Looking for “Petanque: Score & Tournament”? That is the App Store name. On your home screen the app is called Petanque, and inside it Petanque Companion. Same app.
Get in touch
The app is made by a small studio in Helsinki, and the support inbox is read by the person who wrote it. Write to [email protected] and you will normally hear back within two working days.
If something looks wrong, it helps to include your iOS version, your iPhone or iPad model, and — for a tournament problem — the format and the round where it happened.
How it works
On iPhone the app has four tabs: Play for games, Compete for tournaments, People for players and teams, and More for statistics, game history, achievements, tools, rules and settings. On iPad the same sections can also open in a sidebar. On a wide screen, such as an iPad or an opened iPhone Duo, scoring sits beside the round history, a tournament's matches beside its standings, and the roster beside player details. Everything you enter is stored on your device; there is no account to create and nothing to sign in to.
Getting started
- Score a game. Play → New Game, choose the teams, the format and, if you agreed one, a starting score such as 2–2; games are played to 13. After each end pick the team and tap the points, or record a void end. Round history and Undo stay with the game, and Resume Game brings you back to it from Play.
- Add your people. In People, add players — with a photo, a nickname, a club and a country — and teams with their name, club and flag. Stats and head-to-head records build up from the games they play.
- Run a tournament. In Compete, create a tournament, pick one of the four formats — Swiss System, Round Robin, Single Elimination or Mêlée-Casse — add the entries and start it. Pairings are generated for you each round; enter results as games finish and the standings update as you go.
- Assign pistes. Matches are spread across your pistes when each round is created. To change them, open the tournament's … menu → Assign Pistes, tap Auto-assign or set pistes by hand, then Apply. A warning marks any piste with two matches on it at once.
- Measure a close point. More → Tools → AR Measure (also reachable from Play), or switch Scoring Mode to AR Scan inside a game. Move the phone slowly so it finds the ground, then tap the cochonnet and each boule.
Common questions
How accurate is the AR measurement?
It's an estimate, not a referee's measure. ARKit finds the ground and measures between the points you tap, and the result depends on your device, the light and the terrain, so treat a difference of a centimetre or two as too close to call and confirm close points with a tape. For best results, move the phone slowly over the terrain first so it can find the ground, and keep good light.
I can't find AR Measure
It only appears on devices that support ARKit world tracking. Everything else in the app — scoring, tournaments, stats, the watch — works without it.
I entered the wrong points
Use Undo in the game to take back the last round. Deleting a round asks you to confirm first, so a stray swipe can't remove it.
Which tournament formats are there?
New tournaments can use Swiss System, Round Robin, Single Elimination or Mêlée-Casse, for singles, doubles or triples, played to 13 from a starting score you choose. A Swiss tournament can finish with knockout cups A to D, seeded from the standings, in sizes you choose at the draw. Teams rank by wins, then Buchholz, fine Buchholz and point difference, the order CEP events use, or by point difference first if you choose. On iPad the standings table shows wins, losses, points for and against, point difference and Buchholz, plus fine Buchholz when it decides ties, sortable by column; on iPhone it's a compact list of wins, losses and point difference, with Buchholz when it decides ties. Exports include every column.
How does the app pair a Swiss tournament?
It ranks teams the same way as the standings (Buchholz is every opponent's wins, whether you beat them or not) and pairs down that ranking: each team meets the highest-ranked opponent it hasn't played, as long as the teams below can still be paired without a rematch. Two teams meet again only when no other pairing is left. Round one isn't a random draw. The number of rounds follows the entry: three for up to 8 teams, four for up to 16, five for up to 32; Complete Tournament ends it early if you run out of daylight.
How are byes scored?
With an odd number of teams, the bye goes to the lowest-ranked team that hasn't had one and still leaves a pairing without rematches; a team gets a second bye only once everyone has had one. You choose what a bye counts as when you create the tournament, from 13–0 to 13–12; new tournaments start at 13–7. Tournaments started before version 2.0 keep their 13–6 byes.
Can I correct a result that was entered wrong?
Yes. Open the match and correct the score, and the standings are rebuilt from the matches. A correction can change the winner only in the latest round, and Swiss results lock once the cups are drawn.
How do I delete a tournament?
Swipe left on it in Compete and tap Delete. Since version 1.2 that works for started and finished tournaments too, not only drafts.
How do I get the standings onto the noticeboard?
On a finished tournament, use the share button; on one still running, open the … menu → Export. You can export PDF scoresheets and standings, an image card for social media, or CSV and JSON if you want the raw data. It all goes through the standard iOS share sheet — print, AirDrop, Mail or Files.
The Apple Watch isn't showing my game
Make sure the watch app is installed (the Watch app on your iPhone → Available Apps), then open the Petanque app on the iPhone once with the watch nearby and unlocked. The watch mirrors the active game and scores into it; points tapped on the watch appear on the phone. Keep the iPhone nearby while you play — the watch tells you when it can't reach it.
Widgets and the Lock Screen
The Active Game widget shows the game in progress on your home screen, and a Live Activity keeps the score on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island while you play. Version 1.2 removed the Next Match and Stats Summary widgets, which could not show anything yet — if you had one, remove it from your home screen.
Does it cost anything?
No. It's free, with no ads, no in-app purchases and no subscription.
Can I move my data to a new phone?
Your games and tournaments are included in your normal iPhone backup (iCloud or computer), so restoring a backup to a new phone brings them with it. There is no separate cloud sync, and no account we could restore from.
Your data
Games, tournaments, players, teams and stats stay on your device, shared only with your own widgets and paired Apple Watch. The camera is used live for AR measurement and nothing is recorded. We never receive any of it, which also means we cannot recover it for you. The privacy policy sets out exactly what is and is not handled.
Reporting a problem
Bug reports are genuinely welcome and are usually acted on. Include the steps that led to the problem if you can reproduce it. If the app crashed, opting in to share diagnostics with developers in iOS Settings → Privacy & Security → Analytics & Improvements sends Apple an anonymised crash report we can read.
Reporting a security issue
Security problems go to [email protected] rather than the support inbox, so they get looked at first. The security page says what to send and what we do with it.