Just over a week ago, WST launched a mobile app which will very well be widely recognised as the official snooker application. For a newly launched application which heavily relies on up-to-date information, news articles and scoring, the WST app is actually something worth installing and even hanging onto. Allow me to share my experience so far.

For those unfamiliar, or even those who are but just haven’t installed yet; the purpose of the WST app is to provide instant information relating to all things snooker. As opposed to specialising in a particular segment of snooker i.e. scoring, news, rankings etc. WST provides information relating to near enough everything you could require as a fan, all in a very functional application.

The chief aspect of the app that I commend is that it wasn’t a half-baked attempt at getting an ‘official’ snooker application on the store. A lot of thought has gone into each of the clickable elements, where everything effectively has more information/content behind it. Say you’re looking through the ‘Rankings’ tab and come across some players that you’d like to know more about – click on their name for relatively detailed bios. Looking at a specific tournament? Click around to look at tournament brackets, scores, as well as the ‘Roll of Honour’ which displays all the previous winners of said event. That’s a nice touch.

Further elements that are welcome additions when looking through various tournaments in the app are the ability to look at the scores for all matches that occurred in the tournament. You can view the scores of all Round 1 matches in an event if you’d like and can click further into the match to look at the points breakdown. It’s even categorised into sessions as well, so you could even look at which matches were morning or evening games and what dates they were played.

The ‘Tour’ tab makes it easy to see all the events in the season – which you can then look at the tournaments you want and the further information mentioned before (as well as purchase tickets). If you go to the ‘More’ tab, the calendar is a pleasant feature which simply highlights which weeks/months have events scheduled. And if that’s not enough, the home screen has a clear countdown to the next tournament.

There are also a few other features to the app. Live scoring seemed to work quite well when I was using it. The app was able to update the points and scores in quite a close parallel to the live action. News articles are clear and easy to access from the homepage. The voting polls probably won’t be most people’s favourite aspect however, it is a welcomed use of space in an all-in-one app, provided that it is updated frequently – which so far, it has been.

Lastly, it’s worth mentioning overall usability and experience. Considering how new the WST app is, every credit to the team behind what is so far a seamless and smooth navigating environment. I haven’t had any crashes yet but this will vary across devices. However, upon testing with my Android phone, things have been going extremely well.

A particular aspect of the app that I am extremely fond of is that everything is internal. What I mean is that whenever you click on a news article, a video, or any link, it doesn’t just take you to an external website where you wait for information to load. Everything is quick and remains in the app, which is closer to my personal preferences; without any clutter of ads.

Obviously, nothing is perfect. Whilst technically I haven’t had any issues yet, there are those who have; mainly when it comes to favourite player selection or sign-in issues. My suggestions relate more to potential future additions:

• I would certainly like to see some inclusion of WWS into the app at some point, with similar features like rankings and tournaments in the women’s scene

• While I do appreciate the world rankings and one-year list, I know it would be useful to see a provisional list as well which specifically shows the monetary additions/subtractions a player suffers depending on how they perform

• Similar to favourite players, I’d hope there was a favourite tournament(s) that could be selected so you may perhaps get more relevant notifications geared towards these events i.e. when it would be available to purchase tickets

• Notifications for when your favourite players are about to start their match

• The ability to select two players and view their head-to-head stats

• The creation of some kind of archival tab where you could look at previous seasons. For example, when the 2019/20 season closes and we are in the middle of 2020/21, it would be useful to be able to view the 2019/20 info for reference

Overall, WST were able to create a smooth, functional application which exceeded expectation and has a lot of content behind it. The main challenge is keeping the app running and updated, particularly during the off-season when things are quieter. As long as the app receives continued support from WST, I see no reason for this to be an obstacle. Good job WST for creating an app useful for all snooker fans. If you haven’t already, give it an install. And if you’ve come across any bugs or have any feedback, now’s the time to let them know!