhone/iPad applications could help horse racing publications in the long run.
Amen!
ReplyDeleteAmerican Trainer Magazine, Racing US, Royal Ascot, Cheltenham, Racing Post, AUS Racing and GoRacing.ie all have app. The Equibase year book app is pretty good and like you said the Breeders Cup one is fantastic!
Hollywood Park has an app! And it might get knocked down in a year or two! Though DRF does have a 'ticket maker' app. Feels like a cop out cause it just sends you to the PC version of the site and of course the flash doesn't work!
You know I completely forgot about the Equibase one until after I was on my iPod last night! I haven't downloaded the iPad version of it yet, but will more then do that tonight.
ReplyDeleteI have and enjoy the Equibase and Breeders' Cup apps.
ReplyDeleteThe Daily Racing Form Ticketmaker app DOES provide access to content, but it essentially just links you to the full site so pretty worthless (middle, bottom button titled "Daily Racing Form"). The wagering calculator itself only computes multirace bets (pick 3-6s), so no help with your exatcas, tris, supers, keying, boxing, wheeling etc. The one thing they did figure out is the price (free).
I don't get many paod apps, but might've considered the Trainer mag app for $2.99, but not if I have to pay a per issue fee in addition @ $3.99 per issue - why the original $2.99 fee? Does that get you anything, or just the ability to buy issues?
Anyway, you are totally right that the big three (and others - Paulick Report? Equidaily? Even the Thoroughbred Bloggers' Alliance?) are missing the bus on the app thing. There's a reason there are over 300,000 apps in the app store!
And making an app might not be as difficult as you'd imagine - http://www.lockergnome.com/internetnut/2010/01/10/how-to-make-an-app-with-no-experience-and-get-paid/
ReplyDeleteErin somebody has to get paid for to create the app. Most of the app creators do this for a living. From what it looks like it only gives you the ability to buy and look at the issues. Which is fine as that's what it was created for. The company that Trainer hired did quite a few other apps for other British Magazines.
ReplyDeleteAs for DRF's Ticketmaster, they probley have someone on staff who can fix the bugs which is why it was free. If you look at some of the apps that are already on the App store, there are two verisions. One of them is free, but has ads in it and the other is paid, but without ads. The problem with TBA is that they have so many feeds they need to get, it may not be worth it to create an app. The Paulick Report would be better suited for an app, but in a way they also use a ton of feeds. It will be interesting what happens in the long run.
While there is a way to create an app on a PC, it's only using HTML and can not be approved by Apple I believe (although I could be wrong with that).
Of course someone has to get paid to make an app. But that doesn't mean charging for the app is the only way to recover that cost. If the app drives traffic to services or products (as in Trainer Magazine), or increases the value of ad space, then the cost of creation is an investment for building future revenue.
ReplyDeleteIt's untrue that free versions of apps all contain ads. More often, the free version is limited, so that the user can try out the app and if it's good, they'll be enticed to go for the paid version.
The TBA site is essentially a topic-specific reader/aggregator with revenue generated by ad sales. There's no reason this format couldn't be transferred to an app, there are plenty of reader apps that do this. There are also plenty of news apps that are essentially aggregators (News 360, Fluent News, Skygrid), like the PR, and they are popular (as in, drive traffic so as to increase the value of ad space - there's ads on the site, why not on an app?) and work swimmingly.
First off I did not say that all free verisons of paid apps have ads, however most of the ones that I've downloaded do.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, it takes time for those apps to get built (while most are built on simlar code, I would not be suprised if the more complex ones are built from code that is created from the ground up), which you have to factor in the labor costs and how much time the coder really wants to spend in front of their computer.
The app then has to be tested to make sure there are no bugs that will effect a persons iPod/iPad (which ever they use). Even after that there is no guarentee that it would work (read the reviews on some of the apps people have downloaded, not all of them are postive).
I'm not sure how long the Trainer apps where in devolopment, but I'm sure that they worked with them to make sure that they had everything they needed to get each issue into the code for people to buy the issue. Hopefully Blood Horse and TT catch on to what Trainer has done with their magazine and create apps of their own.
If they do create an app, it more then likely won't be for free.
"If you look at some of the apps that are already on the App store, there are two verisions. One of them is free, but has ads in it and the other is paid, but without ads."
ReplyDeleteI'm not trying to be snarky, but I genuinely must be missing the point you are trying to make in your two comment replies to me. What does the time/difficulty in building apps, or that they won't be free, or that one has to have a Mac to create apps have to do with anything you or I have said?
We both want the same thing, more quality racing apps! My point is, it's not that hard to do, as shown by the 300k apps in the app store, many not created by large companies with big budgets.
"My point is, it's not that hard to do, as shown by the 300k apps in the app store, many not created by large companies with big budgets."
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't matter if they have big budgets or not. It actually is a hard thing to do as look at all of the poor apps that are out there with bugs and stuff. Poor coding= poor application it's as simple as that. Even the paid apps have bugs and stuff. There is never going to be a perfect app for anything no matter how you slice it or dice it.