Siri is now able to provide statistics and facts about your favorite Major League Baseball players and games. You can now ask Siri about scores, schedules and baseball trivia as Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL) just signed an agreement with MLB to implement the iPad Pro in the team benches during the games.
Apple’s digital personal assistant is able to answer questions about the history of baseball, passing through all of the 28 baseball leagues. The function was revealed just as the 2016 MLB season started last Sunday, allowing fans to have a much more immersive experience on one of the favorite series of sports events in the whole country.
Many say that Siri is still limited in the aspect of answering some queries. When you ask her very specific questions about teams or records during certain periods, sometimes she may resort to returning a Google search. Siri now uses Wolfram Alpha, Yahoo! sports, MLB data and Google to check for baseball-related data. We can probably expect Apple’s personal assistant to become more resilient in different sports and statistics as the season progress.
Apple’s choice
Besides being able to ask and be amazed at “Babe Ruth’s home runs in the 1921 season” (the answer is 59) there are more reasons behind Apple’s choice to grant Siri powerful baseball-trivia abilities, as this is a major upgrade from iOS 6 in 2012, where Siri was able to grant general scores and statistics.
It all stems from Apple’s deal with MLB. The Major League Baseball events now will be allowed to use a special iPad Pro model along the whole season. The iPad Pro will come with an app known as MLB Dugout, which will be used by the baseball teams to review stats, find the ideal pitcher or hitter, watch videos of past games, draft plays and much more.
Differing from Microsoft’s agreement with the National Football League, MLB teams are not forced to use the provided iPads, but will be free to choose whether they use it or not. It is worth to know that this will be the first Major League Baseball season where mobile devices such as tablets, iPhones and computers will be allowed within the dugouts.
Source: Apple Insider