Apple added a multiview feature today for watching live sports on the Apple TV 4K. You can now watch up to four live streams of Major League Soccer matches, Friday Night Baseball games and the studio shows MLS 360 and MLB Big Inning. Previously, multiview options for Apple’s set-top box were limited to third-party services like FuboTV, YouTube TV and March Madness streams.

After choosing a compatible match, other available live games will appear at the bottom of the screen in the Apple TV app. There, you can customize whether to watch one stream prominently (with others tiled in smaller windows to the right) or two to four matches in split-screen (of equal sizes). In addition, it lets you choose which audio to hear, including home radio broadcasts for MLS and home or away feeds for Friday Night Baseball. Finally, you can switch to full-screen mode with one click if a stream demands your total attention.

MLS Season Pass, which has no obnoxious blackouts, requires a $15 / mo. (or $99 / season) subscription to watch and use multiview. (Apple TV+ subscribers pay a bit less at $13 / mo. or $79 / season.) Additionally, Apple offers a one-month trial for new and returning subscribers until the end of October. Meanwhile, Friday Night Baseball is available to all Apple TV+ subscribers.

Nike and connected fitness subscription platform Strava are partnering up to simplify the act of transferring activity data from one service to the other. In the past, it was fairly complicated to send Nike+ data to the Strava platform.

Sending activity data from the Nike Run Club and Nike Training Club apps to Strava allows athletes a new way to track their workouts and connect with the overall community. This move gives Nike+ users access to more than 750,000 connected clubs and 100 million fitness enthusiasts that exist within Strava.

In addition to easing the frustration of sharing data, the partnership also allows Nike to create and post curated content on Strava via Nike-branded clubs. The company says this content will feature “world-class coaches and athletes.” Another reason Strava is so popular is its robust selection of outdoor maps, powered by adventure platform FATMAP. When the integrated service launches later in the summer, Nike+ users will also have access to these 3D fly-through maps.

Nike plans on hosting curated challenges on Strava later in the summer. The company says these hosted contests will “inspire connection and engagement around a shared goal” and indicates that they will feature unlockable rewards.

Strava is using this partnership as a springboard to place a renewed emphasis on the app’s community-based clubs and groups. It says this is just the first step toward enabling “deeper and richer” community interactions. These future updates include a new interface and an easier method to integrate videos, routes and various activities. Recently, the app even got heavily-requested Spotify controls.

The fruits of this partnership will begin to show up on the Strava app throughout the summer. Strava has also announced some new features that extend beyond Nike+ integration, such as live mountainside sun and snow tracking, avalanche risk profiles for skiers and more.

Apple has one more batch of major OS updates in store ahead of WWDC. The company has released iOS 16.5, iPadOS 16.5 and macOS 13.4 updates that all have an Apple News section dedicated to sports. You can keep up with rankings, scores and stories without having to wade through other articles. There are likewise score and schedule cards in News that jump directly to pages for particular games.

Apple TV 4K users, meanwhile, get a Multiview feature that shows up to four sports streams at once in the TV app. That includes Friday Night Baseball games as well as MLS Season Pass matches, but we wouldn't count on third-party service support.

Other improvements aren't quite so dramatic. Both iOS 16.5 and watchOS 9.5 respectively add Pride wallpaper and watch face options (shown above). You can also expect the usual round of bug fixes, including issues with CarPlay and Spotlight on iOS as well as Screen Time syncing on multiple platforms.

This probably won't be the last substantial update before iOS 17. MacRumorsunderstands that Apple is privately testing iOS 16.6, and might offer a public beta in the near future. Whatever happens, it's evident Apple is winding down work on its current software as it prepares to deliver major updates this fall.

For the neutral NBA fan, game one of the Eastern Conference Finals last night was highly entertaining. If you were watching on YouTube TV though, the experience at the end of the game was highly frustrating. With just under five minutes left in the 4th quarter of a back-and-forth battle between the Miami Heat and the Boston Celtics, the streaming service had a major issue that kept viewers in a sputtering commercial loop for several minutes. Restarting the app didn't help as users were greeted with the stuttering trailer for the upcoming reboot of The Little Mermaid.

When YouTube TV finally started to chug along again, it skipped ahead every few seconds (this was captured on DVR recordings too). Users were unable to just swipe to live television either, so they just had to contend with broken up bits of action for the rest of the game. The service quickly admitted on Twitter that it was having problems, specifically referencing users trying to watch the NBA playoff game. However, the issue impacted other channels on the service too, including Bravo where Watch What Happens Live was airing after the highly anticipated Vanderpump Rules finale.

Several hours later the service's support account tweeted that everything was back to normal. The same info was posted to a support thread about the issue, but no details about a specific cause were mentioned. We've reached out to YouTube TV for more information on the problem.

Live TV streaming wasn't the only headache for YouTube last night. While that issue was unfolding, creators were having trouble uploading videos to YouTube proper, including clips for Shorts. Some experienced unusually slow processing times while others were unable to upload at all. This issue was also resolved a few hours later.

For YouTube TV, being completely unwatchable during high-profile live events is sure to leave a sour taste in subscribers' mouths. The service just increased its price by $8 a month to a whopping $73 in March. That's a little more than double the $35 monthly fee the service commanded at its 2017 launch. Streaming services as a whole have been regularly raising rates, so this isn't unique to YouTube TV. But combined with the occasional contract disputes with networks that can leave some channels unavailable — either temporarily or permanently — any issues with streaming reliability could be a major problem for the service. There's no rest for YouTube TV either as the Lakers/Nuggets series resumes tonight and there's one NBA playoff game scheduled each day until both series wrap up.

Game developer Panic, the studio behind Firewatch and Untitled Goose Game, is dropping a unique soccer title on PS5 next year. It’s called Despelote and is described as a “beautiful slice-of-life adventure” about childhood and the world’s favorite sport. The title’s set in Ecuador in 2001, which was when the country had its first qualifying run for the World Cup.

Gameplay involves exploring the city of Quito, playing soccer and engaging in “playful, funny interactions” with various townspeople. It boasts a first person perspective and a highly unique art style that merges grainy photo realism with flourishes of animation. Not sure what that means? There’s a teaser trailer.

Panic says the game was inspired by lead co-creator Julián Cordero’s childhood and it boasts full voice acting in Spanish with the option for localized subtitles. Much of the dialogue was actually captured in real life on the streets of Ecuador to give it a bit more flavor. The same goes for the background ambient noise.

It’s worth noting that this is a narrative title first and a soccer game second, so don’t expect a full-on sim like FIFA. There looks to be plenty of opportunities to kick things, pass things and dribble, however, as you explore the town, “getting caught up in mischief and soaking in the local culture.”

Despelote first appeared on the scene in 2021 at that year’s Summer Games Fest, but there wasn’t an official publisher or release platform back then. As for Panic, the company’s been busy meeting the demands of PlayDate portable console owners in addition to publishing nifty indie titles.

It's no secret that, regardless of skill level, women's sports are broadcast and funded a whole lot less than men's sports. While serious structural shifts are needed to rectify this, small changes are always welcome. In that vein, Roku is launching the Women's Sports Zone, a hub for accessing live matches, alongside content like documentaries and movies that focus on women's sports, all in one place. The streaming platform credits a general spike in interest toward watching women's sports as responsible for the move. 

Roku users can access the Women's Sports Zone in one of two ways, the first being by searching directly for "women's sports" or the name of a team or a league. Otherwise, users on the TV or mobile app can scroll to the sports section to find it. On the TV, the zone will pop up under the "Browse by Sport" category — yes, implying women's sports are one entity versus being just as multifaceted as men's sports, again, small changes. Once inside the zone, there's a breakdown of current games streaming live and upcoming matches with their dates listed. 

The hub's launch is neatly timed to the WNBA season's imminent start, with live broadcasts currently including professional and collegiate basketball, soccer and golf. Supporting channels are responsible for providing each offering, and, according to Roku, additional content will be available in "the coming months." 

At long last, you can respond to posts on Instagram with GIFs. Company head Adam Mosseri announced the feature addition in his recent Instagram Channels chat with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. “This is a bit of ‘finally feature,’ but we’re launching GIFs in comments today,” Mosseri told his boss.

The feature, as you would expect, allows you to comment on a post, or something someone else said, with a GIF from Giphy. That’s the same Giphy the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority ordered Meta to sell last year. Mosseri said Instagram is also testing lyrics in Reels. The feature appears to build on the auto-caption sticker Meta introduced back in 2021. Judging from the screenshot Mosseri shared, a timeline at the bottom of the interface will make for user to sync the captions properly. So there you have it, you can finally comment on a post with a GIF. Maybe this means Instagram will finally get around to making a dedicated iPad app at some point.

Blizzard has revealed the Overwatch 2 roadmap for the rest of 2023, including details on when the first story missions are coming to the game. They'll be available in season six, which should start in mid-August.

Story missions are part of the long-awaited co-op side of the game. When Blizzard released Overwatch 2 last October, the player vs. environment (PvE) aspects of the game that it first showed off at BlizzCon in 2019 were not available. That's because the team needed more time to work on the PvE modes. 

The studio didn't want to keep fans waiting much longer for an overhaul of the traditional, competitive (or PvP) side of Overwatch 2 after what was effectively a two-year content drought. So, Blizzard split development of the two halves so it could get the sequel out faster. There have been PvE experiences in Overwatch 2, but so far they've been constrained to limited-time events.

It's worth noting that this won't be the full PvE vision that Blizzard laid out almost four years ago. "Development on the PvE experience really hasn't made the progress that we would have hoped," Overwatch 2 executive producer Jared Neuss said. The team had created "a bunch of amazing content," including "ridiculous" gameplay augmentations for heroes. "Unfortunately, the effort required to pull all of that together into a Blizzard-quality experience that we can ship to you is huge," Neuss said. "With everything we've learned about what it takes to operate this game at the level you deserve, it's clear that we can't deliver on that original vision for PvE."

Hero missions have been cut in order to not pull too many resources away from the live game, which is the priority for Blizzard. As such, talent trees, an RPG-style feature of hero missions that would have enabled players to customize hero abilities, have been scrapped. 

That's not to say there aren't intriguing PvE features coming. A single-player version of a PvE experience with a leaderboard is in the works. A ton of co-op features are planned and Blizzard will continue to add content on a frequent basis, including more story missions.

Before the story missions debut in a few months, there's a whole new season in between. Season five will arrive in June with what appears to be a fantasy theme. Fans can expect a new limited-time event called Questwatch, a new cinematic, the Summer Games event and updates for the Workshop mode, in which players can create custom games. The On Fire system, which lets everyone in a match see when certain players are performing especially well, will return in season five too.

Story missions aren't the only big change on the docket for season six. The developers say this season will mark the biggest update since launch. Blizzard will add another support hero, a firing range and an overhauled player progression system. The Anniversary event will return as well. Perhaps most intriguingly, there will be a new map type for the PvP modes called Flashpoint, which will debut with two new maps.

There will be a bigger focus on building out the story of Overwatch 2 as well. For one thing, seasons will be named and, with the help of in-game cinematics, season six will "push the narrative arc of Overwatch forward for the first time since the original game release."

Looking ahead to season seven and beyond, Blizzard is promising reworks for Sombra (yes, another one) and Roadhog. Also in the pipeline are another collaboration following the One-Punch Man crossover, a fresh tank hero, a control map, a winter event, a lore database and, most excitingly for me, the return of competitive Mystery Heroes.

You may have to get a Peacock subscription if you want to watch every single game in the NFL playoffs. The streaming service will serve as home to the first-ever exclusive livestreamed NFL playoff game, NBCUniversal and the league have announced. It's a wild card game that's scheduled to take place on January 13th, 2024, which is the first playoff weekend. And by "exclusive," they meant it will not be aired on national TV or even on cable. Only the local markets for the two competing teams will have access to the game outside Peacock, through a local TV channel that'll most likely be an NBC affiliate. 

As The Wall Street Journal notes, the NFL made postseason games available for streaming in the past. However, this marks the first time one can only be accessed on a streaming service by most viewers. NFL chief operating officer Hans Schroeder has acknowledged that the decision could upset some fans who'll have to get Peacock to watch that one game, but he believes it "will be transformative for sports on digital."

In fact, Schroeder said the NFL will likely continue making one of its wild card games exclusively accessible via streaming going forward. Whether Peacock will carry the game again in 2025 will probably depend on how the 2024 game performs for the service: Peacock and the NFL only signed a one-year deal, which The Journal says cost around $110 million. 

Watching the Olympics in 2021 was a little complicated, requiring viewers to juggle NBC Broadcasts, the company's Peacock Streaming service and a dedicated NBCOlympics.com website. Today the company announced that watching the Paris games in 2024 will be a lot easier — declaring Peacock the "streaming home" of the 2024 Paris Olympics.

"In a Summer Games first, the service will stream every sport and event, including all 329 medal events." NBC says it will also broadcast at least nine hours of daytime coverage on the network, which will then be made available for streaming on Peacock. The streaming service will also host full-event replays, curated video clips, original commentary and more.

NBC is heralding the coverage as the Olympic Games return to its "true glory, with full stadiums and the world's greatest athletes" since 2018, but the expanded programming is almost certainly a response to backlash over the network's limited coverage of the last summer Olympics. Although the network did make every event available to watch 2021, most of it could only be accessed on NBCOlympics.com, with NBC television and Peacock playing host to limited key events.

With any luck, NBC's new plans will make watching the games easier than ever. You'll have to wait about a year to find out, though: NBC and Peacock will kick off Olympic Games coverage on Friday, July 26 2024.