Tag: Nba »

After conquering Rio and Space, where could those Angry Birds go next? The NBA, apparently. In the next episode of Angry Birds Seasons, NBA Ham Dunk!, Rovio Entertainment sends the birds to take the pigs to the court. The update will have 15 free NBA-themed levels and 30 NBA team levels available for purchase.

“Get ready to hit the court with your favorite NBA team, and start dunking birds and bashing piggies for extra points,” said Pekka Rantala Chief Commercial Officer of Rovio Entertainment. “We are really pumped to offer this fun mash-up to Angry Birds and NBA fans.”

You can grab Angry Birds Seasons on the rebound for $0.99.

Now that the NBA season is in full swing, the NBA has released NBA Game Time 2011-2012, an app that gives users access to tons of NBA features anytime and anywhere an internet connection is available. Many of the basic features are free, like game alerts from your favorite teams, stats, scores, play by play reports, news, and video highlights. There are also two subscription level available for users who want to access more of the app's premium content. The NBA Game Time Plus subscription give users access to video highlights from in-progress games, full game video recaps, an advertisement free experience, and live radio feeds (both home and away broadcasts) of games. An NBA Game Time Plus subscription costs $7.99.

For $39.99, users can subscribe to the NBA League Pass which includes all of the features above as well as live streaming of all NBA regular season games, a full archive of all the season's games, and live in-game stat overlays. Some users may already have an NBA League Pass subscription through their cable or satellite provider and are able to use their account information to log in via the app and gain access to all League Pass content.

Currently, NBA Game Time 2011-2012 is compatible with all iOS devices running version 4.0 or higher, but it isn't optimized for the iPad.

The NBA is coming back! Huzzah! What once looked like a bleak winter sports landscape of misery and despair will now be full of the pittering and pattering of wealthy millionaires pounding the rock in the hardwood. How else were we going to entertain ourselves? By watching hockey? Pfft. The other beautiful thing about the NBA coming back? It feels appropriate to play basketball games, and one title is hoping to capture some of that basketball fever.

NBA King of the Court is an augmented reality basketball game that involves geolocation. It's developed by new mobile developer Ogmento, who are focusing on augmented reality and geolocation games, such as this one. Players compete to get the high scores on courts located near them. Hoops are located and played by pointing a camera-equipped iOS device around them to find hoops to shoot on. Players then try to sink as many shots as possible in a short time limit, by using a timing bar-based shooting system. Success earns coins that can be spent on powerups and other items. Additional attempts on a court can add to the player's high score, although players only have a limited number of balls to shoot, though more are added over time.

Once they become the king of the court (hey, there's that title!), then they can customize the hoop to their liking. This includes things like team logos, purchased with those coins. Feel bold enough to rock a Spurs logo in the middle of Lakers country? Go for it. As well, defensive powerups can be purchased to make potential court usurpers' job much more difficult, such as ones that make the good shot area much smaller.

NBA King of the Court launched on December 1st, and is a free to play title. It requires a camera-equipped device, though iPad 2 owners should note that the app is not universal as of launch.

We've all been there. Two sports events are on at once and it's a judgement call to figure out which one to watch and which one to just keep an eye on the score of. While sometimes it's the obvious game with the two big leading teams against each other, other times it's a more subtle David and Goliath style conflict that turns out to be the more exciting game. How to figure out which one as soon as possible though? Maybe Thuuz will be able to help there.

It's an app that, using some unique and mysterious algorithms, figures out the excitement of each game in real-time then rates it on a scale of 0-100. Users pick their favorite sports, teams and players, set their excitement threshold and then the app gets to work.

Currently monitoring a wide variety of sports such as NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, Soccer, Cricket, Rugby as well as college sports like Football and Basketball, this app should have sports fans pretty covered for figuring out what to watch.

Further functionality is offered with the ability to watch live games when in the US as well as track down the nearest sports bar to catch the action.

It's a free app so give it a shot and why not report back on how it's gone. Initial feedback is looking pretty darn promising. Finally, this predicament could be solved!

With the NBA season just tipping off last week, it is about time to start thinking about how you plan to keep tabs on your favorite teams.  Last year's NBA counterpart on the iOS was the NBA League Pass app, which has long since been discontinued in the App Store.  If one were to make as guess as to why this was the case, it would be easy to point at the lack of user authentication as a reason for its removal.  The lack of a unified login made the app an easy target for piracy, as some speculate.

Sitting in its place, NBA Game Time 2010-2011 looks to act in a similar manner to League Pass, while still having free features for the less invested fan.  Right out of the box the free base application will be able to receive live stat tracking of every game, box scores and player stats that will be updated in real-time.  While some fans may find this to be more than enough of a dose of daily hoops, the hardcore will be able to delve deeper, but that is where the luster of "free-ness" begins wears off.

If you are a fan that enjoys listening to the dulcet tones of your favorite team's radio announcer of choice, for $9.99 you can purchase the ability to listen to the radio feed, all from the comfort of your iOS device.  Further sweetening the pot is the ability to view video highlights, an end-game breakdown reel, and even push notifications for updates during games of your choice.

For those that are still grieving the loss of their precious NBA League Pass, fear not, because for $44.95 you can add the original application's live game video streaming functionality into Game Time.  While it is never stated directly, one could also assume that this would also roll-up the features of the $9.99 upgrade as well, making it the ultimate package for any NBA fan on the go.

Seeing how the pricing tiers are structured and the fact that the premium features are now only available through the more strictly monitored in-app purchases, further adds validity to this being a move to combat piracy.  As a proud paid subscriber of last year app, I am glad that Apple has provided a way to stick it to the thieves that want to take advantage of the system.

Now if you don't mind I am going to go grab all of my Detroit Pistons memorabilia out of storage.  Like every other fan in the world, I know that this year is going to be our year!

In an attempt to cash in on the "check in" craze created by Foursquare and its ilk, the NBA has announced Turnstile, a new app which will allow fans to alert their friends when they're attending a game in person or watching on television. Those who consistently check in may be eligible to receive discounts or loyalty rewards at local venues.

“We see location based services as just the tip of the iceberg,” says Bryan Perez, senior vice president and general manager of NBA Digital. “The more we can integrate people’s location information at games, the more opportunities there are for things like sponsorships,” he says, adding there are no sponsorships for Turnstile in place currently.

The move places the NBA in line with MLB, the NHL and some NFL teams who are all using some sort of social media check in platform to increase fan engagement and interaction. While most of these other leagues are utilizing Foursquare for their social media, Turnstile is being built from the ground-up exclusively for the NBA.

The app is planned to launch in concert with the start of the NBA regular season later this month and will be available for free on the iPhone, Blackberry and Android. Just keep in mind that if your Cleveland friends see you checking into a Miami Heat game you may well find your house vandalized or on fire when you return home.

[via The Wall Street Journal]

Brian Akaka, CEO and Founder of Appular just sent over a teaser for the latest game from Freeverse, Flick NBA Basketball. This is the third game in the Flick series (Bowling and Fishing with Baseball coming in the near future). The trailer doesn't show much besides the court, with especially stunning reflection, but it's enough to peak our interest so I dug a little deeper.