The new iPhone App Store has so much promise. But in the past few days, I've found that one of the most high-profile sports-based programs -- the MLB.com baseball “app” -- would have served the fans better with a rain delay or an outright cancellation. What I essentially have in my hands is a glorified scoreboard, nothing more.
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Being an avid baseball fan, I quickly downloaded the app last week on my original iPhone before reading the fine print. Why? Because the iTunes App Store doesn’t provide product demos, for one. Second, I've had a great experience with Major League Baseball's fantastic Flash-based Gameday app for years. Gameday, along with the cheap real-time MLB online audio account, lets me keep track of my favorite team, even though I don't live in that television market. When I saw the MLB iPhone app, I felt certain that the incredibly talented team at MLB.com wouldn’t disappoint.
I was wrong.
Yes, At Bat's graphics are pretty. But looks only go so far. MLB.com already has free team sites for mobile devices. The free sites let me read the daily news about my team, follow live games with 15-second refresh options, see every pitch location, follow pitch-by-pitch updates, etc. The free team site may not be pretty, but it works flawlessly and gives me all of the live information I need to stay informed and involved with a game when I’m out and about (yes, I try to keep one eye on the game and one eye on the road. I know I have a problem!)
What does the new At Bat provide? It certainly doesn’t include “at bat” information. It only provides league scores, on-base information, who’s pitching and who’s hitting. That’s it!
What do fans like me do if they want more info about a game? Ah ha! There's a tiny globe icon in the bottom right-hand corner -- pressing that takes users to the mobile mlb.com site.
At Bat also doesn't let me set a preference for my favorite team, so I have to scroll around to find the team's current match and enable it every time. And, without fail, I always find myself wanting more, thus clicking the ridiculous globe icon.
That's bad, but there's more. Not only was I dumb enough to shell out $5 for a lightweight scoreboard, the tiny text describing At Bat in iTunes implies that it will only work for the 2008 season! You mean, I have to buy this junk next year, too, like a subscription? Are you kidding me? To channel the spirit of Harry Carey, “Holy cow!”
Is there any upside to At Bat? OK, it is kind of neat to be able to watch the occasional video of a good play, but I can watch that freely at the regular team site, and very rarely is this something I need to do in order to follow the progression of a game. Ninety-five percent of the time the videos depict base hits or home runs, as opposed to controversial plays where video is so important to understanding what happened.
So, I’ll be sticking with the old-school wap.mlb.com site on my phone, thank you very much. I feel like Steve Bartman -- the Cubs fan a few years back who reached over the wall and disrupted an easy catch that could have lead the Cubs to their first World Series in nearly 100 years. Pity me.
Eric Hill is the Director of Product and Design for The Industry Standard.
Comments
That's a lie! It's the best app ever!
You're right. Five bucks for what? And you kinda look like Steve Bartman, too. =(
Why you! (shakes fist) ;)
And you can't even tailor it to JUST your team. Waste. Bummer you shelled out for it.
And to think...for $5 you could have had a Starbucks latte that you could enjoy and remember with fondness for at least a half-hour. Or paid for half the ticket price to see the Hellboy 2! What a waste.
Regardless of actual performance, how dare you speak ill of one of the holy trilogy? Are you new?
Must I remind you that when online you can (read must) speak ill only of PCs, Vista and the evil empire that brought it upon us, oh yeah, and companies that dare to charge for their services and/or run ads on their sites. You lather praise only upon Google (damned-be Yahoo!), Apple products and the glorious saints at Apple who deliver them to us.
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