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Sony brings PlayStation capabilities to Mobile Phones

June 11, 2011 by

So you are in the market for a new phone and with the ever growing variety you are having a tough time making a decision. Of course the first step is to narrow down what you are looking for in a phone-is it the underlying operating system, the form factor, perhaps you want a specific carrier or the flip side of that, are seeking to avoid a specific carrier.

For those looking for a strong gaming experience then PlayStation manufacturer Sony along with joint partner Ericsson might have just the product for you, the Xperia Play. The product is designed to appeal specifically to gamers seeking a solution that enables portable play that mirrors, more or less, their home console experience coupled with all of the features of a more traditional smartphone.

Powered by the Android operating system the Xperia Play design features a panel that slides out from under the keyboard. The panel contains a layout that is pretty familiar to gamers, with directional buttons on the left and the usual four PlayStation buttons that have the triangle on the right. An extended section in the middle features a pair of pressure sensitive plates that operate as the device’s two joysticks. The phone is capable of playing both PlayStation-specific games as well as more traditional games that cell phone users have become accustomed to playing.

It will ship with seven preloaded games, one of great interest to sports fans — EA Sports’ Madden NFL 11 — including one of the oldie but goodie PlayStation program, Crash Bandicoot. More titles are available at Verizon’s VCast store, but ones written specifically for the PlayStation settings are still very limited.

While the play is obviously for the serious gamer that might not want to carry multiple devices it is easy to see how this might appeal to a less hard core crowd. While some smartphone users are satisfied with a level of simplification for their gaming use, it is nice to have something that is a step up in degree of difficulty. However for sports fans looking for popular games, theer looks to be an iitial shortage in the near term if you want apps that are tailored to the devices advanced gfeatures, but expect that to change as developers get moving.

The Play is powered by a Qualcomm 1GHz Snapdragon II processor with an Adreno 205 graphics processor. It has a 4-inch multi-touch display as well as forward and reward facing cameras. The Sony Ericsson Play started hitting stores at the end of May and is available for $199.99 with a two year plan with Verizon Wireless as well as a smartphone data package.

Filed Under: Android, Apps, NFL Tagged With: ,

Review: ESPN Enhances ESPN Radio App

May 10, 2011 by

I do not know why, but it had never occurred to me to load a sports radio program into my iPhone. Now I actually have several radio apps, all part of my iTunes package, but I do not listen to them as I have so much music also loaded on the phone. I guess sports radio to me is something I listen to my car or at my desk, since both environments that are better suited for different broadcast modes.

However I noticed that ESPN has released a new version of its iPhone radio app, namely ESPN Radio 3.0, technically it is v3.2.106, and so I decided to kick the tires, so to speak. Oddly enough getting to the app was not quite as easy as most, probably because of the roundabout method I followed. My iTunes app was set for search when I opened it so all I did was type in ESPN Radio. Unfortunately it gave me dozens of ESPN podcasts. So I typed in ESPN Radio 3.0 and I got an ESPN FIFA app. When I used my computer I found it instantly.

The $2.99 app has some specific target markets, and I noticed in the comments sections people complained about not getting a variety of live game broadcasts, however it should be noted that while it does provide some live sports action, it is very focused.

The program, good for both iPhones and iPod Touch devices provides a variety of streaming radio from over two dozen ESPN affiliated stations around the nation as well as ESPN Deportes and ESPN Radio Network feeds. Also included is 35 different ESPN podcasts. (There are also versions of the app for Android phones and BlackBerry devices; didn’t try them but guessing they have similar capabilities.)

Several areas stand out to me from the app including the live radio programming carrying ESPN standards such as Mike & Mike in the Morning, The Heard with Colin Cowherd, The Scott Van Pelt Show and others. Another is that it will carry live all of the college football games that ESPN broadcasts, something that I could not test at this time.

Other features include up to the minute scores and the ability to text message and call-in directly to ESPN Radio and ESPN affiliate station. The app includes a nice degree of customization including adding favorite stations and programs and a feature called myESPN that provides what ESPN calls customized audio of your selected teams which will be pulled into the app and it has searchable audio for specific clips broken down by a variety of categories including team and player.

It has the ability to run in the background so that you can use your iPhone for other tasks, but a volume control would be appreciated. I found that the radio shows and podcasts were easy to find and run. I did not encounter any breakups or dropping of programs when I tested the app but I am sure that it happens since it also happens with calls and other apps I have used in the past that require live streaming.

The app seems best suited for a variety of fans including those who want to listen to a different city’s sports radio and ones that want to hear a specific football game that is on the air, but possibly not in their area or they cannot get to the television to watch.

On a side note for fans of ESPN’s various radio programs it looks like both Mike Greenberg of the Mike and Mike show could be getting his own sitcom based on his book “My Wife Thinks I’m an Idiot,” which will give two ESPN personalities shows, as Colin Cowherd also has one in the works.

Filed Under: Android, Apps, ESPN, iPhone Tagged With:

BlackBerry Sports Fans Finally Get a Pad: The PlayBook

April 19, 2011 by

Blackberry users hoping to get a tablet of their own have finally had their patience rewarded as Research-in-Motion (RIM) has debuted the PlayBook tablet, its offering in the increasingly competitive tablet space. The question facing the company and its users is if the PlayBook is too little, too late?

RIM used to be the king of the mobile-device hill with a market share that was the envy of the industry. But that is all past history, even if it is recent history, and its market share has been in freefall for the last year as first Apple’s iOS and then Android have seriously eroded its cache and more importantly its market share.

The company now seeks to roll back those market losses with the PlayBook tablet. It compares favorable in many ways not only with Apple’s offerings but also from the growing host of Android tablets. Powered by an operating system that was developed in-house for the device, it will come in three basic flavors, all with Wi-Fi, but no cellular at this point.

The PlayBook’s screen measures 7 inches diagonally and includes both front and back cameras. The entry-level model is priced at $499 and will come with 16GB of memory. The $599 model will ship with 32GB of memory and the $699 version will include 64 GB. Cellular access for the device is expected to be available this summer when Sprint starts offering connections.

For BlackBerry smartphone users, cellular can be at hand right now by using a Bluetooth connection between the tablet and the phone, providing access to all of the phone’s diverse capabilities and features including calendar, tasks and documents. For heavy BlackBerry users who want a pad interface the phone is a must since these features are not native on the tablet for some reason. There are reports that AT&T is blocking the tethering feature between AT&T Blackberry smartphones and the PlayBook, a major issue for users that seek a synchronized platform. However this could be only a short term issue.

A bigger issue is that there is currently a very limited number of apps available for the tablet, roughly 3,000. This pales in comparison to the Android and Apple app space which have hundreds of thousands of apps, although not all are optimized for their tablets. However it is expected that the PlayBook will be able to run Android apps later this year.

BlackBerry development has appeared to be almost an afterthought for many app developers, as highlighted by MLB At Bat 11 which offers the least features for a BlackBerry smartphone. The hope for sports fans is that by now having a bigger screen available, BlackBerry platforms will get more developer love.

Filed Under: Android, Apps, BlackBerry, iPad, Sprint, Top News Tagged With: , , ,

Pad Sales Look to Bloom in the Future, Thanks to Sports

April 13, 2011 by

So you are debating purchasing a pad, but are concerned with getting burned if it turns out to be a fad. In the past tablets have had a less than stellar history, with a number of major flops after the prerequisite hype predicted them as the wave of the future. So will this time be any different?

The availability of mobile sports, of course, may tip the balance toward the the tablet this time around. Watching a sporting event on a smartphone is nice but it leaves something to be desired — image size for instance. A growing number of sports outlets including Major League Baseball and ESPN offer live content that is optimized for a pad.

This is not just the past revisited in the pad or tablet space. In the past there was little in the way of operating systems optimized for the form factor, so software developers saw no reason to write for the various platforms. And the chips just did not have the power needed to provide the level of processing capabilities needed to drive acceptable video or animation. This is no longer true and you can thank the previous generations of smartphones for paving the way.

Apple’s iPad will be the leader of the pack in the near term

Market research firm Gartner http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1626414 has some pretty bold predictions about this field including that Apple’s iPad will dominate until at least 2015, holding off a strong push by Android developers. This is the reverse of its prediction in the smartphone field where the research company says that Android-based smartphones will dominate by the end of this year.

Overall numbers are expected to grow from approximately 69.8 million units sold worldwide this year to 250 million by 2015. Apple’s share of that is expected to be strong, but decline every year, dropping from an estimated 63.5% market share this year to 47.1% in 2015 while Android will grow from 24.4% now to 38.6% in 2015. The overall richness of the ecosystem such as a host of developers and on the Android side a number of different hardware developers will be major contributors to this growth.

If you are a fan of other operating systems such as Blackberry’s QNX, you are pretty much out of luck in the near term as it will be wallowing in the single digit market share space, along with Hewlett-Packard’s WebOS, which it gained in the Palm acquisition or the open source Linux offering MeeGo. What the smaller market means is less developer interest, so probably fewer new apps or services tailored for those types of pads.

With the growth of these platforms expect more tie-ins with both live TV broadcasts and customized information for pad users as sports franchises, leagues and broadcasters seek to exploit this emerging space.

Filed Under: Android, Apps, iPad, Tablets, Top News Tagged With: , , , ,

Apple Customers Get Best View of Masters Golf Online

April 7, 2011 by

If you are a golf fan with an iPhone or iPad, you already have a two-shot lead even before this year’s Masters Tournament kicks off on April 7. That’s because the tourney is tilted in favor of Apple devices for non-TV viewing, especially for iPad owners who will have access to a wide array of features including nine live channels via a $1.99 app, as well as “the only digital live simulcast” of CBS’s weekend coverage.

While Android device owners won’t completely miss the cut, the free official Masters Android app for non-Apple devices will only provide live scoring and radio coverage, with video available only as highlights. (A version downloaded Wednesday night to a Samsung Epic 4G from Sprint also seemed to have issues with it not being able to increase text size.)

Golf fans with iPhones, however, will have access to five live video channels on their free app, an edge that could allow iPhone users to multitask (say, at your kid’s soccer game) on Sunday and not miss any live coverage of a potentially exciting finish.

Though many fans will no doubt be glued to the TV set (since the Masters has only a couple commercials each hour it remains one of the most pure sport-watching experiences) there will likely be many more viewers watching via their PCs, thanks to the beefed-up feature set found at the Masters.com site. One of the first big events to truly embrace the Internet, the Masters in 2011 will add the following online features, according to the tournament press release:

· Eight live video channels, all available in HD-quality

· DVR functionality that allows users to rewind to key moments during live action

· Exclusive live scoring with integrated leader board highlights

· The Internet’s only live, 3D video stream for users with 3D-capable computers

If you are watching via the iPad, you probably want to make sure you are doing so via a Wi-Fi connection, since extended video viewing via a 3G link could potentially burn through your monthly data download limit. But we are guessing there will be many golfing fans with both TVs and tablets ablaze during the tournament, as the multi-screen experience allows for Masters saturation far away from the hallowed fairways of Augusta.

Filed Under: Android, Golf, iPad, iPhone, The Masters, Top News Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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