I’ll just start off by saying that I am a HUGE sports fan, and that the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament is decidedly my favorite single sporting event. I am originally from Memphis, TN, and live in the area now, so I have grown up watching and cheering for the Memphis Tigers in the tournament at different times over the years, especially the last few years where they have had a lot of success. Being a long-time college basketball and tournament fan, I have been a big supporter of the NCAA and CBS’s embrace of the Internet and streaming video over the past few years.
CBS partnered with others for paid versions of On Demand from 2003-2005, but took the step to make the service freely available in 2006. It has been a huge hit since that time, especially with those who are working in an office during the Thursday and Friday afternoons of the tournament’s first round. Also, prior to the changes in the TV contract that take effect this year that insure every game is televised live, On Demand was indispensable as a free way to watch multiple games at the same time. Being a heavy user since 2006, I can attest to the fact that On Demand has gotten better and more feature-rich every year since.
Being the huge March Madness fan that I am, I was one of the people who paid $9.99 for the March Madness On Demand app for the iPhone last year. I was traveling for work through the first two rounds of the tournament, so it was worth every penny for me to be able to keep up with what was going on, even while driving through rural areas with Edge Internet signal.
One of my favorite features of last year’s app was the ability to switch over to the Westwood One radio broadcast when my signal was low strength 3G or Edge. The Video feed would automatically drop down to audio only if the Internet speed was not sufficient, but as anyone who knows their sports can tell you, listening to a TV broadcast crew is very different than a radio crew. The radio guys are calling the game knowing that you can’t see what is going on, where the TV guys are trained to just fill in the gaps with additional information for those who can. It is a big, big difference, and that was a great feature.
When I heard that the March Madness On Demand app would not only be available this year as a universal app for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch, but also would be free, I was really excited. I downloaded it after picking up my new iPad 2 on Friday and took a quick look around.
It has a lot of handy features, such as full tournament schedules with your local channel numbers for each game included, integrated brackets and bracket challenge (which is already closed since the tournament has now started), social integrations with Facebook and Twitter, and even an integrated social arena that combines a lot of the talk about teams and games in one place.
On top of these extra features, we also have the expected Live Video, Highlights, Box Score, and Team Leaders that make up the meat of the app.
As compelling as the extra features are, it is the live streaming that will make or break this app. With that in mind, I took On Demand for a spin for the first time last night during the newly christened First Four games. When our DVR started its countdown to switch to another show for recording in the middle of the second half, I picked up my iPad and started the app. When I clicked the UNC-Asheville vs UA-Little Rock game on the schedule and then Watch Now, I was prompted to give my Name, Email Address, and Zip Code.
The prompt said that this information would only be required once. I entered the information, and was immediately taken to a commercial, and then to the broadcast, which was just a bit behind my home’s Dish Network feed. One thing to note however, is that many people were complaining in the app’s user reviews in the App Store that the personal information prompt would appear over and over, and they could not get to the live video. There was an update to the On Demand app last night that was supposed to fix this and several other bugs.
I watched the last 5 minutes of regulation and overtime of the game using the On Demand app over WiFi, and it worked great. There were no pauses or interruptions. The video was smooth and clear, even blown up to full screen. The audio was clear and easy to understand throughout. Overall, I was very impressed. When playing video with the screens at reduced size, you can also see the leaders for each team in scoring, rebounding, and assists, which is nice.
They could probably show more stat information if they didn’t use so much of the side-bar space with player pictures, but it isn’t a big problem. If you want more stat detail, you can always move over to the Box Score to check them during a break in the game.
After the first game, I had to take a trip to the store, so I fired up On Demand on my iPhone in my car, and I was able to listen to the streaming video broadcast over 3G between my house and Walmart with no trouble. When I went into the store, I started to have some issues as my 3G signal dipped, and eventually the app shifted to audio only. I looked around in the app and realized that the radio broadcast that had been available in the previous version was not included this time around. I was stuck with the TV audio only. That was pretty disappointing considering how much I listened to the radio broadcasts last year. At least I could still keep up with the game, though, right?
I went to Walmart with a shopping list in the Notes app, and when I double-tapped my iPhone’s Home button to switch over and pul it up, the audio from On Demand immediately dropped. This was extremely irritating. Last year’s app obviously didn’t have multi-tasking, as that wasn’t available natively until the iOS 4 and iPhone 4 release during the summer. I was able to multi-task with On Demand last year, however, using my jailbroken 3GS with Backgrounder installed. This was essential to me while driving, so I could have Navigon MobileNavigator running as my GPS at the same time.
Fast-forward to last night, where we have native iOS multi-tasking available and almost universally implemented for streaming apps, and On Demand doesn’t take advantage. Considering that On Demand, especially on the iPhone, is meant to be a way to keep up with tournament action on the go, this is a boneheaded move in my opinion. I understand that you can’t watch video in the background, but allowing background audio while holding the network connection so that you can bring the video back up without re-connecting would make the app so much more versatile. Every time you switch back to On Demand, it will take up to 30 seconds to get back to game action, so as you can probably imagine, that can get old quick.
After making my way through my shopping list, I re-opened On Demand and pulled the game video back up. I figured that, at this point, I could keep the video up and streaming without interruption. I was, again, stuck with audio only due to network speed, so I tapped the Sleep button on top of the iPhone to turn off the screen and conserve battery life. Again, On Demand immediately shut down. Again, this sucks. If you only have access to audio, you should at least be able to turn your screen off so you can save some of your battery. Even if the developer decided not to include threaded multi-tasking because On Demand is primarily a video app, requiring the phone’s screen to be on all the time to hold a network connection is a poor decision.
In closing, maybe I am being a little hard on March Madness On Demand. It is, after all, a free app that does its job of allowing you to stream all the NCAA Tournament action you can handle. However, those of us who paid for the app last year and do any traveling will probably miss the radio functionality. If the powers that be were concerned with getting this year’s version out for free, why not put additional features like radio feeds out there as reasonably priced in-app purchases? I, for one, would be willing to pay a little to get more.
As for the lack of multi-tasking, I am still pretty disappointed. On Demand excels at being a secondary viewing panel on your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad while on WiFi or fast 3G at home. However, without the ability to put your iPhone in sleep mode or open another app, for even a brief period of time, On Demand suffers as a way to keep up with tournament action while on the go. In fact, if you can find a way to stream the Westwood One radio coverage, or you can pick it up with a car or portable AM/FM Radio, that is a much better bet for listening to NCAA Tournament action while out and about.
March Madness On Demand is a really strong app in some respects. The brackets, schedules, and social integrations are nice additions. And as I stated earlier, On Demand is rock solid as a secondary home or office viewer, especially on the iPad’s larger screen. When you consider that it is a free app, these positives alone justify having this app on your iOS device if you have any interest at all in College Basketball, or even if you just want to keep up with your office bracket. I just find that the already mentioned negatives weight down an app that could be great and make it a lot less versatile than it should be. Here’s hoping next year’s March Madness On Demand is still free, but is a little more refined.
Continue reading:
- Everything New Apple Just Announced (Septembe
- Apple Watch Pre-Order
- Apple Research Kit launches with 5 Apps
- Apple TV now only $69
TAGS:
