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Filed under: Software, iPhone, App Store

MLB At Bat adds in-app purchases

by Dave Caolo (RSS feed) on Sep 1st, 2009

It's no secret that one of my favorite iPhone apps is Major League Baseball's At Bat [iTunes link]. Last season it provided real-time statistics and video clips from games across the league. This season, it added live video streaming of full games as well as Game Day audio. At first the video streams were free, then MLB switched the model to feature one free game of the day, and the others were available to MLB.TV subscribers.

Frankly I thought that was a bummer, as I don't want to pay a monthly fee for baseball. They must have read my mind, because version 1.4 was released this week with in-app purchasing. Users can buy any live video stream for $0.99US. Hooray! No more MLB.TV.

I've gushed over this app before, so I'll keep it short this time. Not only is it a great experience for fans, the developers seem on top of what we want. Each update is significantly better than the last.

Now if only the NFL and the PGA would create something as good.

Tags: app store, AppStore, at bat, AtBat, in app purchases, InAppPurchases, iphone, major league baseball, MajorLeagueBaseball

Filed under: Multimedia, Software, Video, Internet Tools

MLB.TV Mosaic: baseball nirvana

by Mat Lu (RSS feed) on Apr 2nd, 2007



Today is one of the best days of the year: the sun is shining, the flowers are blooming, spring is in the air. It's Opening Day! Major League Baseball has really been on the forefront of delivering content on the web, and this year looks to be the best yet. MLB.TV started testing their stand-alone Mosaic player last year, and it looks like they've updated it significantly for the 2007 season (it just became available for download last night). Mosaic is a very cool application that lets MLB.TV premium subscribers watch six (!) baseball games simultaneously (the above screenshot is rather boring since there were only two games last night). You can then click on any of the game to bring up a larger size window focusing on that game alone (as below). This year MLB.TV is doubling the bit-rate of their streams to 700kbps so I would expect the video quality to improve significantly over the last few years.



The biggest downside to Mosaic is that it's a resource hog. This is unsurprising when you discover that it is in part a Java application that depends on Flip4Mac for the video (all the streams are Windows Media based). In addition, location based blackout restrictions apply to the home markets of teams (based on the billing address of your credit card). Nonetheless, for the big baseball fan (and particular fantasy baseball player) Mosaic is close to nirvana, especially for those of us who no longer live in our favorite team's home market.

The Mosaic player is included with a premium subscription to MLB.TV which is $119.95 per year. They have also have a regular subscription for $89.95 that will allow you to watch one game at a time in a browser window as well as an audio-only Gameday Audio subscription for $14.95.

Oh yeah, Go 'Stros!

Tags: baseball, major league baseball, MajorLeagueBaseball, MLB.TV, Mosaic

Filed under: iTS, iTunes, Apple

MLB highlights coming to iTunes Store

by Mat Lu (RSS feed) on Mar 30th, 2007


With opening day right around the corner, Major League Baseball and Apple have announced a deal for game highlights to appear on the iTunes Store. Each day there will be a 25 minutes "MLB.com Daily Rewind" highlight show and each week two "'Games of the Week,' featuring full versions of the best games from the National and American Leagues." Each of these games will be $1.99 (compared to $3.95 per game through MLB's Digital Download Service) though there will also be a Season Pass of the "Game of the Week" for $19.99 and a Multi-Pass of the "Daily Rewind" for $7.99 per month.

MLB.TV is probably the best online sports offering, so real baseball fans will probably want to go there instead as it allows you to stream "every 2007 regular season out-of-market game" live plus a lot more. However, this iTunes deal looks interesting, and with MLB under fire for the exclusive DirecTV deal, more media choice is a good thing. We can hope this will be a success and cause MLB to expand their iTunes offering with more games, etc.

To whet your appetite for the season the iTunes Store is now offering a 2007 Season Preview for free download (iTunes Store link).

Tags: iTunes Store, ItunesStore, major league baseball, MajorLeagueBaseball, mlb

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