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Apple Sports

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33 pointsdm26 comments

Does anyone else find the prominence of sports betting in this app…odd?

I know sports betting has become a bigger and bigger part of watching sports. But as an activity that can become harmful to certain people, I find it very un-Apple like to have prioritized this information in what is otherwise a fairly mediocre app when compared to, say, ESPN.

It's definitely a surprise to see, coming from Apple. However, if we consider the amount of money they make on gacha games, which are essentially slot machines (that award you worthless items) (and are often targeted at children), it's unfortunately less of a surprise.

Both the appstore and the playstore are indeed making most of their money on casino type games but usually they try for obvious PR & legal reasons to avoid this subject.

Anything mentioning the store will show plenty of productivity apps or something similarly positive. I'm also very surprised by this move.

Betting odds are useful even if you don't bet because they show you the outcome prediction. It would be weird if clicking it led you to a betting website given Apple's stance on gambling, but just seeing the odds isn't weird.

Google frames this as “win probability” which feels more like statistics rather than gambling.

Why? Do you consider Apple to generally be some sort of force of good?

I find Apple to be an incredibly cynical company. They are cynical towards their users (donglebook back when USB-c was hardly adopted, the whole "you're holding it wrong" saga etc etc). They are even more cynical towards the developers on their platform, no need to waste words on that after the recent malicious compliance of EU laws etc

You’re right about adopting USB C too early. They should have also stuck with SCSI and ADB with the original iMac.

But this is a first, someone complaining that Apple used an industry standard too early.

Except, of course, it's not about using it too early, it's about getting rid of what EVERYONE at that point used (USB-A) too early. So they could shave off a few mm of the laptop body as if it were a designer bag and not a device with a "pro" designation.

Same as with the 3.5mm jack on the iPhone.

They, of course, would then sell adapters at a premium because why not.

Or you know, you could buy the same dongles from third parties. That’s the beauty of standards. Also by abandoning old ports it incentivizes other companies to produce compatible hardware - just like the iMac did for USB in 1997.

As far as phones, now most premium phones come without a headphone jack. But most people aren’t walking around with cords hanging from their phones anyway - they use Bluetooth headsets

If they didn't make the MacBook USB-C only manufacturers would still be churning out USB-A devices like there's no tomorrow. At least, due to economies of scale there are more devices and cheap adapters to use and even the original Thunderbolt promise of 'one wire' display, power and data is becoming a lot more common.

But of course, it's all about the few bucks Apple earns on a sub $10 adapter.

Oh right, Apple removed USB-A for the betterment of the world.

Just like Apple removed HDD support and that's why we all use SSDs now. Or how they removed DVD-ROM and that's why we use portable flash memory. And PS/2 peripherals in favor of USB ones.

Oh wait... Seems like I'm wrong, all of those happened organically! Huh...

Apple created the problems (USB-A and 3.5mm removals) and sold the solutions (dongles and adapters at a huge premium, and of course their Bluetooth earbuds).

Just look at adapter/airpods sales figures and the money Apple made post removal of those. I suppose you think Apple is above such business practices because they're some elegant, high brow company. But they're not, they're just a company.

In fact, that slimming of the macbook came back to bite them in the ass due to inappropriate heating for the Intel cpus at the time. All the macbooks between 2018 and the first M1 were just expensive, overheating garbage.

You had to put the 2019 macbook pros in the freezer so that they reached their advertised performance.

USB-A to USB-C adapter dongles are standard and only cost a few dollars. That's completely insignificant next to Apples other profit centers.

Of course the vision behind removing the 3,5mm port was of a wireless future (and after untangling my Earpods for the 100th time I agree). There was a simple dongle sold and you can still buy Earpods with Lightning or USB-C port if you want wired. It's not like you are forced in any way to wear Airpods, other Bluetooth or USB-C headphones work fine. Airpods just happened to be a succesful fashion item. Removing the port allows for a bit more battery (yeah, I know they didn't use the space on the iPhone 7) and simplifies the design a bit (no DA converter needed, one less port that can break, no support calls from people who plug in an old Nokia 3,5mm cable thats wired different). While the gains are mostly for Apple I don't see simplifying something so less things can go wrong as inherently evil. If they really wanted to be evil they would have supported only Airpods.

Ps. I've used the 2019 MacBook pro that liked to spin up its fans but had no real issues with performance. Keyboard was okay too ;)

> Why? Do you consider Apple to generally be some sort of force of good?

No, but I don't presume they are purely guilty/cynical if there also might be good reasons for the changes they are making. Also, presuming Apple as a company has perfect knowledge and will not ever make a mistake is not realistic. There are things like unintended consequences, of which they also fixed a lot.

I didn't find it prominent and had to read pretty far down to find out that it's only betting odds being displayed. I find betting odds useful to know expectations going into a game. You can turn the betting odds off as well.

That’s interesting. I don’t see anywhere to turn off the odds, and for me - this is for NHL - the odds are the top widget on all the games.

Settings -> Sports -> Hide betting odds

I misunderstood you, sorry. I thought you meant that the ad copy was prominent in mentioning betting odds. I haven't ran the app, so I can't speak to that.

> Does anyone else find the prominence of sports betting in this app…odd?

Not really. The basic betting line indicating which team is favored has been apart of box scores long before betting was widespread or accessible in the US.

I would find it pretty shocking if Apple started displaying individual player betting lines, parlays, etc. The stuff that has propagated into broadcasts with the growth of sports betting.

But which team is favored seems pretty basic information that is interesting even if I don't care about betting.

I am not a fan of betting but I support being able to do it. I do think it would be nice if Apple could add an option to hide all gambling-related things for those who struggle with an addiction to it.

Not even that, Apple has a moral objection to other things, but gambling is okay? (I don't think they should be arbiting anything, but still...)

  Apple Sports keeps fans up to date on the following leagues currently in season:

  MLS

  NBA

  NCAA basketball (men’s and women’s)

  NHL

  Bundesliga

  LaLiga

  Liga MX

  Ligue 1

  Premier League

  Serie A

I hope they expand their coverage for more sports like Baseball (MLB) and Tennis (WTA, ATP)

From the link:

Additional leagues will become available on Apple Sports over time, including MLB, NFL, NCAAF, NWSL, and WNBA for their upcoming seasons.

No word on tennis yet.

This seems designed in exact opposition to my needs.

I need a service that curates highlights of the sports and teams and players I care about, presented in a way that shares no spoilers, so I can catch up when I can.

As is usual this gap in copyrighted content is filled by unsanctioned channels.

Unclear why this gets its own app instead of being a tab in the News app

Oh boy, gambling as an OS feature.

That's called trying to connect to non-Apple bluetooth devices.

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