One of the many great benefits of Apple Silicon is the ability to run iPhone and iPad apps on the Mac. For baseball fans, this meant support for using the iPad version of the MLB app on macOS.
Sadly, the 2024 MLB season is off to a rocky start for Mac users (just like it is for Cincinnati Reds fans).
Jason Snell at Six Colors has been chronicling the saga over the past several weeks. When the season kicked off last month, the iPad version of the MLB app was available in the Mac App Store, but crashed at launch after you signed in. Strike one.
Last week, MLB shipped an update to the iPad app. At first glance, it seemed to fix macOS crashes … but that turned out not to be the case. Still, the app was available in the Mac App Store. Strike two.
Now, seemingly in response to Jason’s stories and complaints from other Mac users, MLB has addressed the problem. Their solution? Remove the MLB app from the Mac entirely. Strike three.
If you head to the Mac App Store and search for the MLB app, you’ll quickly find that it’s no longer available. Instead of fixing the crashing problem (or at least saying something publicly!), MLB has taken its ball and gone home. Like many other developers, it’s decided to uncheck the box that allows its iPad app to run on the Mac.
Perhaps the MLB app will return to the Mac App Store at some point, but MLB has left us in the dark for now. And that’s a real bummer. I loved using the MLB app on my Mac to watch the Reds lose. You can, of course, still watch from MLB’s website.
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