UPDATE 2/28/12: Macworld just put up a post about the app: MLB.com At Bat warms up for 2012 season.
UPDATE 2/29/12: The MLB.com At Bat ’12 app is out! Take a look!
I was looking for more info on MLB.com At Bat ’12 app and how much it will cost to use as just a way to watch the Gameday (pitch tracking, box scores, etc..) stuff that they did last season. I came across a PDF document at “mlb.custhelp.com”. It describes how the new app will work and how the in-app purchases will work on iOS and Android as well as how the app will work on Windows Phone 7.
Here is the text from the iOS section of the document:
Key Features:
- At Bat 12 will be a universal application for the 2012 season. This means the same application will contain the iPhone and iPad experience.
- At Bat 12 will be free to download. Customers will have the option between a $2.99 monthly subscription and $14.99 season pass. These purchase options will be supported via ‘in-app purchase’, and will be charged against the customer’s iTunes account.
- At Bat 12 premium features include Gameday Audio (home/away), Gameday, real time highlights, Notifications, and 1 Free MLB.TV game of the day.
- At Bat 12 standard/free features include scores, news, standings.
- An existing MLB.TV Premium customer will have access to all At Bat features upon login. MLB.TV Standard customers will have to purchase the At Bat features via in-app purchase.
- Customer will also have the ability to purchase MLB.TV monthly subscription from the Apple At Bat 12 application via in-app purchase for $24.99/Monthly. After purchase, customer can link this subscription to his account to use on
- The customer has the ability to link the MLB.TV monthly subscription to an MLB.com account and leverage across the wired web or on Android devices.
Price Point:
- At Bat 12 In-app purchase: $14.99/Season or $2.99/Monthly
- MLB.TV Monthly In-app purchase: $24.99
Supported Devices:
- Tentatively scheduled to support devices (ipad, iphone, ipod touch) on OS 4.0 and up.
- Note: iPhone is now supported on Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint.
My take on all that is that the “Free” Universal app coming out on the 29th will only give you game scores, news and standings. That’s it. No Gameday (pitch tracking, box scores, etc..), no highlights, etc… Just the bare minimum.
If you want more, you pay $2.99 a month (8 months, March through October) or $14.99 for the whole season.
The next page of the PDF kind of shows this with the screenshots:
Purchase Screen:
Selected:
Detail:
The Detail screen above shows what you get when you pay the $2.99 a month or $14.99 season price. It shows that you get the game audio, Gameday, Highlights, etc…
So, MLB.com At Bat ’12 will still cost us $15 for the season if we want it to work the way it did last season. Otherwise your getting a very basic view of the games, news, and standings. That might be fine for most people, but we buy MLB.com At Bat for the Gameday info and the audio.
Dave M.
February 29th, 2012 at 9:24 am
Hey ! If we buy the $15 subscription for the year, does it give us gameday audio on the website mlb.com as well ? Or vice versa? if we buy it on the website? do we get it in at bat 12? Thanks
February 29th, 2012 at 9:36 am
Good question! MLB.com gives you the ability to purchase Gameday audio on their website. It costs $19.95 as opposed to the $14.99 in the in-app purchase.
I don’t see how MLB.com would know that you did the in-app purchase and give you the ability to link that with the website.
So my guess is that if you buy inside the app, you don’t get audio on the website, but if you buy from MLB.com, you get both the app and website after you link the app to your website subscription.
February 29th, 2012 at 9:38 am
yeah sounds about right ! maybe when you buy the 15$ in app you get to create a mlb account as well. not sure. but yeah ..you probably need to buy it on the website and then it unlocks in at bat with login.
February 29th, 2012 at 10:07 am
By the way, the app is out now in case you want to get started.
It’s funny, I am pretty sure I was able to listen to Gameday audio last season. But I didn’t subscribe via the website. I just purchased the apps. So, I just can’t say if I am actually remembering listening to a game on the website or if I just used the apps.
March 11th, 2012 at 2:34 pm
The one question I can’t find an answer to is that are we atbat12 subscribers still going to get access to the archive games 90 minutes after the game? I purchased the 14.95 plan thinking it would be the same as last year. The archive games were the best part because who can listen or see the games at the regular times anyways with our busy lives?
My time was around 11 pm to 1 am.
Can you by chance confirm if we’ll have archive game access after 90 minutes past the ending of the game like last year on our 15 dollar plan?
Thanks!
If not, how can i get my money back?
March 11th, 2012 at 6:55 pm
As far as I know, you will be able to access the archived games after 90 minutes like last time. There was nothing to indicate that they had changed that feature.
March 12th, 2012 at 6:19 pm
That would be awesome, it doesn’t make sense to take away parts of a subscription year after year. I for one, hope that’s the case. Thanks!
March 27th, 2012 at 2:41 pm
Anyone know if Airplay works on this app? I’d love to be able to push the Game of the Day onto my HDTV via Apple TV.
March 27th, 2012 at 5:24 pm
I’ve been able to get the highlights to work in AirPlay. I haven’t had a chance to try any live games or the shortened games (if they have any of those in Spring Training).
March 28th, 2012 at 9:48 am
Thanks, Dave! Can you update when you test out a game? (i.e. can you please wake up at 3:30am tonight to test it out, kthxbye!)
March 28th, 2012 at 11:21 am
There is a “free” video game today at 12:05pm CST I can try it out with. I’ll try it out and report back in the comments.
My guess is that it will work. Seeing as how for just a few dollars more a season, you get the service that you can use to log into MLB.TV’s entry on an AppleTV or Playstation 3 or any of the other means that MLB.TV gives it subscribers to watch.
March 28th, 2012 at 12:07 pm
Ah – now I just want to clarify. You’re watching a game via At Bat on your iPhone/iPad, and sending it to your Apple TV via AirPlay, right? Because I don’t have an MLB.tv account (and don’t really have the extra $115 for it). (And I’m guessing you have the upgraded At Bat account because you yourself ARE an MLB.tv subscriber, right?)
March 28th, 2012 at 12:15 pm
No, I’m not a subscriber to MLB.TV. I just bought the Audio subscription for $14.99 for the season. I don’t have the money for the subscription either and am not willing to pay that for only 82 games since home games would be blacked-out. If my team wasn’t blacked-out, I might consider it since I wouldn’t live in the city they play in. My wife has that situation. However, she doesn’t care to watch every game. She prefers to listen.
The annoying thing about the new MLB.com At Bat is that it is iOS 5.0 and up. She has an iPhone 3G and can’t use the new MLB.com At Bat app on her phone. Fortunately, she’s going to be getting a “hand me down” iPad from her parents soon so that won’t be an issue either.
I am going to test it with an iPad sent to the AppleTV via AirPlay.
March 28th, 2012 at 12:20 pm
Awesome, that’s perfect. I think you and I are the only people in the world with both At Bat, an Apple TV and access to the internet, according to some extensive online research. Thanks again!
March 28th, 2012 at 7:22 pm
Not entirely.
A friend of mine in Texas also has all those things and even has the MLB.TV subscription.
I attempted to watch a free game today, but I couldn’t get the video to stream to the AppleTV. The option was there on both the iPhone and iPad versions, so it’s possible that I was just having issues here. Hopefully it will work so that I’ll be able to watch the occasional game that MLB deems to give us for free.
March 30th, 2012 at 8:03 am
Same thing happened to me last night. The option to push it to Airplay was there, but it just hung on the spinning disc. Highlights worked fine – but the live game did not work.
April 6th, 2012 at 8:26 pm
So it seems that those with the 15 dollar sub don’t get archive anymore, that stinks, anyone confirm?
April 6th, 2012 at 11:27 pm
I’m not sure what you mean by “Archive”, but I find all the finished games have “condensed” footage. I don’t remember having access to any other footage after a game. I certainly don’t remember being able to watch an entire game after it was over.
April 7th, 2012 at 12:41 am
You may not remember it but it’s true and I spent many hours watching whole games throughout the day and night.
I even have the proof on the previous and current ads for mlb. We are supposed to get full archived games 90 minutes after they end to watch whenever we please.
I wonder what happened to this lovely feature. So far, I still can’t watch games that have ended on the iphone or ipad.
Here’s the proof from the ads themselves:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/33425239@N04/7052723545/in/photostream
3 pictures, 1 of mlb12 and 2 of mlb11.
Is there anything you can do to help find out why we can’t access these games anymore?
April 7th, 2012 at 2:23 am
I attempted to watch the archived video footage on my iPhone. I was sent to the page that lets you purchase the In-App Subscription for MLB.TV. There is an info button in the upper-right corner, and when tapped, you are taken to a web page describing what features you get for the “Lite” version, the $14.99 version and the MLB.TV subscription features.
I captured the screen and added to my Flickr account. Here is the link to that screen capture: http://flic.kr/p/bKeFHR
The $14.99 features include the “Condensed game videos”, but not the full game archives. It’s interesting that the screen grab for 12 you have shows that you can get both the 2011 and 2012 games where the info I found only shows you can get the games from the 2012 season.
All I can say is that they must have changed their minds as to what to offer with the $14.99 version of the app. It’s clear in both the screen grab that I took and the FAQ on the sales page for the mobile apps that they don’t offer Archived game video for the $14.99 version, but only with the MLB.TV subscription.
To be honest, I personally wouldn’t watch those archived videos since I already know the score. The condensed version would be more than adequate since they are approximately 20 minutes instead of 90.
I understand that this is now what you want and I would suggest calling their customer support to let them know how you feel about this. You might be able to get your money back for the app. If not from MLB, you might be able to get Apple to refund your In-App Purchase since their sales pitch falsely claims that you get the archived footage.
April 7th, 2012 at 10:02 am
Thanks Dave for checking that out, I saw those screens as well but since the actual screens that I took on Mlb.com say otherwise, I didn’t know which one took precedence …
Although it’s true condensed games are nice, there’s no commentary on those videos which I do enjoy. Although the score is known, I had a lot of fun going to the highpoints or even watching the slow innings to get the announcers take on the players and teams as well as thinking about what the coaches might call for in upcoming innings to battle the next guys coming up.
I love baseball for the logic / thinking / and sometimes illogical moves made
I lose the connections with the condensed game …
Oh, I just noticed something on your pic as well, it’s the old description. It still has a * for “limited during spring training.”
The pages I took from MLB.com said the same thing until this week when they were updated for the regular season. Then the descriptions were changed and “archive games” added.
I distinctly remember thinking on the mlb site, “Oh darn, with this description (limited during spring training), I’ll have to wait until the regular season to find out if i get archive games.” This has been on my mind a lot.
Living out of state, I do like to listen to the games when I can, and the condensed game might have to do for now … but I’ll consult apple too. I believe a great deal of value was taken away from the 15 dollar plan without the archive games.
Especially since you can tell, I love that part so much!
It’s a shame, but thanks as well for allowing the dialogue about the archive games here. I appreciate it !
April 7th, 2012 at 1:33 pm
Unfortunately, that page I took a screenshot from comes straight from MLB.com’s Mobile page on the web. Not stored in the MLB.com At Bat app. Here’s the link:
http://wap.mlb.com/atbat/iphone/faq/?y=2012
You can get to that page from this one:
http://mlb.mlb.com/mobile/atbat/index.jsp?c_id=mlb
It is unfortunate since if the archived games were in the 2011 version of the app, they did take out a very nice part of the $14.99 experience.
I do understand your take on watching the video.
Dialogue is what blogs are all about. At least my blog. I really don’t understand some blogs not wanting comments on their posts. All I can figure is that they get so much traffic that they get overwhelmed with spammers and haters.
Thank YOU so much for your comments and YOUR dialogue!
April 24th, 2012 at 8:46 pm
Is there anyway to change the notification tone for the IPhone? Its the same exact tone as the default text tone and its getting really annoying.
April 25th, 2012 at 11:08 am
There isn’t a way to change the notification tone of the iPhone without jailbreaking the iPhone. You can change the ringtone of SMS Text messages.
If you enter Settings->Sounds, you will see Text Tone. This is the setting that will change the “default” text message ringtone.
I’m pretty sure that setting has been available since iOS 4.x, so unless you are sporting an original iPhone, you will find that setting.
Let me know if I can help out any further.