Call of Duty Elite mobile apps for iOS out today

Activision has announced that its Call of Duty Elite mobile apps are arriving on iOS today -- they should be available for download from the App Store before long. The apps do require you to be registered to the Elite service (which works in conjunction to track all of your stats from the extremely popular Xbox 360, PS3 and PC games), but once you're all set up with that, you'll be able to log in, and check out the service's various "Connect, Compare and Compete" functions like browsing your own stats, looking at clan information, and even checking out official Activision contests and standings.

I got to play with the app back at Call of Duty XP last year (on the Android OS, at least, which is getting its versions next week), and I can tell you that it's actually very impressive. Of course, if you don't play Call of Duty or use Elite -- note that you don't need a full subscription to use the apps, though there is a subscription available for some more premium features -- then the apps are pretty useless. But they do simply and clearly lay out all of your stats in a nicely designed interface. The CoD Elite system had some rough days when it first debuted with the release of Modern Warfare 3, but these days it runs pretty well, and the demo I saw had things syncing from the console game to the mobile app almost instantaneously.

Plus, the apps will be free, so if you're on Elite, there's really no reason not to go ahead and grab them. These apps are probably the smartest thing Activision has done with iOS so far, so if they're as popular as the Call of Duty game, we might see more "meta"-game apps in the future.