The Oscars are about to kick off, and if you’re looking for a companion — for trivia, as a guide or because you’re bored — there are a bunch of iPhone and iPad apps out there. Some are great, and others pretty pathetic. Save yourself some time, and check out our Good and Bad rundown:
The Good
The Oscars
This iPhone app is built by the Academy itself and has a breadth of features. You can make predictions, with information on each nominee from movie trailer to biography, and compare as the awards are handed out. One of its main features is social — the ability to create groups with friends and compare predictions and see who gets the most right.
The Oscars app also includes tons of media to take in like news and exclusive photos and videos. On top of this, you can use the apps Academy Database of past Oscars (sorted by category and year) to play trivia or browse past winners.
E! Red Carpet
This app is filled with media and has a great interface and features, from horizontally scrolling headlines to live streaming video during the event from E!. Browse by media type and you’ll have plenty of photos to keep you entertained – and hand selected by the leaders in red carpet entertainment themselves. With Twitter and Facebook integration, you can share the content anywhere.
The app is complete with nominee listings, tweet stream and even lets you take a look at other features from other events like the 2011 Grammys, Sundance and more.
Vanity Fair Hollywood Oscars Edition
This app puts the fun of voting for winners with friends front and center, boasting easy Facebook integration. Vote for you who you think will win, and by quickly logging in with Facebook you can compare with friends who have done the same.
As far as content, the app puts trailers front and center, although the video quality could be higher. While only a handful in number, the apps featured content has some great high res photo collections featuring top stars at past Oscar parties.
The Bad
If you’re only looking for a quick gateway to both IMDB and YouTube content on each nominee, this app might be for you. It crashed a lot for me and isn’t a very smooth interface, so you might just want to download the IMDb app instead.
This app has a pretty awful interface, but the worst part about it is that’s the best part about it. It’s basically a skeleton of pages leading you to what you would think would be informative content, but – nope.
