Reviewed on iPhone
SwingReader is an app designed to cater to golfers that want an affordable way to view their swing. Its allows you to take views of your swing and view them in slow motion, draw on them and even compare them to some preloaded professional swings. The app is linked to your camera to allow you to upload previously taken videos or capture and crop videos as you use the app. Once uploaded to the SwingReader library, the fun begins. You have numerous options at your fingertips to help your breakdown your swing: slow motion, cut the video, add bookmarks to various points during your swing, compare to another swing or edit with various editing tools.
The editing tools are easy to use after one or two uses, and really help highlight any errors or tendencies in your swings. The navigation in and around the video could be slightly easier, we would like to have seen a navigation bar at the bottom of the screen leading to the various editing or video tools.
When comparing swings the app simply loads one video on the top of the other and allows you to alter the transparency between the two swings. However, if you flip your iPhone to landscape mode, it will display the videos side-by-side, which we found far better.
One drawback in the video library is the pro swings. The swings provided are of Harry Rose, no doubt an accomplished golfer and teacher, but we would love the ability to sort through videos of the top pros. To combat this restriction, the SwingReader app has a homescreen tab that leads you to a YouTube channel providing videos of various top pros including Adam Scott, Ernie Els, Fred Couples and many more. Through this, you are able to view the swings of these pros, but you are not able to use the same editing tools as you can with the videos in your SwingReader Library. It is a nice feature, but will leave you wanting to draw circles and lines all over Ernie's swing. The Youtube feature also includes several tutorial videos for the app, which are useful when first using the app, but contain no narration which we thought would have made the videos easier to follow.
To be honest, the app is created to offer you an affordable alternative to paying for a video lesson, and it does that. You will become addicted to breaking down your swing and you will love the ease of uploading or taking videos of your swing. We really like the ease with which you can upload your swing to Facebook or simply to the SwingReader website and view your swing on your computer with the same editing ability as the app. Despite some minor annoyances in the navigation and features, the app is effective and a lot of fun to use.
Overall Rating - 4 stars: