It’s spring (or nearly so anyway) and that means it’s time for Little League baseball season to get started. I have a great time coaching my son’s team: organizing practices, coming up with lineups, coaching the games. But one thing that’s at a premium where I live is fields to practice on. With a lot of baseball and softball teams there isn’t much chance to practice on an actual field. However, there are plenty of open, grassy areas to practice at various schools, parks, etc. - the only problem is the lack of a baseball diamond.

I decided to try to make it easier to lay out a basic diamond when practicing at one of these spots. Baseball Field Layout is the result. To use the app, you just stand where you want home plate to be and let the iPhone’s GPS record your location. Then you walk in the direction of the pitcher’s mound and Baseball Field Layout takes care of the rest, giving you the location of the pitcher’s mound and all three bases. Field size is selectable at 60′, 70′, or 90′.

This was also an opportunity to try out some iOS frameworks that I haven’t used before. I got to use Core Location, MapKit, In-App Purchase, and iAd for the first time. While In-App Purchase and iAd aren’t essential to this app, it was a nice way to try them out.

Due to the limits of the accuracy obtainable with the iPhone GPS you should only use this app for practicing or goofing around.

Baseball Field Layout is designed for the iPhone and requires a GPS to get reasonable accuracy.