iPods Becoming Entrenched In Major League Baseball

DreadfulGrape writes "ESPN.com reports on how video iPods are being used increasingly by baseball players to study opponents' game footage. In fact, Houston Astros' pitcher Jason Jennings credits the device with improving his game last summer." Jennings says, "Eventually, more than two-thirds of the roster had piled on and turned this team into baseball's official iSquad. Every player gets his own custom set of videos loaded onto his personal iPod, sorted by date, hitter, pitcher and opponent — and updated every week or so."

Time for the apple scale

[Anonymous Coward]

And how exactly does this ipod differ from using, say a phone with camera, are *shrug* a REAL camera!

I said it before, and will say it again: Mentioning Apple does not make you cool automagically!

More free Apple marketing...

[EvilNTUser]

Articles like these are starting to bother me. This is nothing that you couldn't do with any portable media player, yet all we hear from the media is "iPod iPod iPod iPod". It wouldn't matter to me otherwise, but I don't want to see a future where we're fighting both MS and Apple. Airplane seats are already getting iPod connectors instead of generic connectors, and soon Apple is going to release a crippled smartphone that won't run your own software, but is already being hailed in the media as a Nokia killer.

We should be worried - very worried. Either Apple starts sticking to industry standards or this has to stop.

Usability?

[bill_mcgonigle]

This is nothing that you couldn't do with any portable media player

I agree with what much of what you say, and it's probably something that I could do with any portable media player, but, perhaps, Apple's investment in usability is what enables the 'dumb jock' to use portable video.

Before I got an iPod I had written up a set of perl scripts to manage my music on an Archos MP3 player to a level I felt was convenient. Now I use iTunes. Most folks can't write perl scripts.

Generic Connectors???

[brunes69]

Airplane seats are already getting iPod connectors instead of generic connectors....

Maybe part of the problem is that the electronics industry still has their foot up their ass, and after 30+ years of portable media devices, there are still no standard connectors. Every device has it's own connector for charging (which is totally unnecessary today - a small connector that provided 5v and 1000 mv would be able to power almost all portable media devices).

And for the audio output, while most use the 1/8" phono plug, even this is non-standard, with some devices using the 1/16" plug, and phones all using totally different schemes for the four contact points in those plugs - meaningin you can't take a Morotola stereo headset and use it with a Treo and have both earphones work, even though they have the exact same form factor.

I don't blame the airline industries and auto industries for deciding to support only the iPod. It's kind of a "Hey asshats, if you're going to keep being retarded and uncooperative with eachother, then we will just support this guy who has 75% of the market anyway".

Re:Time for the apple scale

[ffnogoodnik]

Ok, let me give this a try. It differs from using a phone with a camera because the picture quality is better and you can connect the iPod to a TV screen and still watch it without the picture looking like crap. It differs from using a real camera, something major league baseball has been doing for years, in that with the real camera will usually need you to be in a specific location like a film room to view it. The iPod would allow the players to view the film on the plane when they are travelling or in the hotel room.

Re:And the point of this is ??

[chicagotypewriter]

What's there to know about a fielder ? I can see perhaps studying A-Rods play, but even that is debatable.

Nothing. Hitters are being watched for the most part. Even the center fielder, who if he chooses to watch film, is probably watching a hitter. They look for tendencies, how to get reads on a ball, what they will do in certain counts, etc.

The only players worth studying are Pitcher, First Baseman and Short-Stop. The rest are relatively straight-forward, and have very predictable responses - as would be expected from their positions.

I don't know who would care about watching a first baseman's video or a shortstop's video...well in some cases a few minutes of shortstop footage might be nice, but nothing like what these guys have for pitchers and hitters. I'd like to see some notes on other fielders, but if I was to watch video, as a hitter (played catcher defensively) I would watch only a pitcher's video. I'd rather watch random YouTube videos about Japanese game shows than see a first baseman catch ground balls or cover first base while trying to get something out of it.

Re:That's great!

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Jobs will never, ever let you use HIS hardware in any fashion that HE didn't think up first

While I'm no Apple fanboy by any measure, I still think your statement is completely unfair. What made the iPod so much more successful than the competition is the targeting of the non-techie. It's designed to put up all that red tape; it breads reliability and ease of use. The iPod is meant to be used for one purpose only, and believe me, it's not programming.

Just having the option gives the consumer an opportunity to do lasting damage, and possibly souring the experience for them, putting off other potential buyers. Soon the iPod would get the reputation of being too hard for all but the computer-savvy, and it would become just another mp3 player.