Peanuts, Cracker Jacks And The iPad

I have no idea whether Steve Jobs is a baseball fan or not, but this season he may be forgiven for paying more attention than usual to the national pastime.

Earlier this week, MLB.com -- the Internet marketing arm of Major League Baseball -- e-mailed me the annual new subscription reminder for my MLB.com Premium service. For techies who are also baseball nuts, this subscription service is the greatest advance in the game since the Dead Ball Era.

For $19.95 per month, Major League Baseball makes available, over the Internet, every single regular season game. Some have complained that Major League Baseball's blackout restrictions, which prevent someone from watching their hometown team over the Internet, make it not worth their while. But that's easing, too. Last season, for example, I took advantage of a deal the Yankees' cable network offered and paid a few dollars extra so I could watch Yankee games over the Web. By the end of last season, I was also watching games live on my iPhone.

With this week's subscrption reminder from MLB.com, we were informed that its iPhone service, "At Bat 2010," will be available again for iPhone and iPod Touch. MLB.com then added this:

(An application for the iPad will be available for purchase soon.) Now you never have to miss a single play.

One of the great things about the iPhone platform is that Apple doesn't have to do anything to make the platform stronger and more useful each day. Third-party software developers and entertainment companies do that. So now, with the iPad, you've got three mobile multimedia devices (iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad) all under Apple's umbrella, and content providers appear ready to beat down a path to its door.

In Malcolm Gladwell's book, The Tipping Point, the author describes how the radio exploded into ubiquity in 1921 when a live broadcast of a Jack Dempsey fight made that event available to tens of millions of listeners. Suddenly, the world realized the value of the radio and it became an important piece of global communication and information sharing.

Maybe it's kismet that the iPad will launch at about the same time as Major League Baseball's 2010 season gets under way. Once the world gets a taste of how it can now access a live, crisp Webcast of every pitch of every game of their favorite team, anywhere they are, mobile multimedia will take on new meaning. This may, ultimately, have implications for IT because use patterns and expectations will change. The bar for mobile multimedia will be raised - - for work and home.

We'll start to know within the next couple of months whether the combination of baseball and the iPad will be a home run or a foul ball. Certainly, Apple has created balky products like MobileMe, so nothing is a guarantee. We'll know soon enough.

Play ball.