If you are a Major League Baseball fan you may be holding out hope that MLB will expand its popular app that lets you get details on games to more Android handsets. As it stands, the app only supports 11 different Android smartphones. That number is up for six supported smartphones at the launch of the app. AllThingsD has spoken with Bob Bowman, the man behind the advanced media offerings for MLB.
Bowman was asked about previous complaints of having to support multiple flavors of Android with its app and was asked if he ever considered not supporting Android at all. Bowman replied with the short answer of no. However, he notes that MLB has no plans to support all flavors of Android because of “diminishing returns.”
Bowman also makes a note that some might find interesting or perhaps bothersome. According to Bowman Android users are less likely to buy than iPhone and iPad users making the typical Android user worth less to the company than Apple users. Bowman says that while Android devices are great phones, “But if you really want first rate digital content on a device, your first look will probably be an iPhone. And on the tablet, an iPad.” He notes that the app will likely support the RIM Playbook.
[via AllThingsD]
They are missing the boat entirely by not supporting the Dell tablet line.
Well, Android users are as likely to buy if you offer as good of an experience as you do to iUsers. Last year, MLB At Bat 2010 on the iProducts had live video of one game per day. The Android version didn’t for 162 games; by the playoffs, they did add it, but not for all devices. Yet the price of the app was the same.
I bought the app last year, and I bought this year’s version as soon as it hit the market. If I had a high-powered Android device that wasn’t supported, I’d be pissed. Because there’s no reason why it shouldn’t be (runs great, including live video, on my OG Droid running CM7, mildly overclocked to 800mHz).
Anyone who thinks there’s some magical difference in extracting funds from Android users versus iPhone users is either an ignorant dope or an Apple-enraptured bigot.
Anyone who thinks there’s some magical difference in extracting funds from Android users versus iPhone users is either an ignorant dope or an Apple-enraptured bigot.