You Can Now Share Live Game Cards From Apple Sports
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While there’s no sign of CarPlay scores yet, Apple has added another new enhancement to its Sports app: the ability to share live Game Cards in messages and on social media.
Apple Sports debuted in early 2024 as a simple and efficient way for fans to get real-time information on their favorite teams. While some felt the app was a bit too simple, Apple deliberately focused on making it lean and mean to provide the most essential details with no cruft, clutter, ads, or anything else that could get in the way.
“We created Apple Sports to give sports fans what they want — an app that delivers incredibly fast access to scores and stats,” Apple’s services chief, Eddy Cue, said when the app was initially announced, and he was right.
In addition to relay-time team scores and stats, the app offered a list of upcoming games by league or individual team, play-by-play information, lineup details, and even live betting odds. It launched just in time for the 2024 MLB and MLS seasons. It also included the NHL, men’s and women’s NCAA basketball, and Bundesliga, LaLiga, Liga MX, Ligue 1, Premier League, and Serie A soccer. A later update added NCAAF, NWSL, and WNBA when their seasons kicked off, and by late 2024, the NFL had joined the party along with the Champions League and Europa League.
Earlier this month, Apple added the UEFA Women’s Champion’s League. It also took the app in a new direction with Formula 1 racing, which requires a completely different way of presenting information since it’s about individual drivers rather than teams. F1 fans can use the app to follow live leaderboards, lap times, and more.
Apple Sports also provides a tightly integrated iPhone experience. Apple’s tighter focus on sports news and scores began in earnest two years ago when it added a dedicated My Sports section in Apple News in iOS 16. This not only lets you check games and scores but also provides a curated feed of news about all of your favorite teams. It also ties into the Apple TV app to ensure that upcoming games for your picks are on your watch list.
Favoriting a team in Apple News did the same in Apple TV and vice versa, so it’s no surprise that Apple Sports plugged into these same frameworks. Folks who had already been following their teams found their list ready to go as soon as they installed Apple Sports, and those faves continue to sync across all three apps.
Apple Sports also gained Live Activities in iOS 18. Technically, these had been available previously, but they came from the TV app. Now, Apple has taken those Live Activities one step further with Game Card Sharing.
First reported by 9to5Mac, the new feature lets you share graphical game cards via iMessage that show scoring information that also dynamically updates. In other words, you aren’t just giving someone a snapshot of the score at that moment — the game card you share will remain updated to show the score as the game progresses.
Game cards can be shared from the standard sharing button that appears in the top-right corner when viewing the card in the app, and it works much like sharing anything else. Technically, what Apple is doing here is sharing a web link. iMessage renders a preview of that link like it does with most other web links and also keeps it up to date.
Other apps like Messenger and WhatsApp that render web link previews will also show the game card, but it won’t dynamically update as scores change. That’s simply because these apps won’t update web previews; what you get is whatever that link looked like when it was received.
Opening the link on an iPhone will take you directly to the corresponding game card in the Sports app if you have it installed. Other devices, including the iPad and Mac, will open it in a web browser, showing an up-to-date version of the card and a button to download Apple Sports.
