Learn how to share visual game cards in the Apple Sports app with your iMessage friends or publish them as poster-like images on social media.

The Apple Sports app was recently updated with the ability to “generate and share dynamic game cards across all supported leagues, whether the matchup is upcoming, live or completed.” No app update is required to use this feature.

Sending an Apple Sports card over the iMessage protocol will make it appear inline in the chat, with the headline score updated in real time as the game progresses. Publishing the card on social media like Instagram, X or Threads will make it appear as a static poster-like image, but the score won’t be dynamically updated.

Instead of calling or texting a friend to say that your team has won, share an Apple Sports game card to impress them by following our step-by-step instructions.

Apple Sports: How to share game cards

Use the game card sharing feature in the Apple Sports app to generate visual cards for sharing with friends and social media apps. First, open details about the game you’d like to share. This can be a game played yesterday, an in-progress match or an upcoming event. Next, hit the Share button in the top-right corner of the game details screen and choose the Messages icon to send the card to a friend.

The Apple Sports app will generate a dynamic game card that resembles a poster, featuring team logos and the headline score.

Only iMessage keeps the inline card updated with the current score for the in-progress game. Picking any other messaging app from the Share menu, such as WhatsApp, Viber or Facebook Messenger, will send the game card as a static image. Either way, touching the card opens the Apple Sports app with the full details.

What is Apple Sports?

Apple Sports is an iPhone-only app that provides real-time scores. By following your favorite teams, tournaments and leagues, you can keep tabs on upcoming games, team stats, lineup details, live betting odds and play-by-play information. Any teams you’ve selected in the My Sports section of the TV or News app are available on Apple Sports, and vice versa. The app covers the MLS, NBA, NHL, MLB, NFL, NCAAF, NWSL and WNBA, with additional leagues coming in the future.

How to get the Apple Sports app

You can download the Apple Sports app for free through the App Store in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, with at least iOS 17.2 required.

View Apple Sports on the App Store

Following its February 2014 debut, the app has gained new features. A recent update added UEFA Women’s Champions League and F1 stats such as live leaderboards, lap times and more. Older updates expanded soccer coverage, added the ability to track NFL and NCAA games, bringing other perks like TV broadcast information and live scores and play updates on the iPhone’s Lock Screen and the Dynamic Island, as well as on your Apple Watch, via the Live Activities feature.

Source link: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2025/04/18/share-game-cards-apple-sports-tutorial/

Here’s how Instagram Blend works and how to use it to create a shared reels feed combining recommendations that you and select friends may like.

Instagram Blend brings friends around shared interests. “We want Instagram to be a place where people connect over creativity and this is one more way to do that,” Instagram boss Adam Mosseri said in a reel. “It’s a really fun way to not only share your interests, but to learn a little bit about your friends’ interests. And then you can actually start conversations about that content that you discover.”

You can create a blend feed just for you and a single friend or a group of friends. The goal is to increase engagement and boost reels’ discovery with an exclusive feature that Instagram rival TikTok doesn’t have (yet).

What is Instagram Blend? How does it work?

Similar to Spotify’s collaborative Blend playlists, Instagram Blend brings together reels that you and your friends might like into a single feed so that everyone can discover new recommended content together. It’s a far cry from Instagram’s regular feed, which is mostly filled with content from influencers and ads.

The algorithm picks reels that friends have shared in the DM thread and videos that each chat participant has browsed. The blend feed is refreshed daily with new content and every time a reel is reshared to the chat. “If someone joins the blend, it refreshes to include reels suggested for the person who joins,” Meta notes.

How to create an Instagram blend to see your friend’s suggested reels

To create a blend, open a one-on-one chat or a group conversation with friends and hit the new Blend icon at the top of the chat, then select “Invite” and cherry-pick friends from the DM thread. A blend is created when at least one chat participant accepts your invite. To adjust blend settings, hit the Blend icon at the top of the chat.

“See who each Reel is suggested for based on each person’s activity on Instagram, including the Reels they watch and interact with,” reads the description. As for your privacy, the suggestions algorithm honors the sensitive content setting of the blend member using the strictest filter.

“When viewing reels in a blend, you can send a message or quick reaction about a specific reel in the blend back to the related chat,” per Instagram Help. “The reel you are replying to will be shown alongside your message. As usual, you can share or engage with a reel publicly using the comment, like and share icons on the right.”

How to influence blend recommendations and leave a blend

To remove a suggested reel from your blend, hit the three-dotted icon in the bottom-right of the reel and select “Remove from your blends.” The reel is pulled from all the blends you’re a member of.

You can influence Instagram’s suggestions algorithm by choosing “Interested” or “Not Interested” from a reel’s three-dotted menu. Doing so will instruct the algorithm to get more or less suggestions for similar reels. in the current blend.

To leave your or someone else’s blend, hit the gear settings icon in the top-right corner of the blend and choose “Leave this blend.” The feed is updated when someone leaves the blend to remove content suggested for that person.

I don’t have Instagram Blend

Meta has been testing Blend with a small group of Instagram users since March. It’s now being rolled out to all users, which may take some time to complete.”Blend is new and may not be available to everyone at this time,” Meta noted. Blend is currently unavailable on the web.

If you don’t see the Blend icon, check back later. To be sure your installed copy of that app is up to date, open the Instagram page on the App Store and hit the Update button. Don’t see the button? You already have the latest version.

Instagram is also testing locked reels that cannot be watched without entering secret codes or keywords to unlock and play, as another way to boost engagement.

Source link: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2025/04/18/what-is-instagram-blend-how-does-it-work/

This tutorial explains how and why to set Apple Music as the default media player on your Windows PC.

Using Apple Music on PC

Apple Music app is available as a free download from the official Microsoft Store. Once installed on your Windows computer, you can do the following:

• Sign in with your Apple Account, which has an active Apple Music subscription. After that, you can use Apple Music on your PC as you do on your Mac, iPad, iPhone, or other devices.
• Choose not to sign in with your Apple Account, and use the Apple Music app as a regular media player app.

Reasons to set Apple Music as the default music player on your PC

One of the main reasons to set Apple Music as the default app for opening MP3 files on your PC is to add those songs to your Apple Music library and make them accessible on all your devices, such as your iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Let me explain.

After setting up Apple Music on your Windows PC or Mac, you can play your non-Apple Music songs in this app. When you do, Apple Music will automatically match the song in its catalog of over 100 million tracks, and if it’s available (which is usually the case), it will be added to your Apple Music library and synced to your other devices, like your iPhone.

If your regional or custom song is not in Apple Music’s catalog, the app will upload that track to Apple’s cloud, making it available on your other devices, so you can listen to it even when you’re away from your computer.

If you have a large collection of songs saved from the Internet or ripped from CDs, you can add them all to Apple Music at once using its Add to Library feature (screenshot below).

However, if you prefer to carefully curate which tracks are added to your Apple Music library, you can set the Apple Music app as the default player for MP3 files. This way, you can review your music list in File Explorer and double-click a track to add it to the Apple Music app. From there, it will sync to your other devices. Of course, you can also listen to the song directly in the Apple Music app.

If you don’t have an Apple Music subscription

Imagine you don’t use Apple Music but manually sync songs from your computer to your iPhone, iPad, or iPod. Even then, you may want to set Apple Music as the default media app on your Windows PC so the tracks are added to this app and can sync to your iPhone, iPad, or iPod in the Apple Devices app (successor of iTunes).

Finally, you can always set the Apple Music app as the default music player on your PC if you prefer its interface and features like easy playlists, song management, and reliable playback.

Note that sometimes, when you double-click an MP3 file in File Explorer, it may get added to the Apple Music library but won’t play instantly. To listen, you’ll need to find the song in the Recently Added section of the Music app and click it again, which adds an extra step. This issue doesn’t occur with other apps like Windows Media Player.

With these pros and cons in mind, here’s how to set Apple Music as the default app for opening MP3 and other audio files.

Set Apple Music as the default music app on a Windows PC

1) Open the Settings app on your Windows computer that has the Apple Music app installed.

2) Click Apps from the left sidebar.

3) Then Default apps.

4) Select Apple Music under the “Set defaults for application” section.

5) You’ll see different file types here. Scroll down to MP3 and click the app that’s the current default.

6) Choose Apple Music from the list of apps and click the Set default button. You can now close the Settings pane or repeat these steps to set Apple Music as the default music player for M4A, M4P, M4R, WAV, and other file types on your PC.

From now on, when you double-click an MP3 file in File Explorer on this computer, it will open in the Apple Music app. It will then match or upload to all your other devices where you’re signed in with your Apple Music subscription account and have enabled Sync Library.

Even if you don’t have an Apple Music subscription, the song will stay added to the Apple Music app library, and you can listen to it anytime from within the Library section.

Also, check out:

• How to download all your Apple Music songs at once on any device
• How to set up and use Apple iCloud Passwords on Windows PC
• How to use these 14 Apple services on your Windows PC

Source link: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2025/04/18/set-apple-music-as-default-player-on-windows-pc/