As Promised Over A Year Ago, ESPN Gets Pushy

Remember when they first announced iPhone OS 3.0 and it was all about push notifications? I do, and I remember very specifically hearing the opening tune to SportsCenter playing on the iPhone. They said something like, “We’ll be pushing team scores to your phone with our ESPN App!” I got excited. It was magical.

Of course, for a while, there was no ESPN app, so I tried a bunch of different ones with varying success. I finally signed up to a website where they would send me updates via text, but that got annoying pretty quickly. When the ESPN app did finally come out, I picked it up and it was everything I wanted – minus the push notifications. So I accepted it and moved on with my life.

The other day, and update came out for the ESPN app, and that’s when I saw it: Push notifications. Just set up your favorite team, and when they play, you can have ESPN ding you when a score happens. I setup one of my favorite teams – The Boston Celtics – and waited for the next game.

I was watching TV in another room from my phone when I heard this familiar sound. Why was the wife watching Sportscenter? “Hey Kevin, your phone made some funny ring. What is that?”

What was it? It was the hand of god telling me that ESPN had finally made my world complete, that’s what.

You can setup as many teams as you like on the phone, and then select when you want updates. For baseball, you can have them ding you at the 3rd,6th and 9th innings, or just at the end of a game, for example. It’s great for me, the casual sports fan, who wants to keep up with his team but doesn’t need to catch every game. Better yet, it’s free, so if you want it, head on over and download it now. (opens iTunes Link)