Apple (via Newsroom):

Apple Sports — the free app for iPhone that gives fans access to real-time scores, stats, and more — is now available to download on the App Store in more than 170 countries and regions around the world, including more than 90 newly added markets.

Fortunately Australia is one of the 90 new markets that the Sports app is now available in. Apple’s been having a bit of fun with the design for this app, so it’s great to be able to download it and try it out for the first time.

As of today, major Australian sporting leagues such as AFL or NRL aren’t supported. Instead the list of sports remains heavily skewed towards US-based and global sports:

• FIFA World Cup 2026 (great timing, and probably a key driver for this expansion)
• Men’s Tennis
• Women’s Tennis
• NBA
• F1
• Champions League
• Women’s Champions League
• Premier League
• All Soccer
• PGA Tour
• LPGA Tour
• NHL
• WNBA
• NFL
• MLB
• University Football
• Men’s University Basketball
• Women’s University Basketball
• NASCAR

Initial thoughts? It’s a strange sensation to open a sports-related app and not be met with a myriad of spammy ads. I’m looking forward to trialling the app further once the French Open kicks off on the 25th May.

From Apple:

Apple today previewed a suite of accessibility updates that use Apple Intelligence to bring new capabilities to features users rely on every day, including VoiceOver, Magnifier, Voice Control, and Accessibility Reader. Apple also announced on-device generated subtitles for uncaptioned video content coming to the Apple ecosystem, as well as a new feature for Apple Vision Pro users to control compatible wheelchairs with their eyes.

There’s a lot to unpack in Apple’s press release today. While some got an early briefing, we can’t yet test these features. Apple says they’re all coming later this year, presumably in iOS 27.

Some of the key highlights:

• Apple Intelligence is coming to VoiceOver and Magnifier, allowing users to get more detailed descriptions of images system-wide
• Users will also be able to use Live Recognition (debuted in iOS 26) to ask a question about what’s in the camera viewfinder and get a more detailed response
• Magnifier will support voice control (eg. to “Zoom in”) and can be opened via the Action button
• Voice Control gains support for natural language control, allowing users to “say what they see” - a great improvement for usability over the experience today that is far more prescriptive
• Accessibility Reader doesn’t miss out on Apple Intelligence support, with on-demand summaries and built-in translations coming
• Videos will soon be able to display automatically generated subtitles where captions or subtitles aren’t available
• Users in supported power wheelchairs will soon be able to control their drive system using the Vision Pro eye-tracking system - what a great use case!
• visionOS gains support for Vehicle Motion Cues that are already available in iOS today
• Touch Accommodations will provide a new way to “personalize setup in iOS and iPadOS”
• Apple has improved pairing, hand-off and setup for Made for iPhone hearing aids
• tvOS will support larger text, allowing the text size to be increased - this might be one to watch as a tvOS developer
• A new API will be added to support adding a human interpreter to an ongoing FaceTime video call

Notably there were no mentions of new watchOS accessibility features this year. Hopefully we still see some announced at WWDC.

It’s almost that time of year again - WWDC 2026 is just around the corner. Apple sent out press invites and developer updates today, with the tagline ‘Coming Bright Up’.

As usual the event will kick-off with the keynote taking place on Monday, 8th June at 10am PDT (or Tuesday, 9th June at 3am AEST for us unlucky Aussies).

Like previous years, the keynote will be available to live stream across apple.com, Apple’s TV app and YouTube. There’s also an in-person event at Apple Park, Cupertino for those lucky enough to have been invited by Apple.

The keynote will then be followed by the Platforms State of the Union address at 1pm PDT (or a more reasonable 6am AEST), which will go into more technical details about the changes announced in the keynote. Expect a focus on AI this year, alongside some refinements to Liquid Glass.

This year there’ll be more than 100 new videos about WWDC announcements, online group labs will run through-out the week with registrations now open. Registrations for one-on-one appointments are also available, with a focus on App Store submissions and marketing this year.

Apple also announced the 36 Design Awards finalists, across six categories - Delight and Fun, Inclusivity, Innovation, Interaction, Social Impact, and Visuals and Graphics. As usual, winners will be announced during WWDC week.

Sadly, this year there were no finalists from Australia. Land of Livia was nominated last year as a finalist in the Games category.