6 Android Apps to Manage Fantasy Football

Use Your League Site’s App

If you use NFL.com or Yahoo’s Fantasy Football site to manage your league, then you should definitely get that site’s app.

NFL.com produced an Android app that you can use to join a league already set up or start your own. Once you set up or join the league use it to rank your players for the draft and then change your lineup each week. As the teams play Sunday, keep track of your player stats in real-time.

If you use Yahoo Fantasy Football, then get their app. It handles all that the NFL.com app does. ESPN has a league as well. All three of them are free to download from the Android Market. Lesser known online leagues might also have an app so search for your site’s name in the Android Market.

Apps for Finding Great Players

Once you snag your site’s app, then get one of these apps or all of them for keeping track of which players to play, who to pick up as a free agent or who to drop from your team.

Aside from having a terrible app icon (see right) My Fantasy Football Guru helps you learn about player news as it happens with live, in-game alerts sent to your Android phone. If you play in a league that allows in-game player changes, this can really help.

Aside from that, it alerts you to injury news and gives general advice for putting the best team together to play so well in your league that you will start “Battles between friends, in-laws, roommates, co-workers, co-coaches, and strangers” (taken from their app description).

NFL Fantasy Cheat Sheet gives you information about various players and recommends the best picks for your fantasy league. Some leagues ask you to pick an individual defensive player and this app provides info on defensive players, something not all apps do.

The app projects which players will be the best at the end of the year, which helps you decide between players to possibly pick up in your draft or free agency during the season. The app will cost you $2.99, but it is highly rated on the Android Market and on the iOS App Store.

Watching Games on the Go Via NFL Sunday Ticket To Go

Of course you will be watching your players and the best way to watch a lot of NFL games on Sunday comes from DirecTV. You will have to pay through the nose for the privilege since it costs nearly $400, but having all those games available makes Sunday awesome for the hard-core football fan. The Red Zone channel shows no commercials and cuts live to games when one team is in scoring position or shows highlights of turnovers right after they happen.

Too bad you find yourself away from the TV on some Sundays. NFL Sunday Ticket To Go takes care of this problem by providing mobile apps that stream the games. You used to need an iOS device to enjoy it, but this year DirecTV added Android support. The app gives live game scoring and streams the games to your Android phone or tablet so long as you are not also watching a game at home.

FIFA 12 releases exclusively for Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY

It seems that Sony Ericsson has finally done what everybody was waiting for - getting exclusive rights to a popular game title for its new Xperia PLAY . And if that game title is the upcoming FIFA 12 , surely most sport gamers wouldn’t be complaining. 

Football this weekend? Anyone?

EA Mobile and Sony Ericsson have reached an exclusive agreement that will give Xperia PLAY owners a chance to be the first ones to play FIFA 12 on their Android handset. Football enthusiasts who own an Xperia PLAY can now get the game before it hits the Android market later this year. Complete details are a bit sketchy; however, it’s certain that Sony Ericsson will have exclusive rights to the game for the time being. EA Sports' new FIFA 12 will incorporate an all new gameplay engine with authenticated teams and the Xperia PLAY’s dedicated GPU might just offer an enhanced gaming experience that previous Android games haven’t exactly provided.

The agreement between Sony and EA mobile will exist for an undisclosed limited time. So, if you’re one of those FIFA fans owning an Xperia PLAY, you might just have to rush to grab a copy of FIFA 12.

Sony Ericsson Xperia phones will get an Android upgrade

Sony Ericsson has announced that it will upgrade its Xperia line of smartphones to Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread in October.

The upgrade will be limited to 2011 Xperia handsets such as the Play, Arc and Neo, and will bring various new features. The update arrival timing will differ between mobile operators.

Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread will enable a 3D sweep panorama camera mode on Xperia handsets. This means you can view 3D images taken with the phone on a 3D capable TV or monitor. Sony Ericsson's phones don't have dual cameras so we assume that this process is a conversion from 2D to 3D.

Other features include the second version of the firm's Facebook Inside software, Google Talk with video chat, screenshot capture, Swype text input and the ability to use USB peripherals via the Sony Ericsson Live Dock.

Sony Ericsson has also announced another handset called the Xperia Neo V, a sort of combined upgrade and downgrade from the Xperia Neo.

When it's launched in the fourth quarter, the Neo V smartphone will come with Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread and will have all these new features, but the old Neo will gain these when it gets the update.

What's strange is that the Neo V has the same 3.7in TFT touchscreen, Qualcomm 1GHz processor and casing as the Neo. The downgrade is the camera, which on the Neo is one of its main features, an 8.1MP with Sony's Exmor R sensor. The Neo V will have only a 5MP camera.

The Neo V will have an HDMI port but the Neo has that too. Oh, but we almost forgot to mention that the Neo V handset will come in white instead of red along with blue and silver.

We haven't had a price quoted by Sony Ericsson for the Neo V but unless it is dramatically cheaper than the Neo we recommend opting for the latter and waiting for the Android 2.3.4 upgrade. µ