NBA

The Apple TV+ marketing department sure kept itself busy Tuesday. A space-suited denizen of the streamer’s hit sci-fi series Silo showed up in the stands at an NBA game ahead of the show’s season two finale, which arrives Friday.

Earlier Tuesday, a Severance office popped up in New York City’s Grand Central Station. The pop-up drew stars from the show as well as plenty of curious commuters ahead of the Severance season two premiere, which also arrives Friday on Apple TV+.

Apple TV+ ran a full-court press on the promo stunts this week, a departure from the norm. What else could be in store?

NBA preseason games start this weekend. If you didn’t make the draft this year, you can still get in on the basketball action with NBA 2K25 Arcade Edition, which launched Thursday. This is the definitive basketball game for Apple devices, and each new annual upgrade adds even more features.

The feature-packed offering is now on Apple Arcade for iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple TV.

NBA 2K24 Arcade Edition, the latest addition to the long-running esports games franchise, launched a bit earlier than expected. The feature-packed basketball game is now on Apple Arcade for iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple TV.

This is the definitive basketball game for Apple devices, and each new version adds even more features.

Basketball season kicks off Tuesday and that brings the launch of NBA 2K22 Arcade Edition on Apple Arcade. It promises authentic action starring top players. And also a new mode that lets you run your own NBA franchise.

The just-launched game is exclusive to Apple’s gaming service. There are versions for Mac, iPhone and other Apple platforms.

Apple is deepening its partnership with the NBA by teaming up to launch a global playlist on Apple Music to highlight independent hip-hop artists.

The new playlist, dubbed “BASE:LINE” (get it? Cause there’s a baseline in rap songs and on the basketball court), will be curated by Apple Music’s director of hip-hop and R&B Ebro Darden. New artists and songs will be added to the playlist every Thursday with the first edition being made available today.

Apple appears to be planning to become a bigger influence in the world of watching sports as it prepares to announce its TV streaming service next week.

The iPhone-maker invited Sports Illustrated inside its geeky “Sports Ball Room” where a team of employees track pretty much every major and minor sports game in progress. While competitors like Facebook and Amazon are pursuing exclusive rights to air certain games, Apple is taking a different approach. It wants to curate all the must-see moments and alert subscribers when they’re happening.

By Chris Brantner

With the NBA season’s arrival, it’s time to figure out how to watch your favorite teams. Whether you subscribe to cable or you’ve cut the cord, there are plenty of ways to watch pro basketball on your favorite Apple device.

You can opt to watch on Apple TV or you can choose a mobile device. Luckily, most cable apps and other streaming services work pretty much the same way. As long as you know the network the game is on and the time, it’s just a matter of pulling it up and rooting for your favorite team.

The NBA held a glitzy press event last week in Los Angeles to show off new team apparel for the upcoming basketball season. The star wasn’t the retooled jersey designs from Nike, hooded warmup jacket or even any of the 30 players who showed up to model.

It was the tag.

The Nike NBA Connected Jersey will cost fans $200 but inside the tag is a near field communication chip that connects to an iPhone app so that the wearer can have an “all-access pass” to content featuring their favorite players and teams.

Likewise, advertisers could also have unique access to pitching their products.

The NBA playoffs are set to tip off this weekend where the biggest names in the sport will clash for a shot at hoisting the Larry O’Brien NBA Championship Trophy.

This season has been one of the best in recent memory, so to celebrate, Apple brought in renowned digital sketch artist Robert Generette III, aka Rob Zilla, to show how he uses the iPad Pro to create lifelike sketches of the league’s superstars.

Check out his incredible drawing process:

Amazon is reportedly looking to bring live sports streaming to Prime subscribers. The retail giant is said to be in talks with a number of major sports organizations like the NBA, MLB, and NFL over rights to show live games.

Watching the NFL’s Thursday Night Football games this season will no longer require a cable subscription, as long as you got Apple TV.

Twitter revealed that it’s taking a big dive into video content today with its new app for Apple TV that will offer free live streaming of tons of sports other than football.

Twitter has inked a deal with the NFL that will allow it to live-stream content to iOS and later the Apple TV. It’s thought the company has paid around $10 million to stream ten games — all of which are Thursday night fixtures.

The Cleveland Cavaliers pulled off one of the most improbable comebacks in NBA history on Sunday when they came back to beat the Golden State Warriors — Apple’s favorite team — in the NBA Finals and Steve Jobs was part of the reason why.

LeBron James had to dig deep for inspiration when the Cavs lost the first two games of the NBA Finals. After spending the weekend watching old Muhammad Ali fight, James reportedly realized his team needed something they could connect to to make them believe the series wasn’t over. So before Game 3, James gathered his teammates and played a portion of Steve Jobs’ infamous Stanford Univeristy commencement address from 2005.

The Golden State Warriors completed one of the biggest comebacks in NBA playoff history last night when they beat the Oklahoma City Thunder, and perhaps no one in the arena was as amped as Apple VP Eddy Cue.

You see, Eddy Cue loves basketball. He’s such a big hoops fan that he’s made a habit of getting spotted with some of the game’s biggest stars in the biggest moments. So it should be no surprise that when the Warriors’ local paper announced the team’s win this morning Cue was right on the front page with Steph Curry.

Check it out:

It’s no secret that Apple Senior VP Eddy Cue is a massive basketball fan, with an office full of Duke memorabilia, and sightings at various NBA games over the years.

Which probably explains why he looks quite as ecstatically happy as he does to be rocking a Golden State Warriors’ championship ring in a new photo posted to his Twitter feed, following yesterday’s award ceremony for the new NBA champions 2015-2016.

Former NBA player Rex Chapman pleaded guilty to four counts of felony theft this week. He was arrested for not only stealing over $15,000 worth of Apple gear from the store in Scottsdale, Arizona, but also for selling it at local pawn shops.

Chapman allegedly pretended to use the Apple Store’s self-checkout system, leaving without actually paying for the items.

After getting an ear-full from Eddy Cue during Game 1 of the NBA Finals, LeBron James single handedly carried his team to a win last night to even the series at game a piece.

LeBron’s leadership has been unparalleled this season, and that extends on and off the court. Before the Cavs vs Warriors series kicked off last week, insiders revealed that LeBron gathered his teammates at the Four Seasons in downtown San Francisco for a bonding session and presented everyone with their own Apple Watch.

Apple Pay has already invaded MLB stadiums and NBA games, but next up on the list of major sports to accept Apple’s contactless payments system will be golfers.

The city of Phoenix is gearing up to host the Super Bowl this week, but the PGA is hoping to steal a little thunder with the revelation this morning that Apple Pay will make its first ever debut on the golf course at the 2015 Waste Management Phoenix Open this week.

Apple Pay made its debut in Major League Baseball just in time for the world series. Now the NBA is about to get its first look at how Apple’s mobile wallet can speed up concession stand lines, as the Orlando Magic plan to be the first team to offer Apple Pay support.

Samsung has struck a $100 million deal with the NBA that will see its tablets and televisions used courtside during games. The deal is seen as a strategic move that could expand the global reach of both parties, shoving Samsung’s logo and devices into the faces of NBA fans, and putting NBA content into the hands of Samsung’s customers.

In OS X Mavericks, websites will be able to send you push notifications in Notification Center. This means, for example, that every time Cult of Mac publishes a new article, you could get a notification through Mavericks.

Sounds potentially maddening to me, but some big names are coming on board, with NBA.com and The New York Times enabling push notifications on their sites.

NBA hoops legend, Shaquille O’Neal – or as his friends call him, ‘Shaq’ – is used to dominating foes on the basketball court, but when he went up against Steve Jobs he got a heavy dose of his own medicine.

The Big Artistotle has come out of the closet. He’s a geek. In fact, he says he was a geek before geeks were cool. Back when the original iPhone was announced, Shaqtus knew a guy, who knew a guy, who knew Steve Jobs. Rather than waiting for the iPhone to be released, Shaq Fu called up Steve Jobs multiple times and begged him for an iPhone, but El Jobso wouldn’t budge.

It was one of the first, and only times, that The Big Maravich has been denied. Don’t feel bad for him, though; Shaq Diesel has a bright rapping career ahead of him if the geeky iOS development stuff doesn’t pan out.

Here’s a video of Wilt Chamberneezy retelling the story to Bloomberg:

Happy Labor Day! If you’re stuck for something to do while you’re off work today, why not treat yourself to a new iOS game? Developers have been slashing their prices to celebrate the holiday, and there really are too many games to choose from. Here’s the huge list of reductions from just EA, Gameloft, Namco Bandai, Sega and Capcom.