iPhone App: Realm Status

It's been a pretty active week for native iPhone/Touch applications, an unprecedented three releases. Now there's actually five World of Warcraft related or themed applications available. The latest application to be release on the App Store is called Realm Status [iTunes link], and it's available for free!

Realm Status is written by John Baker at WOOT! Systems and it's title pretty much explains what the program does, but here's the application's description:

"Patch Tuesday got you down? Not any more! Now you can know the status of your favorite World of Warcraft realm no matter where you are. Supports US and EU realms."

The first time it's started up, you are greeted by a blank page as it connects to the internet and does a realm status check. The blank page persists and you should know that you need to add realms you'd like to track. Adding a realm is simple and you are greeted by an alphabetical list of all the US and EU realms. Once you add one it will either show up in the "All" tab if it's up, or the "Down" tab if it's down. Most likely it'll be in the All tab unless you're trying this during the weekly maintenance downtime. Since you can select and save which realms to monitor it should have fast updates using the "refresh" button when needed.

   

It's a simple program and it's user interface is clean but basic and sparse. I don't care for the rudimentary interface, but perhaps others will like it's simplicity. I actually prefer the long list of all realms that WarcraftStat [iTunes link] has, but that program only lists the US realms and has yet to be updated with any of the other regions. Perhaps a later update to Realm Status will include the other world regions and hopefully a way to filter just the region you're interested in.

Though this program has a specific use and will probably only be used when you notice your realm is down outside of the regular weekly downtime. I personally like seeing all the realm status in one list as it can be helpful in diagnosing if it's just my realm, all the realms, or even just problems associated with a particular datacenter.