Two weeks ago, the VisionOS app for MLB was updated in the App Store. As always it automatically installed in my AVP. There is a bug in the program.
The purpose of the app is to watch games purchased through mlb.tv as well as certain other products, and it's a pretty great start to what will evolve into an even better app, but most of what people do with it is watch baseball games. Every game has a first pitch time, but before that first pitch, the broadcast starts usually on the half hour before that first pitch. In addition, many teams have pregame shows before the game which are also included. After the game ends, many teams conclude with a postgame show. If a user attempts to watch before even the pregame show starts, the app shows an error message telling them that they're early and no streams are available yet. This worked correctly until two weeks ago. Then came the update.
Apps are always supported by source data, and I'm certain that the source data MLB uses identifies each game, its first pitch time, its stream start time plus other data such as who the starting pitchers will be. This data is clearly being properly maintained, and I know this because the error I'm encountering does not occur in the apps for Apple TV, iPad or iPhone. But the Vision Pro app is clearly identifying the stream start time by looking in the first pitch time field. As a result, no game stream can be started until the scheduled first pitch time. I'm an Arizona Diamondbacks fan. Tomorrow night, their game will have a first pitch at 6:40p, but the game broadcast will begin at 6:30p, and the pregame show will start at 6:15p (times are MST since Arizona doesn't observe daylight saving time). The Apple Vision Pro won't let me watch until 6:40p.
So what do you do? For two weeks now I've made nearly daily calls to their support line hoping someone will escalate my case. MLB uses a support call center that, frankly, is not in the Western Hemisphere (I don't begrudge them that, but they need a better escalation mechanism). One of the tenets of centers like that is knowing that any error a user encounters is because the user needs help using the app properly, but that isn't the case here. I'm using the app properly, but the app is broken. They've given me terrible answers.
My hope: maybe a media person or developer on this forum might be able to alert someone on the inside. If anyone can help, I'd sure like to see this problem go away.
The purpose of the app is to watch games purchased through mlb.tv as well as certain other products, and it's a pretty great start to what will evolve into an even better app, but most of what people do with it is watch baseball games. Every game has a first pitch time, but before that first pitch, the broadcast starts usually on the half hour before that first pitch. In addition, many teams have pregame shows before the game which are also included. After the game ends, many teams conclude with a postgame show. If a user attempts to watch before even the pregame show starts, the app shows an error message telling them that they're early and no streams are available yet. This worked correctly until two weeks ago. Then came the update.
Apps are always supported by source data, and I'm certain that the source data MLB uses identifies each game, its first pitch time, its stream start time plus other data such as who the starting pitchers will be. This data is clearly being properly maintained, and I know this because the error I'm encountering does not occur in the apps for Apple TV, iPad or iPhone. But the Vision Pro app is clearly identifying the stream start time by looking in the first pitch time field. As a result, no game stream can be started until the scheduled first pitch time. I'm an Arizona Diamondbacks fan. Tomorrow night, their game will have a first pitch at 6:40p, but the game broadcast will begin at 6:30p, and the pregame show will start at 6:15p (times are MST since Arizona doesn't observe daylight saving time). The Apple Vision Pro won't let me watch until 6:40p.
So what do you do? For two weeks now I've made nearly daily calls to their support line hoping someone will escalate my case. MLB uses a support call center that, frankly, is not in the Western Hemisphere (I don't begrudge them that, but they need a better escalation mechanism). One of the tenets of centers like that is knowing that any error a user encounters is because the user needs help using the app properly, but that isn't the case here. I'm using the app properly, but the app is broken. They've given me terrible answers.
- They've sent canned emails telling me that no games can be streamed on the device. This email was accurate prior to April of this year but is now obsolete.
- They've tried telling me that watching prior to first pitch is intentionally blocked, because those program elements have no immersive features. They've also assured me this applies to postgame shows as well. This is clearly wrong since the app also includes all MLB Network programming, none of which has immersive elements (also, I get the postgame shows just fine since the postgame start time isn't a field to be read in a database).
- They've told me that they have escalated my case to the appropriate technical staff, but I'm pretty sure they don't mean the program developer.
My hope: maybe a media person or developer on this forum might be able to alert someone on the inside. If anyone can help, I'd sure like to see this problem go away.
