This is Technology Bytes, episode 155 for February 22, 2026.
Technology Bytes is a microcast where I share brief bytes on interesting technology.
Enjoy, and here we go.
Today I’m going to revisit a topic I know I’ve talked about before, maybe multiple times, I don’t know.
Had to go back and look.
But I wanted to talk about Apple TV.
And in this case, I really want to talk about the service.
So is this technology or entertainment?
Well, it’s still in the Apple universe, so I think I can talk about it anyway.
But mostly I’m focusing on entertainment this week.
So there are two things that I wanted to talk about in the Apple TV service.
And they’re both related to sport.
And actually to sport that I never watch or pay attention to.
So it’s kind of interesting that it’s piqued my interest a little bit this week.
And that is F1 racing and MLS, which is Major League Soccer.
I am one who never played soccer growing up.
This week I had a birthday.
I’m 62.
Maybe I was born in an era where that wasn’t what kids did.
But it never really interested me.
Also, I grew up in Alaska.
So soccer was kind of an outdoor sport, which didn’t really lend itself to the weather from where I lived.
And I don’t know, it just never really grabbed my interest.
And so I do know that my son enjoys watching it.
When he went to college, he roomed with a guy that was fairly interested, or pretty interested in soccer.
And so he kind of got my son interested in that.
And then my son played a little bit.
You know, just pick up games or whatever.
So I knew he was interested.
And this year, Apple has made Major League Soccer free for those of us who already pay for the Apple TV service.
And that’s me because I pay for everything.
And so I was talking to him about that.
And so it is a U.S.
soccer league.
And so I don’t know if that makes it second class citizen or not in the soccer world.
But I thought that he might be interested.
And I found it interesting that they’ve decided in that sporting event to make it free and take the subscription away.
Not 100% sure why, but I think a lot of people will be interested in Apple TV as a service to watch soccer.
It is a very big worldwide sport.
Then my son said to me, yeah, that’s interesting.
But I think I also want to watch F1 this year.
And I’m like, huh, we’ve never really been into car racing.
My kids were born in Indianapolis.
So the Indianapolis 500 is a big deal.
But that was really the only race we pay attention to.
We don’t pay attention to IndyCar in any other realm of that sport.
We don’t know who’s leading.
We just like to watch that sport because we have some ties to Indianapolis.
And then F1, neither one of us have ever watched.
And maybe it’s because it’s on when we’re not awake.
But this year, again, Apple has the streaming rights for F1.
They’ve purchased that in the United States.
And a number of podcasters I listen to, and I don’t know why, but they, well, I know why I listen to them, but I don’t know why they enjoy F1 racing so much.
I don’t know exactly what got them into that.
But it’s a very technical sport.
It’s got lots and lots of technology and also lots of ways for their fans to interact with the technology in the car and for the driver.
And every driver can, you know, they broadcast their data, their speeds, their gears, their lap times, and what the driver’s doing in the car.
All of this is driven by so much data.
And maybe because the people I listen to are nerds and data does something for nerds, that they enjoy the race, they enjoy the technology behind the race and looking at the data and figuring out how the teams use that data.
So many are worried that Apple streaming F1 could make it worse.
But then also many are saying, well, Apple is a technology company.
Maybe they can do something to enhance the race and the watching experience.
So it’ll be interesting to see.
I mostly want to watch it because I’ve never watched it and I’ve heard a lot about the technology and I’m kind of interested in what Apple provides in their streaming service.
And I believe because I’m not all that interested in it that I can watch it at a time that makes sense for me.
So this is a strange episode of Technology Bytes because I’m not really talking about technology.
I’m talking about a technology company, but I’m really talking about their entertainment arm.
Lots of other things that Apple does in their entertainment world through Apple TV.
And I do like the service.
I do like the hardware.
That is what I use to watch all of my entertainment, whatever it may be.
But this isn’t really a tech show, so to speak.
So I don’t know if I’ll come back to this once I watch either of those things.
Not sure I’ll watch them anyway, but we’ll see what happens throughout the course of the seasons.
That is all I have for today.
If you have any comments, suggestions, or questions, you can send them to technologybytes at marigfamily.com.
As always, I want to thank you for listening to the Technology Bytes microcast, and I look forward to the next time we are together taking another bite of technology.
