Major League Baseball’s (MLB) At Bat is one of my favorite iOS apps (I first wrote about At Bat for TUAW in 2008). During the regular season, it provides real-time stats, play-by-play action, video, news and so much more. Now that the 2010 season is over, At Bat for iPad has transformed into a wonderful news reader.
The current layout presents 7 pages of news stories from around Major League Baseball, with anywhere from 2 to 8 stories per page. Every club is represented and nearly every article is accompanied by a video.
The UI is simple and clear. With black (resizable) text on a white background, it feels like a newspaper sports section. Tap any article to bring it to the front and you’ll find a button to share via email, a preview of the next and previous article plus dots that indicate an article’s length. The videos look great, especially when viewed in full screen, and load quickly over Wi-Fi. As of this writing there are Mastercard ads but they’re completely unobtrusive.
Kudos to the Major League Baseball Advanced Media team. They obviously understand what iPad-wielding fans want and continue to deliver a stellar experience. This is the first time I’ve kept At Bat after the season has ended.
Check out the gallery of screenshots below.
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