Unlike their PC and Mac-based counterparts, iPhone poker apps differ from one another to a large extent, which often results in major variations when it comes to basic functionality or game availability between sites. Consequently, choosing the right app to suit your tastes is less about picking the best combination of bonuses, rakeback and traffic, and more about prioritizing the features you care the most about and checking out which room shines in that specific regard. This task may prove to be rather daunting if you don’t have a lot of iPhone poker experience, so I’ve prepared a list of direct site-by-site comparisons to help you make the right choice and pick a site that will satisfy your needs.
COMPETITION
mFortune and 888 are known primarily as casino sites, so a huge part of their player base is composed mostly of players who are gamblers first and have very limited knowledge of poker. They tend to overestimate the importance of luck and often draw to extremely weak hands, so even intermediate players can easily take advantage of their bad tactical choices if they manage to spot them. The difference lies in the fact that while 888 started off as a desktop-based site, mFortune focuses exclusively on mobile platforms like iPhones and Android devices. Consequently, the competition is noticeably softer on mFortune, as mobile-only players often treat poker like every other fun iPhone app and neglect the need to improve their game. The drawback here is that 888 has significantly higher traffic, but if you intend to play primarily during rush hours, mFortune is guaranteed to deliver juicy tables with plenty of fish to go around.
WINNER: mFORTUNE POKER - READ MFORTUNE REVIEW
WINNER: mFORTUNE POKER - READ MFORTUNE REVIEW
TOURNAMENTS
888 and Terminal Poker are the best iPhone sites when it comes to poker tournaments, but it’s important to remember that there aren’t all that many mobile poker rooms offering tournament support around. Basically, 888 gives you a chance to play cool Sit & Go tournaments of various kinds, but Terminal Poker offers you much more with plenty of MTTs to pick from. Unfortunately, the choice isn’t really all that easy as the 888 SnGs run much smoother than what Terminal Poker brings to the table; so while the latter is the clear winner when it comes to game selection, 888 dominates as far as gameplay and customization options are concerned. Thus, if you want quality iPhone SnGs, you should probably pick 888 – otherwise, Terminal Poker provides a considerably more varied experience.
JOINT WINNERS
888 MOBILE - READ 888 APP REVIEW
TERMINAL POKER - READ TERMINAL POKER REVIEW
JOINT WINNERS
888 MOBILE - READ 888 APP REVIEW
TERMINAL POKER - READ TERMINAL POKER REVIEW
GAME SELECTION
Game selection is widely considered to be the Achilles’ heel of iPhone-friendly poker sites since most rooms offer nothing more than a few variants of Texas Hold’em. Fortunately, mobile players who like to have more variety can visit Terminal Poker or PKR to get some Pot Limit Omaha action with plenty of cash game tables and tournaments to choose from. Declaring a clear winner is pretty hard here, as both sites are very closely matched – in the end, Terminal Poker has the upper hand when it comes to MTTs, while PKR runs some rather impressive SnGs and comes with a neat instant action feature that allows you to enter the fray without spending a lot of time in the lobby.
JOINT WINNERS
TERMINAL POKER - READ TERMINAL POKER REVIEW
PKR 3D - READ PKR 3D APP REVIEW
JOINT WINNERS
TERMINAL POKER - READ TERMINAL POKER REVIEW
PKR 3D - READ PKR 3D APP REVIEW
BONUSES
Plenty of iPhone-friendly poker sites have generous welcome bonuses and lucrative promotions designed to attract new customers, but two rooms excel in this regard. mFortune will give you £5 for free just for registering an account, followed by a cool £100 first deposit bonus. The equivalent to the latter available at 888 is significantly bigger and amounts to an impressive $400 which is a 100% match on your first payment, but unlike on mFortune you’ll have to spend a lot of time at the tables to release the entire package. As a result, the 888 offer is better suited for seasoned poker players who know how to extract more value from a huge bonus released in small increments, while mFortune is easy to recommend for newcomers who want to make their first steps in the poker world without necessarily paying a lot of money or spending too much time.
JOINT WINNERS
888 MOBILE POKER - READ 888 iPHONE REVIEW
mFORTUNE TEXAS HOLD'EM - READ mFORTUNE iPHONE REVIEW
JOINT WINNERS
888 MOBILE POKER - READ 888 iPHONE REVIEW
mFORTUNE TEXAS HOLD'EM - READ mFORTUNE iPHONE REVIEW
MOBILE SOFTWARE
When it comes to the overall quality of software, downloadable iPhone apps have a clear edge over poker rooms that allow you to play using a web browser simply because the technology is more reliable and the poker client doesn’t have to constantly get the necessary data through a browser, which tends to slow things down. Nevertheless, it’s hard to talk about the best software package when it comes to downloadable clients, since most rooms are closely matched in this regard and the apps they offer are exceptionally well-developed. As a result, the differences are rather minor – mFortune has a slight edge thanks to its social networking functionality and elegant design, while Bwin and 888 offer unmatched performance and a streamlined gaming experience.
WINNER: BWIN MOBILE POKER - READ BWIN iPHONE REVIEW
WINNER: BWIN MOBILE POKER - READ BWIN iPHONE REVIEW
USER INTERFACE
While iPhone poker software packages are all optimized to perform well on Apple’s phones, not all apps are created equal. The sites that really manage to get ahead of the competition are Bwin and 888, as both have released iPhone apps that are nearly flawless in both menus and table mode. Both come with well placed, sufficiently large buttons and fonts that allow experienced players to play so fast it’d be possible to do well at five or six tables if those apps supported multi-tabling. In the end it’s simply impossible to tell which one is better, but one things is certain – they’re clearly both superior to browser-based apps, which tend to feel rather clunky in comparison.
WINNERS - 888 iPHONE - READ 888 iPHONE REVIEW
WINNERS - 888 iPHONE - READ 888 iPHONE REVIEW
VISUALS
The visuals definitely aren’t the most important thing about an online poker client, but some people simply enjoy their eye candy. In this case, PKR is the clear winner as no other site offers animated 3D avatars and realistic backgrounds. Nevertheless, if you’re a traditionalist and you’d like a neat, two-dimensional graphics package, mFortune definitely is the way to go – the design is simply aesthetically pleasing and sharp, while card designs make any mistakes extremely unlikely whether your using a standard two color deck or the new, four-colored one.
WINNER: PKR 3D MOBILE - READ PKR iPHONE REVIEW
WINNER: PKR 3D MOBILE - READ PKR iPHONE REVIEW