NFL Mobile app doesn't work on new iPad

— -- Question: Why can't I get the NFL Mobile app -- a Verizon Wireless special -- to work on my new Verizon Wireless iPad? Answer: The app that Verizon built as part of a marketing partnership with the National Football League has been getting pounded in App Store user reviews for this defect -- it's down to two of five stars. Verizon subscribers haven't been much kinder in the wireless carrier's own forums.NFL Mobile has other issues: its $5/month video service, which includes some live games, doesn't work on iPads. But not supporting the new iPad is a special sort of breakdown. Apple's current tablet, having shipped a good six months ago, isn't even that new, and few other apps have had compatibility problems worse than looking slightly crummier on this model's lovely Retina Display.Verizon,however, has yet to offer a clear explanation for this shortfall, which lives on in an app update posted Aug. 29 that bears the same note as ever: "the new iPad is not supported." Company representatives have confirmed the issue in its forums without explaining it or offering a timetable for fixing it. Spokesman David Samberg did not get much more specific over a series of e-mails, citing only a need to have the app "optimized specifically" for each device and adding that the carrier was "working to bring it to more devices" -- including the new iPad.(As a general rule, failing to optimize an app for a new device's hardware should not prevent it from working at all. But in software development, anything's possible.) The problem goes beyond this one app to a developer's broader inability to converse with its users. Apple can get away with a silent strategy because it (usually) ships good products first, but many other developers know they have to keep their users in the loop. So they talk to customers on Twitter, answer queries on their support forums and blog about it afterwards.