“Kansas City Royals manager Ned Yost may have been ejected from his team’s game against the Cincinnati Reds on Tuesday, but it wasn’t because he was wearing his Apple Watch,” Jennifer Booton reports for MarketWatch. “After concerns were raised during the game about whether Yost wearing an Apple Watch in the dugout gave his team an unfair advantage over its less-connected adversaries, Major League Baseball told MarketWatch it is not banning smartwatches during games.”
“The MLB staffers managing on-field operations did call Yost to make sure he wasn’t using the data on his watch, which was, ironically, given to Yost by the MLB a month ago as a gift for his participation in the All-Star Game, an MLB spokesman said. But it was just a routine call,” Booton reports. “‘It’s not banned,’ he said.”
“That’s because smartwatches are just glorified digital watches and fitness trackers when not tethered to smartphones,” Booton reports. “If companies like Apple Inc. and Google Inc. devise ways to make these watches functional without needing to be tethered, the MLB will address that issue separately, the spokesman said.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple has already devised it. Apple Watches running watchOS 2.0, even third-party apps will be able to update their info with no connection to iPhone. The WatchConnectivity feature allows Apple Watch to communicate directly with known Wi-Fi hotspots using the Tetherless Wi-Fi feature in watchOS 2, as we explained on Wednesday.
SEE ALSO:
No, Major League Baseball has not banned Apple Watch during games – August 19, 2015
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Albert P.” for the heads up.]
Who cares? If they’re banned, they’re banned. What possible difference does this make to Apple?
$85 very soon.
Because of a few baseball staff not being able to wear watches?
All MLB would have to do is block wifi in the dugout if that’s the key place where they are concerned about having game altering messages sent to.. Course that would also probably hinder a few people’s wifi if used near a dugout.
BFD if the MLB bans Apple Watch. Who cares.
Are other forms of communication banned?
Yes. Any electronic communication between staff and players is prohibited. Sign language and loud talking is allowed, but not touching.
This story is almost completely incomprehensible. Why should it be illegal to “access data” during the game in the dugout? The story over the last decade about MLB is that it has become more data and statistics driven a la Moneyball. So what is the concern? Is MLB going to constuct Faraday cages around dugouts????