Sports fans old enough to remember TV sets from the 20th century that had picture-in-picture for watching two or more games at once will love this new feature that may be coming to the Apple TV app in iOS 16.5: multi-view.
According to code unearthed deep in the iOS 16.5 beta by developer Steve Moser, Apple is testing a new feature that appears to allow up to four simultaneous streams. He spotted several references to on-screen messages telling the user to “Remove a game first to add a new one,” and “Check back later for more games” among other prompts.
Apple offers picture-in-picture on the Apple TV (as well as the iPhone, iPad, and Mac), but it’s meant to let you continue watching a video while browsing the web or doing other non-video tasks. This new feature would be for watching multiple games at the same time, similar to ESPN MultiCast.
The new feature would presumably be for Apple TV+ broadcasts of MLS and MLB games, though it’s not clear if Apple will open it up to other services as well.
While the feature is in testing within Apple, it’s not yet a user-facing feature in iOS 16.5. So it’s possible that Apple holds the feature for iOS 17 to get more testing or announces it alongside a new sports venture at a later date. One of the new features in the iOS 16.5 beta is a dedicated Sports tab in the News app.