For The Horde!  I mean, Appy Monday!  The MMO juggernaut World of Warcraft has spawned numerous addons and third-party applications, but Blizzard Entertainment as only released one official app for the iPhone/iPod Touch, the World of Warcraft Mobile Armory.  Based on the official WoW online Armory, the mobile app attempts to present the website’s functionality in an iPhone/iPod Touch format.

Premise

The WoW Armory is a searchable database of characters, guilds, arena teams and items in the World of Warcraft, with data taken from from the actual in-game servers.  Information is updated continually in the Armory, and you can also access your in-game calendar, view achievements, and check out talent builds with a talent calculator.

Presentation

The graphical interface is World of Warcraft themed, with clear icons and text.  Layouts of various things are similar to how you would see them in-game.  That seems like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised at how often developers get this wrong.  For instance, the Character Profile screen looks like your character window in the actual game.  Click on an item, and a box with the item stats comes up just like when you hover over it in-game.  The only aspect I found difficult to distinguish is the item lists.  Item names are displayed in the color that indicates their quality, and epic purple item names were difficult to read on the brown parchment background.  But that’s probably nitpicky.

Interface

There are little nuances that make this a polished app.  The Mobile Armory makes good use of icons and dropdowns.  Things look like they do in-game, making it very easy for a WoW player to pick up and use.  You can bookmark characters (your own and others) so you can easily pull up toons you frequently look up.  Items have more info than just their basic stats, like what they sell to NPC vendors for, disenchant info, and where they can be acquired.

I am a little worried about security with both the app and website.  As with the website, you log into the app using your World of Warcraft username and password.  However I also use the Blizzard Mobile Authenticator for extra security when logging into the game.   There’s also an iPhone/iPod Touch version called the Battle.net Mobile Authenticator.  (I strongly recommend either, but that’s a different article.)  It generates a unique code you enter just past the login screen, that’s a one time use and tied to your account.  Once the authenticator is tied to your account, you can’t even log into account management on their website without using it.  But you log into the Armory without it.  It would in some sense defeat the purpose of a mobile app to be tied to something else.  They could build the functionality into the Battle.net Mobile Authenticator, but non-users would be left out.  It seems like a possible security loophole, though I haven’t heard of any specific security issues with the app.

Freshness

The Armory website and this app came about because WoW players were making game addons to pull the same type of data, and like many other ideas, Blizzard took it and made it their own, and probably better. I like having the ability to browse my character stats and achievements on the go, or to pull up people I know and see what they’re currently wearing or what achievements they’ve gotten lately.  In a pinch it’s also nice to look something up while in game, without having to switch to a browser on your gaming machine.

There are several functions available through the website Armory that are not present in the app, such as character statistics, arena and pet calculators, and reputation information.  I tried to look up my rep with a faction with it and was surprised to see it wasn’t in there, since almost everything else I use in the Armory was.  Also, in future versions, it would also be nice to see a 3D representation of your character in the Armory.  In fairness, the website Armory doesn’t do that either, but there’s even an app in Facebook that’ll do that!

Value

The app is free, and I think it has value to World of Warcraft players.  While there are a few things I would tweak or add to it, it’s a very solid effort by Blizzard.  It’s not one of those apps I use every day, and you can do what it does (and more) via the website Armory.  But it’s convenient to use while playing, and fun to browse when you’re away from your computer, which overall makes it a worthwhile app.

Summary

Premise:  Excellent
Presentation:  Impressive
Interface:  Decent
Freshness:  Above Average
Value:  Good
Overall:  Above Average App