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ZDNet App Wrap: March 11, 2013

Apps stopping by this week include NRL Live, Posse, Opera, ABC Vegie Guide, ALDImobile, metroNotify, Monash University, and FarmrsMarkts.
By Chris Duckett, Contributor
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1 of 8 Telstra

NRL Live

Platform: iOS, Android

Price: Free

In the wash-up of the TV Now legal saga, we can finally see what all the fuss was about.

Developed by Telstra, who handed over a cool $100 million for the digital rights in December last year, this app provides streaming of up to six live games a week for premium subscribers.

Subscription levels come in at $5.49 per week, $14.99 per month, or $89.99 per year, and the billing automatically renews for extra annoyance.

Beyond the live streaming, the app is similar to many sport apps and provides live scores, stats, ladders, news, and reminders.

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2 of 8 Posse

Posse

Platform: iOS

Price: Free

The Australian contextual search/recommendation startup has released an iPhone app.

We covered Posse last year, and its biggest problem still remains. To hit critical mass within social circles to make its recommendations authoritative.

Just yourself and two mates recommending pubs is not likely to stack up against Yelp or Google ratings.

03opera.jpg
3 of 8 Opera

Opera

Platform: Android

Price: Free

Here is the first WebKit based release of Opera. And despite my misgivings over a WebKit monoculture, this app impresses.

As usual for Opera, it seems as though the little touches and polish is what makes it special. The glee when I discovered the patent-sidestepping arrow that appears on the right hand side when you throw a page up and down is one such example.

I haven't used this app long or hard enough to see if it suffers from Chrome's crash-tastic nature, or Firefox's crippling CPU chewing, but it is the new leader in the race to replace Chrome as my default Android browser.

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4 of 8 ABC

ABC Vegie Guide

Platform: iOS

Price: Free

Over at App Wrap central, which lies in inner Sydney, the person responsible for tending to the food-bearing plants has a roughly 1:5 win-loss ratio when it comes to being able to harvest food and herbs from the garden.

There's no doubt that this app from Gardening Australia will be finding its way into weekend gardening activities.

05aldimobile.jpg
5 of 8 Medion Australia

ALDImobile

Platform: Android

Price: Free

This is yet another carrier app that allows balance checking and recharging of Aldi's prepaid mobile offering. Aldi offers 2GB of data for $15 or 5GB for $35 on top of its standard $15 and $30 plans, using Telstra's 3G network. (But what exactly are those two people doing on the side of the ALDImobile site?)

Interestingly, this app currently crashes when trying to bring up a map of Aldi stores.

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6 of 8 Metro Trains Melbourne

metroNotify

Platform: Android

Price: Free

MetroNotify provides push notifications on service levels of Melbourne's Metro train system.

The service levels are broken down into: "good service", up to 5 minutes late; "minor delays" between 5 and 15 minutes late; over 15 minutes late is a "major delay"; as well as "suspended", "works alert", and "travel alert".

The operator says that each category "will be accompanied by information explaining why there is a delay or a change to your service". Presumably, good service is impossible to explain on Australian public transport netwoks.

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7 of 8 Monash University

Monash Univeristy

Platform: iOS, Android

Price: Free

Often in the App Wrap, we cover the various university based apps with a thin veil that has "get off my lawn" written on it, but this is an app that looks good, seems to be useful, and as such, is a cut above the rest.

The app offers students a timetable feature, unit entries for each subject, staff directory, and goes beyond the regular campus map to offer internal maps of buildings.

The library includes a loans listing and PC finder.

Nice work, Monash!

08farmrsmarkts.jpg
8 of 8 Lambda Software

FarmrsMarkts

Platform: iOS

Price: Free

Here's an app with a good idea and a ridiculous name.

The Victorian Farmers' Market association has backed this app to show accredited farmers' markets, producers that attend, and what is in season.

This is all fine and dandy, but I've had to write this name a few times already today, and I have no idea how it is correctly misspelt. A couple of more vowels would help the discoverability of this app.

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