There are hundreds of soccer apps in the App Store and Google Play. Most are forgettable. A small number have become genuinely useful tools that serious fans check before, during, and after every match. This guide covers the best of them in 2026 — organized by what you actually want to do, not just ranked in a list.

No single app does everything equally well. The honest answer for most fans is two apps: one for live scores and stats during the match, and one for news and previews between gameweeks. Everything below is rated on what it actually does best — including what it does poorly.

FIFA+ — Best Free Streaming App

Live Score Apps: Flashscore, FotMob, and SofaScore

These three apps dominate the live score category — but they’re not interchangeable. Each has a distinct strength, and the right choice depends on whether you prioritize speed, depth, or range.

Fantasy Premier League — Best Fantasy App

How to Build Your App Stack (Practical Workflow)

Most fans don’t need seven apps — they need two or three that serve different moments in the matchday cycle. Here’s a practical structure by fan type:

For more on where to find full live streams beyond what FIFA+ carries free, see our guide on the best official soccer streaming services by region — which covers Peacock, Paramount+, Stan Sport, beIN, and the other major paid platforms in detail.

What to Avoid

A note worth adding: the App Store and Google Play are full of apps with “Soccer 2026” or “Football Live” in their titles that are either clones, data scrapers, or ad-farms built to rank on search. The apps in this guide are independently developed, widely used, and actively maintained. Before installing any soccer app not mentioned here, check: when was it last updated? Does it have a verified developer? Is the review score based on genuine engagement or padding? These are small checks that save frustration. If you want to go deeper on how technology shapes the fan experience more broadly, our overview of how technology has transformed the soccer fan experience covers smart stadiums, AI officiating, AR tools, and streaming infrastructure in one place.

Frequently Asked Questions

Because everything runs wirelessly via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, there is also no cable clutter to deal with. This isn’t just a convenience thing. It means no wires dangling within reach of sneaky toddler hands.

Where Tech Collides

This is where the real test comes in. In split screen mode, the system shows CarPlay and the camera feed side by side, with CarPlay positioned on the left for easier tapping access. It’s a smart layout in theory because you get the best of both worlds, but there are some limitations. To fit the camera feed, the CarPlay interface is significantly condensed. It’s still usable, but small enough that I often touch the wrong icon, especially while driving, when precision tapping isn’t exactly my priority. It’s not a deal-breaker, but you’ll notice it, especially if your fingers aren’t very dainty.

Switching to camera mode gives a full-screen view of the back seat, but it comes at the cost of CarPlay controls. Music still plays and calls don’t drop, but I lose access to inputs like my steering wheel’s “skip track” and “end call” buttons. If you rely heavily on steering wheel controls, the trade-off is noticeable, but I find myself sticking with split screen mode most of the time anyway.

Photograph: Nicole Kinning

One more interface quirk worth flagging is that whenever I tap the screen, Ottocast overlays a back arrow in the top-left corner and a camera icon (the brand’s owl) in the top-right corner. The issue is that CarPlay uses these corners for key controls: the back button in Spotify, the exit button in Google maps, the now-playing shortcut. The Ottocast overlay gets in the way of your tap. It disappears after a few seconds, but if my next tap doesn’t land precisely where I want it, the Ottocast icons pop right back up and get in the way again.

Overall, the Ottocast Cabin Care works best when you treat it as a convenient upgrade, rather than a perfect solution. It solves the problem of being able to check on your kid in the car without turning around, and does so in a way that feels (mostly) seamless in daily use.

from the gaming-like-it’s-1930 dept

We’ve arrived at the end of our series of spotlight posts looking at the winners of our eighth annual public domain game jam, Gaming Like It’s 1930! We’ve already covered the Best Adaptation, Best Deep Cut, Best Visuals, Best Remix, and Best Digital Game winners, and now we’re wrapping things up with a look at the Best Analog Game: Diary of a Provincial Lady by donnabooby.

E. M. Delafield’s novel Diary of a Provincial Lady was a smash hit when it was published in 1930, and it’s remained in print ever since. Its success came from its combination of comedy with authentic slice-of-life insight into a particular lifestyle, and its stylistic influence can be seen even in modern classics like Bridget Jones’s Diary. This game of the same name might not quite achieve the same status, but there’s no reason it couldn’t: it’s an excellent little party game that blends the mechanics of games like Apples to Apples with the appropriation-and-remix techniques of blackout poetry and similar art forms.

Like many such games, it all starts with a randomly selected prompt — in this case, a random combination of an illustration from the novel with a short question or fill-in-the-blank sentence.

Players compete to impress the rotating judge (or Provincial Lady) for the round by deploying a card from their hand to match the prompt. But rather than just making a selection, first they make alterations. Players are asked to modify a diary entry from the novel by crossing out, changing, and inserting words, adding emphasis with underlines and circles, and otherwise editing the text on their card to craft the best prompt response.

Like any such party game, how it plays out depends entirely on the creativity and taste of the players. The creative freedom of the editing aspect opens it up to so many expressive possibilities beyond the acts of contrast and juxtaposition that dominate other similar games. The charming illustrations and tone-setting text of the diary entries give shape to this freedom, rooting everything in the sometimes-dated, sometimes-timeless atmosphere of the novel. Put it all together and you’ve got a genuinely fun and replayable exercise that is this year’s Best Analog Game.

Congratulations to donnabooby for the win! You can get everything you need to play Diary of a Provincial Lady from its page on Itch. That’s the end of our winner spotlights this time around, but don’t forget to check out the many great entries that didn’t quite make the cut. Thanks again to everyone who participated in the jam, and stay tuned for next year when we’ll be back for Gaming Like It’s 1931!

Filed Under: game jam, games, gaming, gaming like it’s 1930, public domain

The Bluetooth connection has also been improved, from Bluetooth 5.0 to Bluetooth 5.3. As anyone who has ever experienced having 45 different strangers’ headphones pop up on your iPhone in an airport, the improvement in connection stability is the most noticeable in Bluetooth-heavy environments; I didn’t notice any dropouts. You can also now plug the headphones into your phone to reduce latency and for better sound quality, which is a bit useless for me since I’m one of the vast majority for whom lossless audio makes no difference.

As far as the sound goes: These are some of the best-sounding headphones I’ve ever tried. (I compared them in listening tests with the Sonos Ace.) Anything with a big bass line sounds amazing with Apple headphones, and that iconic “headbanger” intro to Missy Elliott’s “Get Ur Freak On” vibrated right through my skull without sounding muddy.

Photograph: Adrienne So

The main criticism of the AirPods Max line in general is that the highs are painfully bright, but I didn’t notice this with Kacey Musgraves’ pure, clear vocals on “Everybody Wants to Be a Cowboy”. I could also enjoy the full speed and articulation of Billy Strings’ intricate fingerpicking. Dance music also sounds incredible—I loved the big brass in La Roux’s Trouble in Paradise and also found myself listening to a lot of Robyn’s Sexistential. There’s still no manually adjustable EQ, so you better be happy with how it sounds because you’re not changing it.

As is the case with most Apple products, if you already own a pair of the OG AirPods Max, you don’t really need to shell out the money to upgrade. However, if you own an iPhone and you’ve been considering whether to get these, the Sony pair, or the Bose, you should probably just get these.

They sound amazing; they block out the whirring of the giant propeller blades of death and your children shrieking while playing Paper Mario in the next room. They now come with a whole new set of software upgrades that make them, along with the AirPods Pro 3, the most useful headphones for iOS.

And if this matters to you—it probably does, since you’re reading this review—the AirPods Max 2 still look and feel totally different from every other headphone around. Why mess with a design that anyone can still spot at 100 yards away? I wish they still came in green, though.

The DJI Osmo 360 is an excellent example of how to do a 360-degree camera system right. Its massive optional selfie stick is overkill for most people.

Apple has, in recent years, made its iPhones more useful for videography. However, while it has features like Action Mode to make it useful for filming fast activities, it’s still not exactly the best choice for some more hazardous situations.

In cases where someone wants to ski down a mountain, the action camera is still king. In cases where you want more control over how a shot is framed instead of a fixed-on-body position that looks bad, you need a 360-degree camera.

The DJI Osmo 360 is DJI’s latest take on the action cam genre is the Osmo 360, a camera with a pair of fisheye lenses and cameras. Each camera and lens pair covers a 180-degree field of view, or half a sphere, which are then combined into a single image.

Like other 360-degree cameras, this can be used to capture footage from all possible angles. The resulting footage can then be viewed as a 360-degree video or cropped into a more standard video frame from the perfect angle.

The DJI Osmo 360 is a pretty good version of this form, and one that could be a viable choice for avid snowboarders and sports enthusiasts.

DJI sent over the DJI Osmo 360 Adventure Combo, which includes the camera, extra batteries and battery case, a rubber lens protector, protective pouch, cleaning cloth, a quick-release adapter mount, a USB-C PD cable, and a 1.2-meter (3.9 foot) Invisible Selfie Stick.

The Standard Combo includes all but the selfie stick, the quick-release adapter mount, and the battery case.

DJI also shipped along two accessories: the Osmo Battery Extension Rod and the Osmo 2.5-meter (8.2 feet) Extension Carbon Fiber Selfie Stick.

DJI Osmo 360 review: Physical design

The actual DJI Osmo camera is a chunky block of plastic, measuring 2.4 inches wide by 3.1 inches tall and 1.4 inches thick. At 6.5 ounces, it’s also pretty dense for a piece of kit, though not necessarily for something that will be used as an action camera.

Some of the thickness is due to the two camera lenses, which stick out from each side.

The front face has one camera lens with an indicator LED and DJI branding, while the other has the second lens and a large 2-inch touchscreen, as well as two physical buttons. That screen is nice and bright when turned on, and gives a view of what the cameras are picking up that you can quickly flick to change.

The two buttons below the screen deal with recording duties and changing the view for the screen, among other functions. On one edge side is the power, as well as a locked panel hiding a USB-C connection.

DJI Osmo 360 review: The battery charger also functions as a case.

The other edge side has another locked panel, which houses the battery compartment and a microSD card slot. DJI does include 105GB of built-in storage, which is great to have since you don’t specifically need a microSD card to use it.

Both of these panels are treated to prevent water from seeping in, which helps since it is billed as being waterproof. However, DJI does warn that while it has an IP68 rating, it shouldn’t be used for long underwater sessions, and to stick to a depth of at most 10 meters (32.8 feet).

Of the non-stick inclusions, the battery case is a similar rugged plastic design, and is capable of recharging up to three of the 1,950mAh batteries used by camera.

While the included case is just the right size for the Osmo 360, I get the feeling that the protective rubber lens cover will get more use. It’s easy to think of someone tossing the camera in its rubber cover into a bag along with a selfie stick for a weekend’s recording session.

DJI Osmo 360 review: Main specifications

The main feature of this action camera is that it uses square high-dynamic-range image sensors instead of rectangular versions. Instead of a trimmed rectangular sensor, DJI went with 1-inch image field square sensors to reduce the bulk.

The pixel allocation as a 4K-resolution square means it also uses more of the pixels than a rectangular counterpart.

This gives it quite a few benefits, such as shooting native 8K panoramic videos. It also uses 2.4-micrometer pixels which are quite large, allowing it to capture more light, including to a 13.5-stop dynamic range at 8K 50Hz.

Its connectivity goes further, including shooting at 4K 100Hz for panoramic slo-mo video, which can be pushed to 4K 120Hz for one lens.

DJI Osmo 360 review: The preview touchscreen can be scrolled around.

DJI also boasts that it has a SuperNight Mode for capturing late-night shots.

This is also recorded using built-in image stabilization systems, including RockSteady 3.0 and HorizonSteady. The former can be used when exporting via the mobile app, while the latter works with regular flat videos in a standard field of view, not 360 video.

When it comes to creating the actual 360-degree video, there’s a minimum stitching distance of 75 centimeters (2.4 feet), otherwise, you get artifacting for anything closer to the lens and at the edge of the image. It also has an invisible selfie stick feature which hides the mount, but that’s quite a standard thing to use now.

DJI Osmo 360 review: In use

Getting up and running with the Osmo 360 is fairly quick and easy when using it directly. Powering it up, you can then press the circle button to immediately start recording 8K 360-degree footage for up to an hour.

The two-inch screen gives one view, which you can scroll around with your finger. It’s a pretty neat system, and can help you visualize shots like a selfie on the fly.

Around the edge of the screen are indicators for different options, like viewing recorded local video, switching between modes, adjusting camera settings, and swiping down for the general settings.

The modes include Panoramic Video and Photo, as well as Supernight, Selfie, Vortex, and Hyperlapse for the 360-degree camera view. There are also single lens modes like Photo, Video, Supernight, and Boost, which is a wider field of view than normal.

Going through the camera settings, there are options to enable Anti Motion Blur and to adjust the texture and noise reduction of an image, while a Pro button takes you to a lot more of the advanced settings. This includes things like exposure and white balance control, and whether you want 10-bit “Normal” color or the D-Log M 10-bit version.

The latter of the two will be of interest to videographers who want more control of the colors of the final clip.

DJI Osmo 360 review:Using the camera from an iPhone

The main settings handles everything from connectivity to a mobile device, locking the orientation, enabling gesture controls, connecting wireless earbuds, if you’re using built-in storage or microSD, and other elements.

While there are four onboard mics that do a fairly good job of environmental recording, DJI does give the option to use its ecosystem of microphones with the Osmo 360. If you happen to own a Mic Mini or Mic 2, you can record two audio tracks with the cameras as well.

In our time with it, we found it to have pretty good image quality overall. You can still see seams where the two camera pictures meet up, but the majority of the time that is for items that are closer than the minimum advised join distance.

As a camera in its own right, it feels intuitive to use, even if you don’t consider using it with other devices. Though, for the purposes of editing, you really should.

DJI Osmo 360 review: Sticks

There are three selfie sticks for this review, including the default 1.2M Invisible Selfie Stick. Made from plastic with a rubber grip, it has a thread in the base and a screw thread at the other end, for attaching to the camera.

It’s a fairly beefy version of a selfie stick, and certainly isn’t flimsy. There’s no articulation at the business end, as you would anticipate with a fairly cheap and run-of-the-mill selfie stick, but you can remedy that with the Adjustable Quick Release Adapter Mount in the Adventure Combo.

DJI Osmo 360 review: A trio of selfie sticks

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While you can attach the camera using the typical thread method, the mount uses two side hooks and strong magnets to pull the camera into position and to dock. Pressing the side buttons to unhook and a small pull releases the camera again.

The mount doesn’t freely move from straight to angled, but instead uses a button to unlock the angular movement. On the one hand, this is really smart and prevents any unwanted movement, but it does also limit the mount to two locked positions.

The second sent for review is the Battery Extension Rod. As a selfie stick, it works like the included Invisible version, with the mount built-in, except it only extends to 2.9 feet.

It’s a chunkier version, because it has a built-in battery that feeds the camera for another four hours.

Handily, it also has limited controls for the camera, letting you start the record or switch the screen’s view without fiddling directly with the camera. This is very useful as a quality-of-life feature, but it’s the only one of the group to have it.

At $99.99, it’s an add-on that is probably worth it for the occasional holiday, especially since it would save you from carrying around extra batteries for the camera.

DJI Osmo 360 review: The 2.5M Extended Carbon Fiber Selfie Stick at full stretch

The 2.5M Extended Carbon Fiber Selfie Stick is the last and somewhat absurd option. It’s an absurd length for a selfie stick, at 8.2 feet, making it taller than anyone actually using it. Few will probably have much use for it, aside from those who want selfies from really far away.

More practically, it could give the effect of having a drone nearby while not breaking any local laws surrounding drone usage. There’s also no buzzing blades either, so feasibly less of a problem for recording animals.

It too is $99.99, but it’s really only useful for a small number of people who want the drone effect without the drone hassle.

DJI Osmo 360 review: Mobile and Mac app

The mobile app that works with the DJI Osmo 360 is DJI Mimo, which handles multiple duties on an iPhone.

For live shooting, it provides a view from the Osmo 360, which you can again scroll around at will.. There are controls for resolution, frame rate, various shooting modes, and advanced “Pro” settings, which are easier to use than having to reach for the camera mid-use.

The mobile app also lets you watch footage stored on the Osmo 360, thanks to its Wi-Fi connection, which you can either stream from the camera or download locally for a better resolution.

In this view, you can scroll around the footage and change the camera angle, which then changes what the final standard non-spherical video shows on export. You can do this manually with swipes and keyframes, but there are options like GyroFrame that uses your iPhone’s movements to change what is in frame, as well as subject tracking.

If you can’t face going through that process, there’s also an AI-based Highlights feature that creates clips for you.

DJI Osmo 360 review:DJI Studio can be used to edit videos.

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While this is good for sharing and short clips, you can also import the videos to DJI’s Studio for macOS. It’s an application for viewing the files from the Osmo 360, complete with mouse drags to move around the frame, as well as for editing clips.

You can add clips, change the angle and set them with keyframes, and perform more advanced movements than you can on the iPhone app. The results will be much better from this tool, which may not necessarily need any further changes to the exported video in iMovie or Premiere afterward either, if you’re careful.

DJI Osmo 360 review: A good allrounder

DJI’s experience with drone videography and action cameras have resulted in a 360-degree camera that does an awful lot of work. It’s small enough to go on holiday with, and usable enough to treat like a typical action camera, in cases when you wouldn’t want to use your iPhone.

Despite its size, its resolution and capabilites makes it a viable option for videography usage. Its use of 10-bit footage and optional use of Log will be welcomed, along with the more advanced camera settings.

As a good action camera should, the DJI Osmo 360 is user-friendly for the general public, but with enough options to make more adventurous users happy.

The only real problem is finding a justifiable excuse to whip out the massive selfie stick.

DJI Osmo 360 pros

• 8K resolution, 10-bit video
• Easy to use, with expert options
• Mobile and Mac apps are intuitive and useful
• Pocketable design

DJI Osmo 360 cons

• High MSRP, buy on a discount
• Flaps are a litle fiddly to open

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Where to buy the DJI Osmo 360

The Osmo 360 Standard Combo is $549.99, with the Adventure Combo at $699.99.

The two bundles are available on Amazon, at $357.49, discounted from $549 for the standard bundle. The Adventure combo can be bought for $493.70, discounted from $699.99.