You are here: Home / Archives for Apps

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: ,

Score Media Beefs Up to Battle ESPN, Yahoo

May 12, 2011 by

Canadian Benjie Levy is committed to giving mobile sports consumers in North America choice.  Chief operating officer and executive vice president of Score Media, Levy was the driver behind his company’s May 12 deal to acquire SportsTap.

The SportsTap acquisition means Score Media has the third largest U.S. audience of sports consumers on smartphone sports applications, trailing only Goliaths ESPN and Yahoo.  

A corporate challenger speaks

In a statement, Levy said, “ScoreMobile’s acquisition of SportsTap brings together two innovative and popular services and positions us well to deliver even more exciting experiences for sports fans and creative solutions for our advertising partners.”

Two mobile sports application worth a look

Launched in 2007, SportsTap is available free through iPhone App Store and Android Market for free. Providing real-time NFL, Major League Baseball, NBA, NHL, NCAA, NASCAR, Futbol, Golf and Tennis scores, SportsTap includes drill downs to stats, player news and top stories. The app has automatic refreshes, and is an excellent choice for the mobile sports viewer on a budget.

Terms of the SportsTap acquisition were not disclosed, but ScoreMobile said it would operate SportsTap as a stand-alone company. Based in Toronto, Score Media operates The Score.  A more robust application that includes a strong take on sports news and video, The Score is a portal for sports fans with a strong take. For example, The Score featured May 22 an excellent blog post and video about James Hardin’s flop against the Dallas Mavericks that most mobile sports viewers would consider a value-add to their sports knowledge.

Competition guards again mobile sports monopolies

Score Media’s acquisition of SportsTap is significant because it means not all companies are willing to cede the mobile sports application market to ESPN and Yahoo. If Score Media or others are able to retain enough consumers to woo big-budget advertisers and sponsors, it will likely be able to forge into live video broadcast. In turn, that would break ESPN’s potential stranglehold on live sports via mobile devices, and a charge-what-it-wants mentality. Consumers would benefit. 

Is Levy an emerging industry’s Ted Turner?

With its bold move to acquire SpartsTap, ScoreMedia bears close watching, and prime placement on the menu of your mobile device. That is, unless you don’t believe consumers gained when Ted Turner acquired the Atlanta Braves and created a super station in the early days of cable.

Filed Under: Apps, Benjie Levy, ESPN, ScoreMobile, SportsTap, Yahoo 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:

NFL Seeks More Dollars for Mobile Access

May 2, 2011 by

There’s a big battle brewing in the professional football world but it has nothing to do with players and owners. Instead, it’s all about figuring out who pays how much to let mobile consumers watch football games on their new powerful portable devices, like the iPad or Android-based tablets.

A report today in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) says the NFL and its NFL Network is “in talks” with pay-TV operators in an attempt to find a way to allow mobile customers more ways to watch America’s favorite sport. The money line (literally) from the story is an easy one to understand: Basically, the NFL wants more dough for mobile access.

The NFL is seeking extra fees from those carriers to expand their offerings to tablets and computers, a person familiar with the matter said.

It should be an interesting dance to watch this summer, as the various cable, satellite and cellular “partners” of the NFL try to give their users what they want without giving too much back to the league. For many customers, the idea of paying anything more for mobile access seems a bit absurd, given the high fees for cable or satellite access already being paid. It will be interesting also to see if there is a resurgence in use of the Slingbox, the device that truly lets you see what you already paid for, wherever you want it.

Hidden in the back of all these discussions will be the fees that mobile operators are sure to charge their customers for the cellular airtime needed to watch live NFL action. Stay tuned here at Mobile Sports Report as we will endeavor to cover as much of this topic as we possibly can, to help guide you to the most economical way to get access to all the mobile action your devices can handle.

Filed Under: Apps, NFL, Tablets, Top News

NBA Pushes to Become Pro Sports Online/Smart Phone Kingpin

May 1, 2011 by

2009-2010 online and smart phone programming a drop in the bucket compared to 2010-2011 results

Online and mobile programming is packing the wallop of a Blake Griffin monster jam for the National Basketball Association (NBA), as traffic surged 69 percent during the first week of the 2011 NBA Playoffs, according to a report in the trade publication broadcastingcable.com.

The spike in professional hoops traffic includes more than 7 million users visiting the standard NBA.com online portal, as well as downloads of NBA Game Time applications for mobile devices increasing 86 percent during week No. 1 of the playoffs.

A jaw-dropping number in the early traffic is the 114 million videos viewed on NBA.com, which is a 93 percent increase from the like period a year ago. The huge spike is consistent with spikes experienced during the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship, and indicates that fewer consumers than ever tie themselves down to coaxial cable or satellite dish to watch premier sports events.  

The 2011 NBA Playoffs builds on The Association’s best year in online and mobile sports programming to date. More than 1.9 billion videos were viewed on NBA.com during the season, according to NBA spokesman John Acunto in a Los Angeles Times report.

In response to rising online and smart phone demand, the NBA is stepping up social networking efforts. The NBA’s Facebook love has swelled to 8.2 million from 2 million last year. Combined with Twitter, it is estimated 100 million people regularly follow the happenings of the NBA on computers or smart phones today.

Filed Under: Apps, NBA

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: , , ,
« Previous Page
Next Page »