Apple Watch and Tennis Score Keeping

I found it surprisingly hard to find an Apple Watch app for keeping score in a tennis game. Most of the apps out there want to analyze your swing, or track your workout or find some other way to justify charging you a subscription fee. I just want to remember the score.

All Sports Score Keeper

I eventually found a nice solution that keeps track of both the game score and the set score. It didn’t turn up in most of my searches because I kept using the word Tennis and this app is designed for multiple sports. This turned out to be a nice benefit because I also do a hitting drill with a friend and we play one point at a time until 21. The All Sports Score Keeper app can do this with either the Simple Scoring option or the Table Tennis option. Table tennis can use 11 or 21 point scoring so be sure to use the options to configure it. This is also a convenient way to keep track of your bean bag toss game, especially as the afternoon wears on and beer supply starts dwindling.

For the price of a can of tennis balls, you’ll never forget the score again. Try it for free to make sure it works for you and if so, you’ll likely want the undo and reset features that are available in the paid version.

Swiping

You change the score with a simple swipe. At first I thought this was not going to be to my liking but it eliminates the potential for accidentally touching and scoring a point. Plus the concept of swiping towards your opponent when they score and towards yourself when you score is hard to get wrong.

Free Version bug

At the time of this writing, the app is on version 1.4 and there is a small bug that is easy to work around once you understand it. The hamburger menu ☰ shows the various sports you can select. It is off by one. So if you select Tennis you’re going to get Table Tennis. Select the item above the sport you want to get that sport’s scoring.

Pro Version Sync Issue

When I paid for the pro version I had a problem getting my watch to recognize the new version. I wrote the developer and he responded almost immediately. The steps I took to correct this were:

1. Open the app on the phone
2. Open the app on the watch
3. Try to undo on the watch (a pro version version feature) and when the app asks you to get the pro version (which you already have) leave that message on the watch.
4. Force close the app on your phone (i.e. double-click the home button and swipe up on the app)
5. Reopen the app on the phone.
6. NOW press OK on the watch to dismiss the dialog
7. Try the undo feature again. If it works, you’re all set.

Once I did this I had no problem with the app.

Workouts and Apps

There is an Apple Watch problem that’s a little problematic. If you start a workout session for your tennis game there is no way to keep the scoring app as the top app. Apple continually gives the workout app that privilege. This is somewhat inconvenient. You can double press the crown to get to the scoring app. I just gave up on tracking my workout. You still get all the credits for steps and exercise you just won’t have things like the heart rate tracking and other nice details. I can’t fault the app or the developer. I have seen similar complaints about other apps and the fact that the workout app gets priority.