Last year I purchased the MLB At Bat iPhone App. At the time it featured stats, play by play through text updates on the screen and showed location of pitches. It also had a “cool” factor with the option to see video highlights. The thing that amazed me with this feature was the fact that the highlights showed up within a few minutes after the play developed.
So why am I talking about a baseball app as the regular season is winding down and with the playoffs approaching? This app is a great example of making a good thing better by listening to user feedback and not resting on their laurels. Other apps should take note of this and strive for improvements much in the same way MLB did.
The 2009 version of the MLB app has incorporated some amazing improvements. At the start of the season owners of the app could now listen to the Game Day Audio, even choosing which broadcast they want to listen to – home or away. Game Day Audio costs $15 by itself and MLB At Bat only costs $9.99. You do the math.
A few weeks after the all star break they added in Game Day Video. This allowed users to watch games live as the video broadcast is streamed into the phone. The quality on a wifi connection is simply amazing, looking like a miniature HD-TV. When on the 3G network the quality diminishes but still plays real time and relatively unaffected. One game a night chosen at random was available for viewing. I subscribe to the MLB.tv package every season for over $100.00 allowing me to watch any game on the computer and thought to myself it would be cool to have the ability to watch any game on the iPhone since I’m paying for it already. Sure enough a few weeks later this feature was incorporated into the app. Simply entering my login information into the phone I can now watch any game no matter where I am at.
This app is a must have for any baseball fan and is well worth the $9.99 price. I must say this is the most expensive app I have purchased though it is clearly my favorite. It would be nice if other major sports copied this model and offered a robust app so fans all over can follow their favorite teams.
