You are here: Home / Archives for iPhone

PrePlay takes Aim at Major League Baseball with Latest App

September 13, 2012 by Leave a Comment

MLB PrePlay

PrePlay, one of the early app developers in the growing predictive sports space has returned with a new program entitled MLB PrePlay that is aimed at the fans of Major League Baseball and was launched in conjunction with MLB’s digital media arm Major League Baseball Advanced Media.

The alignment with MLBAM is a coup of sorts for the developer because not only will it have the blessing of the sport but it will also be able to use logos and markings that are MLBs, but that is the smaller of the advantages.

It will also have access to the Gameday API. This is the technology that helps drive some of the most popular sporting apps on the market, MLB at Bat and Beat the Streak, both of which are MLB properties.

The app has the advantage that fans of the sport can use it as both an in-game or pre-game tool; you can use it while following a current game to make predictions about upcoming plays ranging from individual at bats to how an inning will turn out to when a pitching change will occur. It also allows for pregame and in-between innings predictions.

However if you are unable to watch the game you can use the app prior to the opening pitch as well making predictions along similar lines such as who will be the winning pitcher, how fast will the fastest pitch be and a wide range of other options.

The program is designed to enable you to compete with friends and even create competitions with them to see who can most accurately predict outcomes and allows you to chat with them during the event, or trash talk as your case may be. It can be opened to a wider audience if you feel that your skills warrant the extra competition.

MLB PrePlay also comes equipped with Facebook Login, Twitter integration, and a trophy case. The free app is currently available at Apple’s iTunes App Store and is compatible with the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.

Predictive sports apps are increasingly popular, and so the market is seeing a growing number of apps that cater to them, some broad based supporting multiple sports and some just one sport. I like the single sports approach, at least right now. I can go to an app like Bantr for soccer, Pickmoto for football or this one for baseball and talk and predict with friends. With the average iPhone user having over 100 apps, according to Apple, one more is not really going to cause confusion on the average users’ phone.

Of course at times when multiple sports seasons are all ongoing at the same time my opinion might change as I have to switch back and forth, but for most of the summer it’s just baseball for me.

Filed Under: Apple, Apps, Baseball, iOS, iPad, iPhone, Major League Baseball, MLB PrePlay, Pickmoto, PrePlay Tagged With: , , ,

Yes, You Can Watch Cowboys vs. Giants on your Phone Tonight; But it Will Cost You $5 per Month

September 5, 2012 by 1 Comment

To answer the most pressing mobile sports question today: Yes, the Cowboys-Giants NFL Season Opener will be available live via the NFLMobile app (8:30 p.m. ET start), but you will need a Verizon phone to watch it, and be prepared to pay the $5 per month unadvertised fee that goes along with live action via the app this season.

I’ve been giving the folks at Verizon Wireless a bunch of grief on Twitter today mainly because the $5 per month charge isn’t found anywhere in the advertising or promotional material for the app. Last year the NFLMobile app was pretty much free for anyone who purchased a new Verizon 4G LTE phone and a 2-year contract, but this year the free live video lunch is over and Verizon will extract $5 from your pocket per month.

Let me say right here that I don’t think 5 bucks per month is an extravagant charge, since the app is pretty good — it will give you RedZone on Sunday afternoons, plus live viewing of games on Sunday nights, Monday nights and Thursday nights. My guess is that live mobile viewing will cost a lot more in the future, if and when the NFL puts an MLB.com package in place as it looks like they are moving to do. Nothing is announced yet, so stay tuned. And if you have a Verizon phone, though $5 a month sounds bad now it will probably be the lowest amount you will ever pay for live football in the seasons to come.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Apple, Apps, NFL, NFL Mobile, NFL Network, Verizon Wireless Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Bleacher Report adds Group Interaction Feature to Team Stream App

September 5, 2012 by Leave a Comment

The popular Team Stream app from sports site Bleacher Report is getting more interactive, with the release of a new version that adds the ability for people to share their sports-team preferences with friends. Available initially only for the iPhone version of Team Stream, the “groups” feature will let fans share not only news but opinions with each other, bringing Team Stream into the field of smack-talk/interactive sports apps like PlayUp and others.

Bleacher Report, which was recently acquired by Turner Sports for approximately $180 million, claims to have 1 million users of its Team Stream app, which brings a constant “stream” of sports news, opinions, tweets and other content from the Web and organizes it by team for easy consumption. By adding an interactive feature Bleacher Report is seeking to keep fans embedded in Team Stream longer, instead of having to leave it to share opinions or news with friends who share the same team interests.

Fan interaction is hardly a new feature on the web, as sharing opinions and sports news seems to be one of the bigger things happening on Twitter these days. And standalone apps like PlayUp have already found big crowds of fans who want to set up or join sports-specific, game-specific or team-specific “rooms” or other online gathering places to interact. Team Stream, which has been focused on providing news and other content, is coming at the sharing equation from another direction, but one that seems to make sense as sharing apps like PlayUp have recently started adding news feeds to their feature set.

“We’ve found that most sports fans have small but distinct groups of friends they talk to about their favorite sports or teams, but still lack a simple way of sharing and reacting to news with them,” said David Finocchio, Chief Content and Product Officer at Bleacher Report, in a press release. “This version of Team Stream fills that void by providing a more efficient way for fans to quickly share the latest on their teams with the right group of friends and then react together.”

According to Bleacher Report, the new feature allows users to “easily add their friends to a group and share their favorite stories with them. Friends can open the group, read the shared stories and easily reply to the group all from their phones.” From an outside perspective the feature might also act as a good recruiting tool for B/R, allowing current Team Stream users to introduce the app to friends who might not have heard of it before. According to Bleacher Report the new 2.0 version of the Team Stream app will be developed for the Android and iPad versions of the app sometime in the future, but is only available now for the iPhone.

Filed Under: Apple, Apps, bleacherreport, iPhone, Social Media, Sports Social Media, Turner Sports Tagged With: , , , , ,

Ooyala, R&A Team up for British Open App — But You Still Need a Cable Contract to Watch Live Golf

July 17, 2012 by 2 Comments

Though we originally got excited here at MSR when we heard that the British Open’s app might feature another way to get live video of the event, as we expected, there is no getting around the need for a qualifying ESPN cable contract to watch the British Open via a mobile platform. As we said earlier today, this is ESPN’s baby and they are not going to let someone else end-run their mobile video strategy.

The British Open app, built by the video-services folks at Ooyala and the R&A, does have some neat stuff in it, highlights on demand and a live fly by of the course. What threw us off was the app store screen shot (see left) that shows a button for live video. But upon further review the live video link from the app merely redirects you to the WatchESPN app — for which you need a contract with Time Warner Cable, Verizon FiOS, Bright House Networks or Comcast to access the online content.

So — the app may be less useful than it originally appeared, especially if you don’t have a cable contract. According to Ooyala the app is available for Android phones, iPhones and iPads.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, British Open, Golf, iOS Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Adobe, NBC Team Up for Real-Time Olympic Action Apps

July 12, 2012 by Leave a Comment

When NBC announced plans to stream every single bit of Olympic action from London this summer, you knew eventually there would be an app for that. Today, NBC and Adobe announced they’ve been working together to create apps for iPhones, iPads, and Android phones and tablets. Here’s a short video blurb to explain:

What is confusing (and will no doubt frustrate many folks) is that there is not one, but TWO apps — one is called NBC Olympics, and one is called NBC Olympics Live Extra. The latter one is the one that’s most interesting. Read here to see what NBC says it does:

The NBC Olympics Live Extra app will live stream every athletic competition for the first time ever. In all, the app will live stream more than 3,500 total programming hours, including every athletic competition, all 32 sports, the awarding of all 302 medals as well as event rewinds. NBC Olympics Live Extra will also live stream the Olympic content that airs on the four NBCU cable channels – NBC Sports Network, MSNBC, CNBC and Bravo.

In another first, NBC Olympics Live Extra will provide multiple concurrent streams for select sports, such as gymnastics (each apparatus), track and field (each event), and tennis (up to five courts). For example, during a session of track and field, instead of viewing only a single feed that moves from event to event, a user can choose to watch a stream dedicated to a specific event, such as the long jump or javelin.

Compared to that, the second app sounds like a forgotten orphan:

The second app, simply titled NBC Olympics, will provide short-form highlights, TV and online schedules, live results, columns and the new Primetime Companion feature – the ultimate complementary, second-screen experience for NBC’s nightly primetime Olympic broadcasts.

Well, OK. Maybe it was too hard to put two apps together? But we’re just glad to have the opportunity to watch online, so no more kvetching.

Of course, nothing this good could possibly be free but if you are already a paying customer for a cable contract that includes CNBC and MSNBC, you’re covered. How do you verify mobile devices so that you can watch? Here is a quick list from NBC:

— Download the NBC Olympics Live Extra app
— Open the app
— Tap the “Touch Here & Get Ready” callout
— Select your cable, satellite or telco provider
— Enter the username and password that corresponds with your account
You are signed in throughout the Games on that device!

Plus, NBC has also created an entire Live Extra Help Site page, complete with a video featuring Carson Daly. Why Carson Daly, we are not sure. But he does a very professional teleprompter-reading job of explaining how to set it up.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, BBC, iOS, iPad, iPhone, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, NBC Sports, Olympics Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Apple Details New iOS 6: Releases Mountain Lion and New Notebooks

June 11, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Apple’s annual Worldwide Developer Conference began this week in San Francisco, and a good example of the excitement it generates among the faithful is the fact that the 5,000 tickets that went on sale for $1,599 sold out in less than two hours, according to the Wall Street Journal. Reports are that some are now being scalped in front of the Moscone Center.

The joy of this event to me is that we get to see how the rumors about the event match up with the actual announcements. New operating systems, iPads, iPhones, new TV and more have all been promised by a variety of outlets, now we get to see what is true.

The company introduced two different OS at the show starting with the next generation iOS, iOS 6.0 with 200 new features including new map app, shared photo streams and very tight Facebook integration. Expect this in the late fall.

Also the latest Mac operating system, code-named Mountain Lion, which will be available next month for $19.99. Interesting notes from the keynote include Apple working with some big name auto manufacturers to incorporate Siri into their entertainment systems. Expect to see results from this in a year or so and brands include BMW, GM and Jaguar. Siri will also now be able to launch apps.

Lots of upgraded or new hardware on the PC side including an 11-inch MacBook Air with a 1.7 GHz processor starting at $1,099; a 13-inch MacBook Air with a 1.8 GHz processor starting at $1199, and 256GB of flash storage starting at $1,499.

Also some new MacBook Pro models including a 13-inch with a 2.5 GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor starting at $1,499, a 15-inch MacBook Pro with either a 2.3 GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor starting at $1,799; or with a 2.6 GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor starting at $2,199. The 15-inch displays will feature high resolution Retina technology.

Some stats from the show
iMessage has 140 million users
Apple users send 1 billion messages daily
650,000 Apps of which 225,000 for iPad
Asia Pacific soon to be largest revenue geography for company

Filed Under: Apple, Apps, Facebook, Google, Intel, iOS, iPad, iPhone, Smartphone, Tablets Tagged With: , , ,
« Previous Page
Next Page »