Apple News App Gains Sports Tab in First iOS 16.5 Beta

[MacRumors]

The iOS 16.5 beta that Apple seeded to developers today doesn't appear to have many features as of yet, but one change has been made to the Apple News app. To go along with its push into sports content, Apple has added a new Sports tab to the app.

Apple has positioned the Sports tab in Apple News right in the middle of the bottom navigation bar, putting it between Today and News+ on the left, and Audio and Following on the right. To make room for the Sports tab, Apple has combined the Following and Search tabs into one tab rather than making them separate actions.

The Sports tab facilitates the picking of favorite teams for personalized news, a feature that was already available in the prior version of Apple News without a dedicated tab.

A tab specifically for sports content comes as Apple is aiming to lure sports enthusiasts to its ecosystem and Apple TV+. Apple has inked deals with Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer for exclusive content, and sports content has been more deeply integrated with the iPhone through features like Live Activities for following games in real time from the iPhone Lock Screen.

Article Link: Apple News App Gains Sports Tab in First iOS 16.5 Beta

 

[dannyyankou]

Thank god. Sports are kinda buried in 16.4

 

[eicarr]

I wish I could change it to Entertainment or Travel or something that even slightly interested me.

 

[Marbles1]

It’s going to take an awful lot to get me to bother with the Apple News app, let alone Apple News+.

It needs fundamental transformation, removing the silly blanked out tiles when you block something, the poor experience where you can’t find specific articles in a paper / magazine because it doesn’t link to online sources etc.

I mean look at Apple Arcade, Apple news+, even Apple TV+ which has no library to fall back on. It’s all such a feeble offer.

I pay for Apple Music as it’s good value for money. And I pay for iCloud because of the iPhone backup and so on. The rest is fluff.

 

[eveluvsrainbows]

It’s going to take an awful lot to get me to bother with the Apple News app, let alone Apple News+.

It needs fundamental transformation, removing the silly blanked out tiles when you block something, the poor experience where you can’t find specific articles in a paper / magazine because it doesn’t link to online sources etc.

I mean look at Apple Arcade, Apple news+, even Apple TV+ which has no library to fall back on. It’s all such a feeble offer.

I pay for Apple Music as it’s good value for money. And I pay for iCloud because of the iPhone backup and so on. The rest is fluff.

Apple Arcade & Apple TV+ are great services these days...they aren't really "feeble".

 

[i386]

What about a Theatre or basket weaving tab? Sports isn’t news.

 

[iWeaverOS]

Finally!
See, I wish Apple apps could just update in the App Store like everyone else... ridiculous this has to come in an iOS update.

 

[HorstBockman]

OT: free subscription to MLB.tv for the entire 2023 season is now available through the T-Mobile Tuesdays app for T-Mobile customers.

 

[zachz]

I hope there’s a way to disable this, and same with the sports tab on the Apple TV app. I couldn’t care less about sports, give me a colored screen instead so I can watch virtual paint dry.

At the same time I rarely use the News app - Ground News is free and 100x better. Canadian developed and I can read whatever I want without having to pay monthly (although they do have fairly cheap subscription tiers if you want extras and customizations)

 

[entropys]

Got a new iPad Pro yesterday, the news app was the very first thing I deleted.

 

[HorstBockman]

Got a new iPad Pro yesterday, the news app was the very first thing I deleted.

Quite an accomplishment

 

[entropys]

What about a Theatre or basket weaving tab? Sports isn’t news.

While I would like to think there is a case for a tab dedicated to the Society for Creative Anachronisms, a “curated” news app isn’t news in the first place. A milder version of Pravda.

 

[cocky jeremy]

Good luck topping ESPN's app.

 

[entropys]

Quite an accomplishment

Well yes, quite an upgrade from my old 10.5 inch IPP.

 

[theinsaneworld]

If they can get the real time side of sports sorted out, including video, it’ll probably be a big asset for News. The ESPN app is obnoxious with its 30 second commercials for 15 second highlights. One of Twitter’s biggest draws has been sports.

Sports is one of the biggest revenue drivers of any form of news, including ad spending.

 

[throAU]

when i block a channel, remove it.

don’t replace with a big box saying i blocked some content.

 

[xxFoxtail]

I know I can just completely ignore the tab, but as a News+ subscriber who doesn’t really care for anything sports related, this disappoints me. If there’s not a way to hide it, I guess I’ll be canceling and saving $10/month.

 

[Baritone_Guy]

Why does this need an OS update for improvements? Same question for just about any Apple app.

They should be decoupled like Google did with the Play store.

As it is they can’t be very agile in fixing bugs.

 

[hagjohn]

Lets Go Pens!

 

[TJovian]

I’d honestly rather see a dedicated one-stop-shopping Sports app for the people who are interested in it. If Apple really wants to push the importance of sports on their platform they should have a team devoted to creating something more insightful and innovative than just having it be an afterthought forcibly added into other apps. These features being added to the TV app and the News app probably only benefit the current users. I just don’t see it drawing in a whole new group of consumer since I’m pretty sure this is stuff they can access on other platforms in much the same manner.

If we can have a dedicated app specifically for Classical music, why not Sports?

 

[BGPL]

apple news is a big flop. Redirect those resources somewhere else, it's not working. I can't imagine who would pay for news+... I remove it immediately when I get a new device.

 

[npmacuser5]

Like Apple News! Gives such a wide variety of news, cooking, technology, sports, business, finance, etc. Not just boring news. And from a variety of published articles. Some I like from media new to me until Apple News. 👍 Apple!

 

[Dredd67]

Apple News ? Haha (laughing in non American)

How about stopping making apps and features just for one or two privileged countries ? Apple News, card, pay later, driver license, ecg, ... there are so many of them US only it's embarrassing for a global player like Apple.

I understand there are market specific differences, but how come others are able to figure out solutions while Apple just doesn't bother.

It's appalling that Apple continues to work as if they only have 10 employees and can't focus on more than one or two projects at a time. This not "Apple culture", it's yet another illustration of a business that refuses to scale. Sooner or later they will get into real trouble if this doesn't change...

 

[ececlv]

I deleted Apple News when it prevented me from blocking sources in the "Spotlight" section or whatever the top section is. If I don't want to read the source in my main feed, why would I want to read it somewhere else in news?

 

[svish]

Good! But the News app is still not available in many countries.