by Jason Snell
PSA: The MLB app doesn’t work on the Mac anymore
A few years back I reported with delight that you could now use the MLB iPad app on Apple Silicon macs. While MLB’s TV streaming service works on the web, it was nice to have everything in a separate app.
Welp.
It’s the opening week of the baseball season, which has often meant an opportunity for me to praise MLB’s apps, which were among the very best in the earlier days of iOS. Unfortunately, the MLB Vision Pro app is a mess. And now it is my sad duty to also report that, just in time for Opening Day, the MLB iPad app now crashes on launch on macOS.
I hate being hard on MLB, given its rich history of supporting Apple’s platforms. But here’s the truth: Major League Baseball got $3.8 billion by selling its tech arm to Disney.
I have no inside information about what happened as a result of that transaction, but MLB’s apps have gone from being stalwarts to being big messes. I guess they took the $3.8 billion and ran?
I haven’t even mentioned (until now!) the disastrous 2017 demo where MLB announced (and kinda, sorta demoes) an AR-based iPad ballpark app with functionality that basically never shipped. (At least I got to meet one of my favorite sportswriters, Grant Brisbee, and watch a Giants game from a luxury box.)
There’s a lot of great work going on at MLB. Statcast is amazing; the data feeding the wonky 3-D field in the Vision Pro app is spectacular; its Baseball Savant pages are just staggeringly good.
I just wish the apps would get their groove back.