I Was Skeptical, But Apple Sports Won Me Over

iPhone Sports App

iPhone Sports App: A Convert's Perspective

For years, iPhone users have relied on third-party apps for sports scores and updates. But Apple recently stepped into the game with its own Sports app, and after some initial skepticism, I'm now a convert. The Apple Sports app was introduced on the iPhone on February 21, 2024. I initially tried it back in February, but it lacked customization, so I didn't use it for long. However, I've returned to using the app for the past two months, and I'm enjoying it much more. Apple has made several improvements that enhance usability, including displaying live games I follow on my lock screen and Apple Watch. Adding or removing games from my "followed" list is now a breeze.

While other apps on my phone (e.g., ESPN, MLB, NFL) offer game tracking, I particularly appreciate how Apple Sports displays real-time countdowns on my lock screen and Apple Watch. Often, the countdown is ahead of what I see on TV, giving me a more "live" feel.

Follow a Specific Game

Following a Specific Game

The screenshot shows the games I'm currently following. In this case, there are NFL games and college basketball games. To follow a game on your lock screen or Apple Sports, simply open the game in the app and tap the icon in the upper right corner of the game details. Tapping the icon again unfollows the game.

The ability to display followed games on the lock screen is a relatively recent addition, introduced within the last two or three months. This feature wasn't available at the app's initial launch and has been a game-changer for me. I often close live updates from other apps like NFL or ESPN, relying on Apple Sports for at-a-glance updates.

Followed Game on Lock Screen

Lock Screen Updates

As shown in the screenshots, Apple Sports provides clear updates on the lock screen and Apple Watch. On my Apple Watch, I receive notifications for scores, end of quarters, and halftime/game endings. These notifications can be customized if you only want to see score updates.

Final Thoughts

I am currently using Apple Sports as my primary app for following my teams. I appreciate the real-time updates, which seem faster than those in other apps. Occasionally, a game might not update correctly, requiring me to force-close and restart the app, but this is a minor inconvenience.

I'm optimistic that Apple will continue to update and improve the Apple Sports experience. If you haven't tried it recently, I encourage you to check it out.

Change in Wi-Fi Calling Not Dropping Calls When Leaving Wireless Hotspot Location -- Huge Improvement!

Like many of you, I use my cell phone all the time. I use it for browsing the web, social media, email, calendar, and to stay updated on news. For a few years now, I have relied upon Wi-Fi Calling to be enabled so that if there was a wireless connection available to which I was connected, I could rely on that connection to make and receive calls. Without this option, it was not possible in some places to make or receive calls let alone to be able to interact on the internet. Today, there is almost no where that I go that a internet connection is not available. 

When I first started using Wi-Fi calling on my phone, I found that if I was in say my office and on a call with my cell, if I left the building, the call would drop. The call was attempting to transition from the internet connection to the towers. I had really not tried to walk away from a connection for at least the past two years until recently. I was surprised to find that my call did not drop. I did further testing to see if I was on a call and went into an area with wireless would it drop as it handed the call from the cell tower to the wireless access point... Sure enough, this worked too and worked smoothly. 

Much improved process with the hand-off to and from Wi-Fi calling on the iPhone. I know there were many times I would call Carrie to let her know I was heading to pick her up for lunch and as I walked to my car, the call would drop. Now, that is not an issue as I can get to the car, drive out of the lot, and the call never drops. 

I am not sure if this was an improvement by the standards for mobile phones, an Apple change, or something that was improved with the hand-off between my device and either Wi-Fi or tower. Whatever it is, I am thankful for the improvement. I rely on my phone heavily and knowing that I can leave a place that has Wi-Fi and the call will not drop is important. 

While it is not ideal to drop a call to my wife, it can be awkward to drop a call to a vendor, or customer, as I leave the office. Left calling them back saying "sorry, I am not sure what happened to the connection" where the whole time I know it was because I had left a place with wireless where I had placed the call and now I am in an area without wireless. This is no longer a concern as it works the way I would hope it would work.

Again, I am not sure when this changed as I could not find much information about it. I am not sure if this is an improvement only for iPhones or if Android also benefits off of this change. If it is all phones, then I wonder if this was an improvement that was made by the FCC to be able to hand the call between no Wi-Fi and connected to Wi-Fi. 

Switching from FaceBook App to Web Site Only for Updates and Other Thoughts

I made the switch about two weeks ago away from the FaceBook app to only using the Safari shortcut on my phone per the article on 9TO5Mac: PSA: Switching from the Facebook app to Safari can boost iPhone battery life by up to 15%.  

I have an old iPhone 5 where the battery can barely last to 5 pm during the day.  So, I decided to give this a try. Granted, I did see improvement in the battery, but I think it is more to the point that I am not grabbing my phone each time FaceBook lights up with a notification.  Now, it is only when Twitter or email show there is a notification.  With most of my friends and family using FaceBook, that tends to be the one that lights up the most and has notifications.

I have noticed that my phone battery lasts longer into the evening, but as I mentioned, I do not believe it is simply because the FaceBook app is no longer on my phone. Instead, it seems to be because I am not constantly checking FaceBook throughout the day. This prompted me to do the same with LinkedIn and I removed that app from my phone too.  I set shortcuts for FaceBook and LinkedIn on my home screen and have been using those to get to those pages to check notifications.

Obviously by not having those apps installed on my phone, I miss notifications from those sites where normally I would have received the notifications immediately gone out to view the update shortly after it was posted.  This morning when I went to FaceBook, there were ten notifications going back to yesterday.  I made some changes to have those notifications that use to pop up on my phone to instead send me email for FaceBook notifications.

One bonus, as someone pointed out in the comments section of the 9TO5Mac post, is that now I do not need to have the FaceBook Messenger app on my phone.  I just removed that before posting this update.  I had completely forgotten about that app until now. I did not like having a separate app to chat with people on FaceBook in the first place. So, happy to remove that app from my iPhone.

After two weeks of this change with only using the FaceBook web site from my phone, I have not noticed huge improvements with battery life. It does have me questioning all the apps that I have on my phone and what I could remove and never miss. I do not have any games on my phone as I use to go through periods where I would play a game on my phone for a week or two, get tired of it, and then remove it. 

So, now I do not have any games on my phone. A quick count of apps and I have 53 apps on my phone.  Of those 53 apps, I check maybe 5 - 10 on a regular basis. Sure, I have those iOS apps that cannot be removed too which are not included in that count of 53 apps. Still, of those 53 apps and my only using really 5 - 10 of them, I do not want to remove the other apps in case I might need them at some point. 

In another few months, I will have the new iPhone 7 and then I will decide whether I will keep this app removal process going or give in and install the apps on the new phone.  For now, I am happy to run this way and not stay as connected.

Old iPhone 5 and Wanting the Newest Features... Why Not?

Don't you love it how technology tries to keep you "current"?  Well, more accurately put, the companies that produce the technology that we (I) like to use keep us current by forcing us to upgrade our phones, computers, cars, etc.  Just so we can get the new gadgets, new features, or just look "cool".

OK, I admit, I have an iPhone 5 which at this point is over three years old.  In terms of a phone, it is old.  A friend of mine just recently upgraded their iPhone 4 to the iPhone 6.  I am not that bad, but it does make me frustrated when my iPhone 5 (released September 21, 2012) can no longer do the fancy new features that are being produced for the "new" phones.

Case in point, my phone will not do the WiFi calling nor will it do the newly published iOS 9.3 feature of Night Shift which was released earlier this week.  So, I have the new operating system and I have been providing feedback for likes, dislikes, and suggestions for features, but my iPhone 5 will not do the new cool feature.  What's the point of allowing me to test my "old" phone with the beta software if the cool new feature will not work?

I have been part of the iOS public beta program since it was released.  I have the Mac OS beta installed too along with the iPhone beta.  Overall, I have enjoyed the experience.  I got tired of reporting that the phone app on the iPhone with the beta software is slow or crashes.  I think I have reported this issue every other time the beta has released.  Once again with 9.3 I am seeing the slowness with the phone app.  It either takes forever to change from contact, keypad, or voicemail or simply crashes back to the home screen.  I provide the feedback and the next release it is fixed.  This makes me wonder if it is because I am running an old iPhone 5 and it works great in iPhone 6 or 6 Plus, but who knows.  It keeps happening to my old phone.

I still remember when I was a BlackBerry fan.  I really enjoyed the Blackberry!  Well, more appropriately the BlackBerry 8330.  It was probably my favorite phone and never thought I could start using a phone without a keyboard.  The only frustration with that phone (BlackBerry) was that not a lot of people were using it, thus, there were hardly any apps for the phone that I could utilize.  The funny thing now is that with my iPhone, I use a core set of apps.  When I could not get those other cool apps for the BlackBerry, I jumped ship to get the cool new phone.

The core set of apps that I use now include email, Twitter, browser, calendar, FaceBook, fantasy sports, and a few other odds and ends.  Probably all apps that could easily have been done back in the day on a BlackBerry.

Back to my current phone of iPhone 5....  It is over three years old.  It is an old phone by any standards.  I plan to keep it at least until iPhone 7 which is due to be out in September 2016.  I am sure I will continue to test and complain about future iOS beta installations.  I will continue to complain about the horrible battery life my phone maintains (i.e. it dies with anywhere from 5 - 10% battery life).

The Night Shift feature released in iOS 9.3 public beta sounded perfect.  I have a bad habit of as soon as I wake up I grab my phone to check email, Twitter (see previous post), and a glance at FaceBook.  Even though I have auto dim set on my phone, the screen is usually so bright that I can barely look at the screen without my eyes watering.  It does not matter whether it is 3 am or 6:30 am when I wake and grab my phone to see what has come through since I was sleeping, I still am drawn to the phone to check what was happening.  Not the best habit, but so far I have kept from responding to email or Tweets at those odd times.

Anyway, because of my old phone and the fact that Apple decided not to release the Night Shift feature to anything less than a iPhone 5s, I miss out on this new feature.  Granted, as some friends said, this is likely because the iPhone 5 is unable to handle this feature and I agree, but I feel like I am missing out with this old phone.

iPhone 5 Shutting Down Problems

I started noticing it after I went to iOS 7.0.2 and now that I am at 7.0.3 I definitely notice it.  I have gone through the suggested fixes too with no luck.  Posting this to see if others are having issues.  I know I have read plenty of forum posts with people having the issue, but figured I would post something on my blog about it too.

My iPhone 5 with iOS 7.0.3 will shut down anywhere from 23% down.  I did not have this problem prior to just a few weeks ago.  My iPhone 5 is exactly a year old.  No problems with battery at all until recently.  I did notice that when it shuts down early I can usually turn it back on by pressing the top button a few times.  In fact, if I go through a sequence of pressing the top button ten times and then pressing and holding it would turn on almost every time.  Odd!  When the phone would turn back on, the battery level would be at whatever it left off at (i.e. 23% on down).

If after going through the power on sequence it would turn back on, I did try running out the battery by going through this until there was nothing left.  Went through batter recalibration and still the same problem.  I did notice that if after it powered down if I put the phone in airplane mode, it would not shut down on its own.  I could run it all the way down to 1% without any problems.  I did close out all programs, turn off wifi, etc, but if it was not in airplane mode it would continue to shut down.

Personally, I believe this is a iOS 7.x.x issue and not a problem with my phone.  Especially considering the number of people reporting this problem in Apple discussions and other forums.  I sent a tweet to @9to5mac to see if they had these problems reported to them or if they knew anything about the iOS issue causing the problem.  So far, nothing back from them, but I am sure thinking it is a issue with the iOS.

I am curious to know if those still running iOS 7.0 are experiencing this problem.  What about those running 7.0.2 and then finally 7.0.3?  Granted, some of the results might be varied by those having battery issues, but I do not believe the issues I and others are experiencing are batter problems.