MLS: Live Soccer Scores & News Software

The content is great, but the app itself has some issues. My first complaint is that the navigation is less intuitive than past designs. I’d prefer to open into a feed of headlines and then navigate to highlights or team headlines. Instead all three feeds are crammed into the home page. My second complaint is worse although it doesn’t sound like many other people experience this: the audio doesn’t play through my phone’s speakers. Headphones or external speakers are fine. All of my other apps are fine. I’ve racked my brain trying to figure out why this app misbehaves but I can’t figure it out. I’d give it four stars if the audio bug was fixed and the design was tweaked a bit. I’d give it five if there was some search capability on the news feed.

I have been using the app since it first came out, and I loved all of it. Information was easy to find, game lineups posted as soon as they were given (before announced in stadium). The new design is fancier and prettier but far, far less useful. Some areas are far too touch sensitive - you accidentally open stories when you just try to scroll thru - or not nearly sensitive enough. Some areas are very difficult to open at times. For design, the redesign gets an A, for utility and ease of use, a D+. For those lamenting about blackouts, it’s the broadcast rules. The games are controlled by the broadcasters (and that includes your local affiliate) for a period (usually 48 hours). That gives them the right to replay if they want. The reason local games are blacked out is because someone has paid for the right to broadcast and they deserve to get their money’s worth. With this app Live (I can’t speak to ESPN+ because I haven’t tried it yet) I have never found a game I couldn’t watch or rewatch after the 48 hour window, even with my local team.

This year’s app design stinks. It takes twice as many clicks to do what you used to be able to do in the old app. Plus, the buttons are poorly designed. It is easy to click the wrong thing or have trouble opening something. For example, when watching a video you get a thumbnail video by default, which of course no one wants, so you have to click the tiny expand button. But if you miss you have to click it again. Also when expanding the video it displays wrong for a few seconds. Basically, they lost functionality with the app redesign. They should ditch this version, fire the company that developed it, and develop one with usability testing as part of the process. The only reason I still use this app is for the content.