Monday, November 02, 2009

You'll Never Win a Rules Argument with Matt Eastburn Again*

Good news everybody!

You'll** never need to have an argument over the rules of Ultimate with Matt Eastburn ever again.

Many folks will know that Matt was the first member of the Brisbane Ultimate community to get himself an iPhone.

Well, thanks to the outstanding effort of a Mr Claudius Kirsch from Germany*** , WFDF were recently excited to announce that there's now a free iPhone application that puts the official WFDF Rules of Ultimate into your electronic pocket (in both English and German).

Leaving aside the silliness of giving Matt a bag, this is very useful. Something to consult when you need to know the rules or at least correct someone else. Something to read when you're bored on the train or waiting for your gal to give birth.

Perhaps a future iteraction could have a search capacity? Sometimes the table of contents doesn't tell you everything. And why not take full advantage of having an electronic rather than paper copy?

*Not that you ever did. **maybe ***just another reason for the Dojo to be relying on such technology. Germany is an awesome country.

4 comments:

Rog said...

It strikes me as rather bizarre that wfdf would go to the effort of producing an iPhone app, when they could simply have produced an HTML version of their rules so that any web browser (including smart phones) could search and view the information.

I don't iPhone, but I imagine there's a PDF reader with search functionality built-in also.

wetnose said...

I have had this iPhone app for a few weeks now and it actually helped us settle a dispute following the Cobras-Dojo game. Was very helpful.

Not so useful for in game situations, but was good for after game discussion.

JdR said...

Rog - I am guessing the guy did it as a volunteer of his own back rather than "wfdf going to an effort".

Having a single button on one's iPhone to bring up the rules is a lot smoother/quicker than using a web browser or other pdf reader.

JdR said...

Wet - people often question the value of having the rules on the sideline to adjudicate during the game (pointing out that they're only really useful after the game to sort out something for future reference).

But I have been at games where, as a sub or spectator, I could find and check a rule in the period that some people have spent arguing over it (just because some folks like to argue for a while).

So, imho, it is sometimes useful in game situations, as well as after game discussion.