Up On the Roof…

Maybe football fans should just consider themselves lucky that there’s going to be pro football played at all this year. The chance to watch football on your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch hasn’t improved all that much. Same goes for listening to radio simulcasts.

It’s been almost a year since I posted about the lack of a decent app for NFL Football. I contrasted that with what the MLB’s done with their At Bat 2010 and now At Bat 2011 apps.

Not much has changed at this point, mid-way through pre-season 2011.

If you happen to be a dish customer (only ~15% of us are), DirecTV offers NFL Sunday Ticket on iTunes. They have free apps for iPhone or iPad, however you’ll have to subscribe to NFL Sunday Ticket and pay a little extra still to get the “To-Go” version.

If you’re a cable TV customer, as mos of us are, this app does us little good.

In any case I read through the reviews and downloaded the app to see what I could get it to do, not being a directv customer. The experience was ridiculous. Look at the screenshots I encountered… Read Full Post

I’m trying to figure out what the National Football League’s (NFL) strategy is with their iPhone app?  The reviews are not pretty. As I look at the iTunes page now, there’s not one review that rates more than a star. The written reviews are even worse and I’m sure many who gave one star were trying to figure out if Apple would allow no stars or negative stars.

Fortunately for the NFL, iTunes doesn’t let me copy and paste, but they’re along the lines of “Shame on you, NFL,” “Worst sports app,” “Fails to deliver,” “Fire the developers.” I could keep going.

I wonder what’s happening behind the scenes? At NFL headquarters? Around the conference table when they’re discussing the strategy, features, marketing of this app? Read Full Post

During Apple’s media event today, there was discussion around the new device and who’d use it.

I can see some appeal for use in the medical field, although medical apps or device connections were not covered at all today. With a large screen, it’s better at charts, photos, graphics (x-rays) than an iPhone ever could be. See also Upcoming Apple Tablet is Generating Significant Hype — Will it affect Healthcare? on MedPage Today.

What about home use? The iPad was designed for games, iBooks, movies, etc. So, the home user is in the sweet spot of the iPad’s target user.

iPad vs Kindle. With a $499 entry level iPad, the prices are close enough to make potential Kindle purchasers consider an iPad. Current prices are $259 for the 6″ Kindle and $489 for the 9.7″ Kindle DX (a match for the iPad screen size). I think the answer pretty clear here; the iPad wins. For me its as simple as “Color” vs “Black and White” TV.

Business Users? The iPad makes a great presentation device thanks to Read Full Post

Apple announced the iPod Touch, aka the iPhone, without the phone built-in.  It has comes with more memory and is thinner than the iPhone. But, what does this do to the iPod/iPhone market?

The iPod Touch is now an option for those who don’t need a phone, or can’t get out of a contract, but would like to use it as a wifi PDA + music player. Many people still carry a phone and an organizer. Some due to the “corporate standard” or they may need to use of custom application, built on one of these platforms.

The move to smartphones, like the iPhone, Blackberry, Treo and new devices still in the works is imminent. But there are limitations on the disk size on the phones. Even with news SD cards, they don’t match the 160GB size of the newest iPod, the Classic. For those users who carry their entire digital library with them, Apple kept an iPod close to the original form, but as usual thinner.

I haven’t held the new iPod Nano yet, so I’ll hold judgement on how it fits in a workout routine, now that its bigger and there’s no much to an iPod Shuffle, unless the Nano has become to big for running and gets replaced by the Shuffle.

I’m looking forward to some first hand use with these devices.

MacRumors reports that the first native iPhone game has been released for the iPhone. Its a puzzle game called Lights Off.

First the good news:
It’s an exciting anouncement because the developers created it without much help from Apple. Apple has not provided developers with an SDK (software development kit). This means anyone who wants to make a third party program, has to more work to do to get a game or other program to work with the iPhone interface, etc.

Now the bad news:
I haven’t played or downloaded it myself because it takes hacking the iPhone and installing some extra pieces of software to get it to work. On top of that there is a risk that the iPhone could be permanently damaged by doing this. Here’s their disclaimer text “Disclaimer: Lights Off is provided on an “as is” basis, without warranty of any kind. If your iPhone breaks, don’t cry on our shoulders.”

But this is still exciting news because it indicates that additional software for iPhones, (other than web-based via Safari) is on the horizon.

Prediction:
I expect Apple will do one of two things in the next month or so, release an iPhone patch that makes the game not run, or give in to developers and release an official SDK.