Technologies

MLS Season Pass Review: Apple’s First Step Shows Promise, but It’s a Pass From Me

Apple’s new soccer service works well, but it’s expensive and doesn’t offer enough for fans of local teams.

Major League Soccer has returned for its 28th season and the biggest news this year isn’t the (once again) reworked playoff system or the massive Leagues Cup coming this summer, but the introduction of the MLS Season Pass on Apple TV.

After spending the past two weekends watching MLS on Apple TV, I think the service leaves a lot to be desired. While it’s fantastic that every game is available so easily without the worry of local games being «blacked out,» it has become a hard sell to convince people to sign up for yet another streaming service, especially one that starts at a hefty $13 per month.

Having grown up alongside MLS I’ve seen it change quite a bit throughout the years, from growing ever larger in the number of teams (this year’s newest addition is a club in St. Louis) and endlessly changing the playoffs to having a team finally win the CONCACAF Champions League (thank you, Seattle).

Apple’s Season Pass is by far the biggest change for fans of the league, however, and one that may see many fans who don’t pay the subscription feeling isolated from their teams. There are no blackouts, but it comes at the expense of having no local home broadcasting of any kind.

All told, Apple’s first pass at MLS works well, but I still see plenty of room for improvement.

Watch the games on the Apple TV app

See at Apple

The cost

If you’re an Apple TV Plus subscriber, you’ll pay either $13 a month or $79 for the year for Season Pass. If you don’t have Apple’s streaming video service, that price jumps to $15 a month or $99 for the season. It’s available in over 100 countries, at similar prices (it’s £13 a month or £79 a season in the UK, for example).

The Season Pass subscription gives fans access to every game this season with no blackouts. Whereas other blanket sports services like MLB.TV and NBA League Pass prevent you from watching your local team or national games, because everything is on Apple’s service, all MLS action is available in one location. One subscription gets you the entire package (plus other events such as the Leagues Cup and MLS Next). It’s a huge plus for this Apple-MLS arrangement.

Team Pages on MLS Season Pass — Each team has its own page on MLS Season Pass, but there’s no local coverage.

Bobby Oliver/CNET

For those who don’t want to pay, Apple is also making six matches free each week, with Fox still airing a handful of games as well throughout the year, including certain playoff matches, the MLS Cup and some Leagues Cup games.

That said, it’s now expensive to be a soccer fan in America, with the MLS Season Pass being the only way to consistently follow your favorite club.

At the moment, the service does not justify its price tag and offers no major improvements to areas that ESPN Plus, Paramount Plus and Peacock have made commonplace for viewers over the years with higher-quality leagues. For now, those services are the better choice for the casual soccer fan whose priority is more than just the MLS.

The MLS tab

When you open the Apple TV app (available on most major streaming platforms, Apple devices and the web), the MLS Season Pass is just another tab at the top of the app. You’re immediately greeted with options to look at highlights of past games, add future matches to your Up Next page, or watch one of the service’s many shows, such as MLS Review. Each club has its own page with highlights from past games and videos created by the clubs.

It’s a great way to get more information on a team if you’re new to MLS, but parts of the experience do feel disjointed because each team is responsible for the media that it creates.

MLS Season Pass Tab — The MLS Season Pass lives inside an MLS tab on Apple’s TV app.

Bobby Oliver/CNET

Take the club profiles. LAFC’s is 31 minutes long and truly feels like a Hollywood production. Meanwhile, Real Salt Lake’s is a single minute and feels like a quick promo video. So packaging these as one show feels like an afterthought that was added to say that the service has more content than it really does at launch.

Those looking to get a taste of what happened in the league during the last match week can take a look at the MLS Wrap-Up where analysts and former players discuss each game and its biggest moments. Hosts for Week 1 included former players such as Taylor Twellman and Sacha Kljestan as well as sports commentator Liam McHugh, whose previous work includes Sunday Night Football and the NHL for NBC Sports.

At the moment it’s a good way to stay connected with the game, but for now, it doesn’t go above and beyond what other leagues have had for years.

The game day experience

MLS Season Pass on Apple TV game — The MLS stream is sharp at 1080p.

Bobby Oliver/CNET

Each match has its own pregame and postgame show, which are fine for getting caught up, but nothing more. Before the first game on a Wednesday or Saturday, there’s the MLS Countdown show, which feels very similar to the MLS Wrap-Up, it just occurs before the matches.

When it comes to the shows on match day, there are still some kinks to be worked out. Both the MLS Countdown and MLS Wrap-Up shows lack a bit of character. The way hosts of the Golazo Show and ESPN FC banter with each other is what makes those shows so great and worth watching for fans.

So far, the banter in the MLS equivalents hasn’t felt genuine. I hope that with time this changes but the shows just aren’t that engaging to me. It would be great if they responded to fan questions on-air, as that allows viewers to feel more involved with the content. The Golazo and ESPN FC crews feel more like a group of friends rather than analysts brought in to cover the sport.

Unlike NFL RedZone, which is the NFL’s whip-around show led by one host, MLS 360 features a large group of hosts and analysts, which includes McHugh, Kljestan, Kaylyn Kyle, Bradley Wright-Phillips and the rules expert Christina Unkel. MLS 360 lets you simultaneously watch all the day’s games and catch the biggest moments from each one. The show switches between matches with live scores being displayed from each concurrent match. While that’s happening you also have the hosts from the Countdown and Wrap-Up show reacting live to each game.

These types of shows are not my favorite, and this is no exception. There have been times when the hosts distract from the game rather than add to the experience, in my opinion. When Thiago Almada scored the winning goal in stoppage time for Atlanta United against San Jose, it could have made a big deal of Atlanta’s incredible crowd. It would have been great marketing, showing how passionate MLS fans can be. But the team at MLS 360 was much louder, didn’t add to my excitement, and made me want to switch over to the actual stream of the game. I understand why some fans love this type of show, and maybe if they refine it I will give it another go myself.

Apple MLS Season Pass Game — Bobby Oliver/CNET

This will take some time to get used to, but it’s great that each game has an English and Spanish broadcast, as well as French for teams from Canada. At the moment though, nothing in particular stands out as special once a game gets started. I didn’t see the commentators standing in the box going over lineups, something that will be especially missed from local broadcasts, as they know the teams and viewers best. It just feels like your average nationally televised game, with very little extra going for it.

The video quality of the stream, however, is great and may be one of the best streams of 1080p that I have ever seen running consistently without issue. It’s a stark difference from the quality you see on Fox and is a huge plus in my book.

That said, there are some things that are still out of the hands of Apple. For example, while watching Charlotte versus New England, the camera was far too wide for much of the game, making it difficult to follow the action. At one point there was a significant audio issue, which was confirmed by a friend also watching the match.

When the second match day came around this past weekend it was more of the same. The stream still looked stellar, and without any of the issues I noticed during match day 1. Besides that, there weren’t many noticeable improvements to the service overall. I still did not find many of the larger live shows all that engaging and was just there for the soccer. Furthermore, once halftime arrived there was generic analysis but little in terms of the commentators talking to the fans and getting them excited about the next half of play. The same ads played drearily on repeat.

Another disappointing aspect of the broadcast was the extremely generic scoreboard that lacks any league identity. MLS wants to create a recognizable brand similar to that of the Premier League, Bundesliga, La Liga or other large leagues across the globe. But with a scoreboard that looks like it was taken from a stock image site, it makes it hard for me to get excited. When I see the UEFA Champions League scoreboard, it makes it feel like a unique experience and adds gravitas to what I’m watching. Apple’s extremely clean aesthetic just does not do it for me.

Where Apple can improve

Apple MLS Season Pass Up Next Tab — There are more ways for Apple to improve Season Pass.

Bobby Oliver/CNET

Apple has an extraordinary opportunity to turn this service into the ultimate fan zone. This is why I’m disappointed that it has yet to bring so many simple additions that other services have had for years. First, where’s the «catch up with the important plays» button? Peacock has made this so easy that it’s jarring not to be able to jump into a game at halftime now and be caught up on each goal or an early red card.

Second, I would love to see a section of the MLS Wrap-Up specifically where they respond to social media and reactions similar to how TNT’s Inside the NBA engages with fans on its telecasts. I think this is one of the biggest successes of the soccer shows on Paramount and ESPN, and makes both really enjoyable and engaging.

Third, where’s the Android app? Yes, Android users can still watch matches on their phones if they go to Apple TV on their browser. This really should not have to be the case though, and further alienates people from the league.

Finally, I want my stats. Stat overlay has been around forever and executed very well on MLB.TV for example. It would be helpful to get live updates on possession, expected goals, distance ran and everything else that shows the swing of a match.

For now, I would say pass on MLS Season Pass. It offers enough free games to make not subscribing but still following doable, and you can still watch your favorite teams’ Open Cup and possibly CONCACAF Champions League runs elsewhere. If you want a soccer fix, I would look towards Peacock and Paramount Plus for better coverage and a higher level of play overall.

I love the MLS, but without a dedicated subscription option just to watch your local team, I find the price much too steep. Hopefully, Apple and MLS expand their options and increase the value proposition to really show other leagues the power that Apple can have in sports.

Technologies

Lemon8 and TikTok Could Be Banned. Here’s How the Apps Are Different

TikTok and Lemon8 are owned by the same parent company, but they offer different experiences.

TikTok faces another sale deadline Saturday, and unless a US buyer intervenes — or President Donald Trump extends the deadline again — the app could disappear for US users. If the ban goes into effect, TikTok wouldn’t be the only app to disappear: TikTok’s sister app, Lemon8, could be caught in the crossfire.

Read more: A VPN Alone Probably Won’t Bypass TikTok Bans. Here’s Why

Lemon8 is owned by ByteDance, the same parent company that owns TikTok. It’s one of the top Lifestyle apps in Apple’s App Store, and it has more than 10 million downloads in the Google Play store.

«Lemon8 is a lifestyle community focused app powered by TikTok, where you can discover and share authentic content on a variety of topics such as beauty, fashion, travel, food, and more,» the app’s description reads in both stores.

Here’s what you need to know about Lemon8.

Note: I reached out to ByteDance for this story, and the company did not respond for comment.

What is Lemon8?

Lemon8 is a video- and photo-sharing platform that eschews the vertical-scrolling format of TikTok in favor of a Pinterest board-style format. But what Lemon8 and TikTok do have in common is that both have Following and For You tabs to show you posts from creators you follow and posts the app thinks you will like.

Lemon8’s content is split into six topic tabs, plus a seventh tab called All. The other tabs are Fashion, Beauty, Food, Wellness, Travel and Home. These tabs can be found across the top of your screen, and tapping into these tabs shows you recommended and suggested posts.

Posts can be swipeable photo collections like in Instagram, or TikTok-style videos. Some creators add text to their photos to label clothing or a product. Some will also include the price of the item in the text.

How is Lemon8 different from TikTok and other apps?

Lemon8 is different from other apps in terms of what is posted and how it’s presented.

Lemon8 has a lot of influencer ads and product recommendations. It’s difficult to tell what is and isn’t sponsored content, and this appears to be the norm across the app. TikTok also has sponsored content, but usually these are marked as such in the bottom-left corner.

There aren’t a lot of memes or jokes on Lemon8 compared to other apps, either. You can find memes on Lemon8, but various hashtags associated with «memes,» like «funnymemes» and «catmemes,» have fewer than 1 million views (as opposed to hundreds of millions on Instagram). This could be because Lemon8 is still catching on in the US, but my suspicion is Lemon8 isn’t meant for memes. It’s meant to be more of a guidebook to help you achieve a certain lifestyle or aesthetic.

There’s also a lot of writing in Lemon8. For example, post captions might include instructions for a recipe or a deeper breakdown of an outfit. TikTok captions can have useful information, but those captions are more about connecting posts to hashtags to get more views and don’t necessarily add new information to the TikTok post. Lemon8 uses captions in a similar way to Instagram posts, but Lemon8 captions have one key difference from Instagram: templates.

Lemon8 lets you use templates for your posts to help you quickly format and to give you an idea of what to caption your post. There are caption templates for fashion, shopping finds, beauty, food and travel.

Lemon8 reminds me of a mashup between the magazines Martha Stewart Living, Muscle & Fitness and Travel + Leisure. You can find some useful tips in Lemon8 to help you achieve a desired aesthetic or find some vacation inspiration, but it’s not clear what is and isn’t an ad.

What are people saying about Lemon8?

People’s reaction to Lemon8 is seemingly positive so far. One TikTok creator posted a video calling Lemon8 «Pinterest, but interactive.» Another said Lemon8 is a combination of Pinterest, Instagram and TikTok.

However, this positivity could be artificially inflated. ZDNet reports that many TikTok posts about Lemon8 have described the app with similar language, making some believe ByteDance paid these creators.

And some Lemon8 creators’ claims make this theory sound more viable. One Lemon8 creator told Insider that ByteDance paid them to post on the app. Two other Lemon8 creators showed Insider emails that outlined the app’s payment structure.

Who owns Lemon8?

ByteDance, the Chinese tech company that owns TikTok, also owns Lemon8. According to ZDNet, ByteDance is positioning Lemon8 to be an Instagram rival as more users stop using, or abandon, Meta’s app.

According to the Wall Street Journal, a leaked internal memo from Meta showed that Instagram engagement was declining. ByteDance executives could be hoping to capitalize on this by giving Instagram users an alternative app in the form of Lemon8. And while Lemon8 was released globally in 2020, the app’s recent growth might show ByteDance’s gamble is paying off.

Will Lemon8 be banned alongside TikTok?

Since Lemon8 is owned by ByteDance, which also owns TikTok, it’s possible that the app will be banned alongside TikTok on April 5.

The law requiring the sale of TikTok could be applied generally to other apps that are owned and operated by ByteDance and its subsidiaries. When TikTok shutdown operations in the US in January, Lemon8 was shutdown alongside the app. If TikTok shuts down again, Lemon8 likely will as well.

Should you download Lemon8?

Even with a shutdown looming, Lemon8 is free, so you can download and try the app now before the sale deadline. Just know the app’s posts resemble instructional guides more than memes to share, and many posts feel like advertisements.

What’s Lemon8’s privacy policy?

Most of Lemon8’s privacy policy seems standard for social media apps. It states Lemon8 collects personal and location information to provide you with a better app experience. Some collected information includes your IP address and browsing history. But part of the app’s privacy policy might raise eyebrows.

«The personal information we collect from you may be stored on a server located outside of the country where you live,» the policy reads. The company has servers around the world, according to the policy, so your information could be stored in any of them.

This is different from how Lemon8’s sister app TikTok stores some user’s data. The company stores US-based user data in Oracle servers. TikTok CEO Shou Chew said ByteDance employees in China can access this data, but with «robust cybersecurity controls and authorization approval» overseen by a US-based security team.

For more on the TikTok ban, here’s what to know about the Supreme Court’s decision, here’s what could happen next and here are other apps users are flocking to.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for April 4, #193

Three of the four categories are especially tough today. Here are hints and the answers, for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, No. 193, for April 4.

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

I only solved one of the four categories for today’s Connections: Sports Edition on my own, so if you need help, you’re not alone.

The yellow category was pretty simple, but after that I couldn’t make any connections. It might help if you know a lot about a certain NBA player’s resume. Read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is out of beta now, making its debut on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 9. That’s a sign that the game has earned enough loyal players that The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by the Times, will continue to publish it. It doesn’t show up in the NYT Games app but now appears in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can continue to play it free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Do better.

Green group hint: March Madness.

Blue group hint: Six-time all-star.

Purple group hint: Think Wimbledon.

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: Not meeting expectations.

Green group: Teams in the Women’s Final Four.

Blue group: Teams Kawhi Leonard has played for.

Purple group: Ends in a piece of tennis equipment.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is not meeting expectations. The four answers are bust, disappointment, dud and failure.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is teams in the Women’s Final Four. The four answers are Bruins, Gamecocks, Huskies and Longhorns.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is teams Kawhi Leonard has played for. The four answers are Aztecs, Clippers, Raptors and Spurs.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is ends in a piece of tennis equipment. The four answers are bracket, eyeball, horseshoes and internet.

Quick tips for Connections: Sports Edition

#1: Don’t grab for the easiest group. For each word, think about other sports categories it might fit in – is this a word that can be used in football, or to describe scoring options?

#2: Second meanings are important. The puzzle loves to use last names and even college names that mean other things, to fool you into thinking they are words, not names.

#3: And the opposite is also true. Words like HURTS might seem like a regular word, but it’s also the last name of at least one pro athlete.

Technologies

Skip Your iPhone’s Lockscreen: Here’s the Hidden Flashlight Trick You Need to Know

A couple of taps can really make a difference on your iPhone.

Not long ago, your iPhone’s lockscreen would only allow two app shortcuts that you couldn’t change: camera controls and a flashlight toggle. However, iOS 18.2 allows you to customize these shortcuts to almost anything you might want. This small but impactful change is one of many ways iOS 18 supercharges customization for iPhone and iPad users. But what if you still want an easy-to-access way to toggle your flashlight without unlocking your phone?

Apple introduced an accessibility feature in iOS 14 that, once enabled, allows you to perform actions by just tapping on the back of your phone. The feature is called Tap Back and it remains a sleeper feature that’s sneakily hidden away in your settings menu. Enabling Tap Back essentially allows you to create a button on the back of your iPhone to perform an action without needing to take up any space.

Once you have Tap Back enabled, it doesn’t take long to see how much of a game-changer it can be with its added convenience. Below, we’ll show you how to set it up so a couple of taps on the back of your iPhone will let you launch just about anything you want.

For more, check out what’s in the latest iOS 18.4 release.

How to set up Back Tap on iPhone

Whether you want to link Back Tap with your flashlight, camera or launch a different iPhone app, the path through your iPhone settings begins the same way.

On your compatible iPhone (iPhone 8 or later), launch the Settings application and go to Accessibility > Touch > Back Tap. Now you have the option to launch your action (in this case, your flashlight) with either two or three taps. Although two taps is obviously faster, I would suggest three taps because if you fidget with your phone, it’s easy to accidentally trigger the accessibility feature.

Once you choose a tap option, select the Flashlight option — or a different action if you prefer. You’ll see over 30 options to choose from, including system options like Siri or taking a screenshot, to accessibility-specific functions like opening a magnifier or turning on real-time live captions. You can also set up Back Tap to open the Control Center, go back home, mute your audio, turn the volume up and down and run any shortcuts you’ve downloaded or created.

You’ll know you’ve successfully selected your choice when a blue checkmark appears to the right of the action. You could actually set up two shortcuts this way — one that’s triggered by two taps and one that’s triggered by three taps to the iPhone’s back cover.

Once you exit the Settings application, you can try out the newly enabled Back Tap feature by tapping the back of your iPhone — in my case, to turn on the flashlight. To turn off the flashlight, you can tap on the back of your iPhone as well, but you can also just turn it off from your lock screen if that’s easier.

For more great iPhone tips, here’s how to keep your iPhone screen from dimming all the time and canceling all those subscriptions you don’t want or need.