Yesterday was a top day to be a sports fan in the US – with the NCAA Basketball Mens Final and Opening Day for Major League Baseball. I watched the whole spectacular win for UNC in the NCAA Final, caught some baseball action in a sports bar at lunch time, and even got to check out MLB At Bat 2009 on the iPhone last night.
I had been really looking forward to seeing MLB At Bat in action once Spring Training was over and the real season kicked off. Opening Day performance of the app was not stellar for me. It crashed back to the home screen several times, and even refused to play a video clip listed on its Yankees-Orioles game page.
No Matsui homer viewing for me – and a pretty silly error message to go with the failure.
I thought that this 2009 version had touted live audio for all games – but I found some saying ‘no audio available’ last night. I also expected there to be a few more video clips available than what I saw yesterday – most games had either none or just one clip, though a few had multiple clips.
One other glitch I saw quite a bit of was Box Score pages taking a very long time to load, or not loading at all on occasions.
I suppose my overall impression of MLB At Bat on Opening Day is that it’s a bit like a lot of the hitters this time of year – it needs a bit more BP time, maybe some work on its swing.
But … I have to admit, the parts that work, work very well. Watching Hanley Ramirez’s grand slam (4 times) was excellent – as was flipping through box scores (when they’re displaying correctly) and seeing who did what.
The other thing I should note here is that I’m running MLB At Bat on the 3.0 Beta 2. I have seen some others on forums mentioning problems yesterday with the app, but I didn’t see a mention of their OS version.
How are you all finding MLB At Bat so far? Loving it, liking it, hating it???
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
worked pretty well for me. only small glitch was the audio feeds were swapped from the Yanks / O's game. Still worked tho. No crashes either.
mikelite – are you on 2.2.1? I'm seeing less crashing issues today, but still having probs with Box Scores – all the other tabs work ok, but box scores don't want to load very often, and often only show up for a brief moment as I tap another tab …
My audio wont work at ALL. Wifi, Cell, nothing. doesn't matter which game
It ran pretty well for me too. I was following the Mets/Reds game. No video provided. I also found it strange that only the Reds announcers were available for a live feed. I was under the impression from the app specs that both teams live feeds would be offered.
Performance wise, I couldn't complain. I had the game on TV (I am unemployed unfortunately) and was following along with MLB. MLB was obviously behind but held up pretty well.
I hope that the Mets feeds are offered in the future. Perhaps maybe only the home teams announcers will be available for a given game?
masseym – Which OS version are you on? Audio has been ok for me so far.
JNGold – which OS version are you using? I just checked the App Store page for it – it does say that audio will be available from all home and 'select' visiting feeds.
I am using 2.2.1. I deleted the app and reinstalled. Still nothing. It says “connecting…” and then error. Doesnt matter which feed I select.
I wmailde MLB and they said that they were “enhancing” the feeds and to be patient. Sounds like crap to me. How is it that some get it and I dont… weird.
I listened to parts of 4 games yesterday on MLB for th e iPhone. It was great. I noticed they had the radio broadcasts switched on some of the games. If you clicked the Yankees, you'd get the Orioles broadcasting team. If you clicked the Orioles, you'd get the Yanks broadcasting team. Not on all games but quite a few… Videos worked for me and box score updates were within seconds of the audio on the iPhone.
Battery drainage was huge with this app, though. I'd like to see an option to turn off the screen and real-time box score updates to conserve juice.
I prefer radio over TV for following baseball. I can't sit still for 3 hours of baseball, but with earbuds in I can do whatever and enjoy the game.
Listening to the Brewers-Giants game as I type. This is great.
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