MLS Matchday 2010
Huzzah, a mobile strategy presents itself!
Initial impressions?
Looks pretty slick, though I'm not enamored of the "scarf-ish" logos in the MatchDay section...
and the stats don't seem to be up to date, viz...
vs. MLSSoccer.com's
Shouldn't these be polling the same data?
The ability to choose "My Club" to get a specific tab for your team is nice...
...though having it default to playing a "team chant" when the app opens is annoying (and shouldn't the color behind the logo at the top be black?). Fortunately, you can turn the chanting off (no such luck with color preference ;-) in the options, where you also control what gets pushed to you from MatchDay...
Hmmm. Who's this defender "-" on our roster? The mythical Mivdun? And...Josh Wicks? Really? Lyle Adams? Hmmm.
The "Videos" tab is a nice option and I haven't (yet!) seen any annoying Fifa 11 ads in the highlights, though the video doesn't follow screen orientation, meaning it's locked in the rather tiny portrait mode [UPDATE: Don't know why this wasn't working on my initial test, but it seems to behave as expected (rotating with the device and filing the screen) on second launch].
Actually, backing out now, that's an app-wide complaint. We're fixed to portrait mode. Given that this is a 1.0 release, I'm sure we'll get incremental improvements. [UPDATE: Or before. As I mentioned earlier, the videos rotate with orientation changes. Also, I noticed when using the MatchDay tab tonight that rotating brings up a Google map of the stadium and some rudimentary shot/goal tracking on the virtual pitch.] I'll test out the "MatchDay" experience tonight (it promises highlights soon after the fact and push notifications for goals, cards, subs, etc.)
The app is iOS only, so Android users are out of luck (as are Blackberry / Symbian / Windows Phone folks, I suppose), and is only in iPhone/iPod touch format for now, so iPad folks will have to do the ugly 2x dance. It's also free, which is a price that's hard to beat.
The biggest thing missing here is obviously integration with the MatchDay Live service, meaning no full matches (or even their horribly put together "condensed" matches--seriously, can't you hire one of those guys from the MaXxed forums?) on mobile for subscribers. Baby steps, I suppose. Also, what's with putting the year in the app title? I guess the implication is that the app will grow year upon year, adding features, etc. Still seems strange though, as does the MatchDay moniker if MatchDay is only one tab in the application, but I suppose it has to have a name beyond "the MLS app," and MatchDay could be worse.
No comments:
Post a Comment