Apple’s interest in the wide world of sports is continuing to grow. On Wednesday the company announced its latest app, dubbed Apple Sports, and it has a fairly straightforward mission: Be the fastest, easiest way to get the latest scores and stats about the teams and players you care about.
“It’s very simple, to solve a problem that I’ve had as a sports fan, and I think most people have had as a sports fan, which is how do you get scores and stats for live games?” says Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of services. “And we’ve done this in a very clean, really easy to use, and most importantly, fast – meaning real-time” way.
Cue notes that the new app will update “faster than TV in most cases” because most live events are broadcast with a delay.
The app, which is iPhone-only for now and free to download for users in the US, UK and Canada, is only focused on sports scores, stats and following favorite teams to start. At launch, Apple supports a variety of leagues currently in season including NBA, NHL, MLS, men’s and women’s college basketball as well as a host of international soccer leagues, including Bundesliga, LaLiga, Serie A, Ligue 1, Liga MX and the Premier League.
The company says that additional leagues including MLB, NFL, college football, the WNBA and NWSL will be added “for their upcoming seasons.”
Cue says that Apple has worked with a “huge number of providers” to get real-time play-by-play data on ongoing games, sorting through all that information to make sure what the app presents is accurate and quick.
While there are a multitude of apps that offer a similar premise – including ones from CBS, ESPN, The Score and the major leagues themselves – Apple aims to be faster and simpler at delivering what is happening in games.
“I think ESPN does a great job with clips and all the things that they do, but they don’t really do a great job in sports,” he says when asked why users would want to use Apple Sports compared to the competition,…
Read the full article here