At Bat upgrade

I’ve already mentioned the At Bat app, though MLB has upgraded their app again. I have already mentioned earlier that I am not disappointed with their upgrades. Indeed, this is the case.

While this upgrade includes support for the All Star game happening tonight, there is another feature added to the app to my knowledge. (Remember, I have an iPhone, and cannot say this is the same in the Android, Blackberry or even iPad versions.) The new “At the park” feature is now active. The menu option was removed when the regular season started, but was reinstated with the 1.2.0 upgrade. I’ll present the screenshots from my iPhone here:

The list of all the MLB parks here

This screen shows you the list of ball parks in MLB. It also shows you the nearest ballpark(s). In my case, Coors Field is 4.3 miles as the crow flies from my house. Clicking on one of these parks (Coors Field as an example) will present this screen:

Here is my ballpark

This tells you simply the location of the park.
Note the “Check In to Game” button. It’s grayed out as there is no game. What I understand is that this button activates 2h prior to the game. Once you click on this, you get to see ballpark maps, seating location/concession stands, and even access to exclusive MLB in-park cameras. Don’t know if there is a distance factor here if this button unlocks. But you can test this as early as tonight’s All Star game.
The Twitter button is also interesting. Click on this and you see this screen:

MLB's twitter client, for the team

(This is a 1.2.0 screen. Updated to say “Tweets about Rockies” instead of “Tweets containing #Rockies”)
This is another Twitter app built in to At Bat. If you have a twitter account, you can easily log in to see replies to you and tweet along. You don’t need a twitter account to see any comments related to the team you’re viewing.* This client is very basic, but it works to my knowledge. I have had limited testing with this, but I can point out the features here:

• To view replies, you do need to give MLB At Bat connection permissions. I don’t see this as a problem.
• The Replies button will search for posts mentioning your username (in my case @druidloveRox). This may mean you will miss some people who have their tweets private, as the search will not pick them up.
• An interesting quirk: Some teams tweets may not be picked up properly. For example, Arizona will use the tag #D-backs (which breaks rules on conventional hashtags not using special characters) and Red Sox will not pick up tags with #redsox in it.  What about the White Sox?
• The compose screen shows a huge character remaining count (Twitter has a 140 character limit), but is very basic. If you want to contribute to the Rockies, you must manually add the tag #rockies to your tweet
• I’m too used to Tweetie (now Twitter for iPhone), but there is no easy way to reply, retweet, or DM people. You need to manually add the @ or d username in your tweet.
• Clicking on Angel stadium yesterday or today said “Tweets about the 2010 All-Star Game”. At least it’s aware of current events.
• The minimum you can update is every minute. The Updated line will change based on last update, and you can click here after 1 minute to update tweets.

This won’t replace your client (in my case Tweetie), but if you want a quick update during the game on Twitter without leaving At Bat, it’s always a plus.

Overall, if you have the At Bat app on iPhone/iPod Touch, I recommend the upgrade. If you’re on iPad or other smartphones (Android, Blackberry), check if you have the newest version. I cannot verify all features are included, though I can guess it would. If you do not have At Bat, why are you waiting? Get it!

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