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Apple News App Gains Sports Tab in First iOS 16.5 Beta

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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 news sports tab
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.

Related Forum: iOS 16

Top Rated Comments

E
eicarr
39 months ago
I wish I could change it to Entertainment or Travel or something that even slightly interested me.
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)
throAU Avatar
throAU
39 months ago
when i block a channel, remove it.

don’t replace with a big box saying i blocked some content.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
xxFoxtail Avatar
xxFoxtail
39 months ago
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.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
i386 Avatar
i386
39 months ago
What about a Theatre or basket weaving tab? Sports isn’t news.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
M
Marbles1
39 months ago
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.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Z
zachz
39 months ago
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)
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
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