Nokia has set up a competion where one could win a Lumia 800 by reviewing WRC Live app. I’m all in if I can get some cool stuff for free, so here’s my review with an extra focus on usability.
Before we begin, I should make one point clear: I’m trying the app out with my E6, which hasn’t been playing so nicely with some Symbian^3 apps because of its resolution (Spotify, for example, has big problems). For this reason, my review might not give full picture of the app if you are trying it out for example with E7. I’m also not so big fan of this rally thing, but hopefully that doesn’t matter 
.
Performance & interface
Starting up the app takes a while, but once it’s running, it works quite smoothly. Only actual loading takes place when app is getting new data from servers. This could use some kind of “loading” notification on the screen (there actually is a small icon on the top-right, but not very clear), since now user only looks at half-empty screen until all data has been loaded in the background.
Navigation is simple and even with E6 you can hit the buttons quite well. There is a lot of rally related content which most likely will be very facinating for a fan, but for me it’s just easy to read.
Media playback
Trying to load a video using 3G didn’t work during my test. I got server timeout no matter what video I tried to load. So for this, I can’t give any kind of opinion other than Nokia should probably invest some more into server capacity .
Loading photos does work quite well. I would have liked to have a map pointing to exact locations where the pics have been taken. Maybe in the next version?
“Easter eggs”
While loading the special stages map for the first time, map is focused to Vattuniemenranta (Helsinki), where app developer Futirce has its head office.
Conclusion
Overall, the app is quite well made. It’s very good looking and works fast. If only the video content would work, this would be an excellent piece of software for the rally fans out there. It runs very well even on E6!
I’ve noticed that a good way to get (almost) all requirements for a software in one place is to create a mind map about every possible thing what the system needs to do or with what it has to function with. Throwing up all user groups, special cases, integrations and workflows without any pre-determined structure often end up to hold the necessary information required to start working with the actual technical requirements.
