It’s hard to think of Sports without thinking of Sports Illustrated. It’s kind of the go-to resource for many a sporting fan, like Forbes is for business people, W is for fashion mavens, and US Weekly is for gaudy gossip (I had to throw that one in). And, who can forget the famous and much anticipated annual Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition? I can appreciate a gorgeous, fit, and scantily-clad woman like any full-blooded male, and I was particularly overjoyed to see Bar Rafaeli’s kicky, curvaceous bod gratuitously displayed in many of the glossy pages of the 2009 issue. An app was specially created for this SI Swimsuit Edition, but granted 2009 has come and gone, I thought I’d wait for the 2010 version to write a review. In the meantime, however, the free, Sports Illustrated app is continuously updated, with much information on the sports you know and love.

The Sports Illustrated iPhone app is a subscription-free, ad-subsidized application that allows users to view all the latest sports stories and photos; access all the latest scores; view the latest columns from SI’s editorial staff; and access sport-specific scores, news, and standings. Users can also view Sports Illustrated photos – which includes model shots, in case you want enough of a teaser to check out the Swimsuit Edition app – , and read about the latest truth and rumor articles. One rumor that caught my eye was the seemingly insane title, USC offers scholarship to 13-year old QB. Whoa, I know some kids can be precocious, but when it comes to physical strength? A 13-year old? Try again. The app overall tends to lean more toward the website than the magazine, in design, as the content reflects daily sports news and not the thoughtful features that are a hallmark of the magazine.

The first thing that struck me about this app was how much content it included. It’s not the entire SI.com website in an app, but it’s close. The top stories, photos, scores, columnists and breaking news are all there for you to root through. It visually has a different design from the website, but it still manages to convey the same feeling of navigation – from an aesthetic standpoint, it’s one of the better looking sports news apps you can find. I enjoyed the fact that it covers all the requisite basics – NFL, College Football, MLB, NBA, College Basketball, NHL, Tennis, Soccer – and it covers additional ones we tend not to clump alongside the aforementioned: racing, boxing, cycling, horse racing, and the Olympics. Any stories you read about are able to be shared via email or Twitter, which I found odd. Why faze out facebook?

The reason why I prefer the Sports Illustrated app to other sports-tracking apps is it includes the stellar articles that made Sports Illustrated famous, and the most highly regarded sports journalism in the world. Having a tab for the SI writers really makes this app, because you can sort through headlines and various articles by your favorite editors – it’s just a nice icing on the cake for an already excellent app. The scores tab could definitely be better organized – it’s true, I may not follow sport scores, so I am unfamiliar with navigating and deciphering the terrain, but it wasn’t at all obvious to the layman. I experienced no crashing or glitches when using the app, and I read of no such complaints from forums.

A good app to have if you’re a regular reader of Sports Illustrated, it’s even better to have given the way print publication has been going. GQ has already made the transition to uploading their monthly issues as iPhone apps – sooner or later we’ll see other popular publications taking this route, and given the ease of the SI app, it’ll likely make this transition soon.