By Jason Snell

February 23, 2024 10:29 AM PT

Simple complexity: Apple’s trio of sports apps

When I got my first demo of the new Apple Sports app, I admit to being a little surprised: didn’t Apple already do live sports scores? Hadn’t I just seen the Arsenal score and play-by-play on my iPhone on Sunday morning when I was in the kitchen making breakfast?

I had. And it has led to a lot of confusion about what the Apple Sports app does and doesn’t do, which highlights just how scattered Apple’s current effort to bring information to sports fans really is. I imagine that it wasn’t planned to work this way, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple connects all of its disparate sports pieces eventually, but in the meantime things are a little confusing.

Let me attempt to clear it up a little bit.

The data source

Apple Sports may have debuted on Wednesday, but the data source that drives it has been around for a while now. It drives score information and alerts on tvOS and in the TV app. Since it’s a back-end service, there’s no way to tell if it’s been tweaked a bit for the launch of Apple Sports, but certainly Apple’s had a live-scores/play-by-play data feed for a while now, in public.

Set favorite teams

Apple syncs your favorite teams and leagues¹ across your Apple ID. You can set them in the Apple Sports app, but you can also do it in the News and the TV apps. (In News, tap on the Sports tab, then the three-dot icon, then tap Manage My Sports. In TV, scroll down and tap on Sports, then scroll to the bottom and tap Manage My Sports.)

This is also the reason why the Sports app isn’t embedding news stories about your favorite team the way the Stocks app does about business information. As Apple SVP of Services Eddy Cue told me, the goal of the Sports app is to keep things simple and just display scores, fast. News about your favorite teams is elsewhere—namely, in the News app.

The TV app

On the iPhone, at least in the U.S. (I’m told this isn’t the case in the UK?!) the TV app has the ability to place the scores of your favorite teams in a Live Activity on your lock screen and in the Dynamic Island. In fact, it’s more than that: you can place games in a Live Activity by tapping on it in the TV app and then tapping Follow Live. (Not all games offer Live Activities, but those in most major leagues offer it.)

At least the Sports app includes a quick link to open the game in the TV app, from which you can either kick off a Live Activity or watch via a connected service. It’s a common misconception that the TV app only shows games shown by Apple or channels within Apple TV, but it works with any app that’s connected to the TV app. For example, last night I was able to tap on an NBA game in the Sports app, which opened it in the TV app. From there, I could tap again to open it in the Max app.

So simple it’s complicated

This is the conundrum of the Apple Sports app: It avoids the complexity of adding a News tab and a TV tab and focuses on scores, which is good. But if you want to start a Live Activity or jump to watch the game, it’s at least one app and several taps away.

I don’t think the app will stay this simple. The name alone—it’s Apple Sports, not Apple Scores—suggests that Cue and his team have bigger plans. I have to imagine that eventually you’ll be able to follow games right in the app, and jump to video sources without needing an intermediary app.

But in the meantime, if you want a Live Activity for a game being shown in Apple Sports, tap the “Open in Apple TV” icon on that game and then tap Follow Live and you will be rewarded.

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