Yahoo revamps Sports app for iOS 7, adds GIF creation tool and more

Yahoo Sports 5.0 for iOS (iPhone screenshot 003)Yahoo Sports 5.0 for iOS (iPhone screenshot 005)

In time for the Playoff,s Yahoo’s free Sports app for the iPhone and iPad has been updated this morning with some nicely flattened iOS 7 visuals along with refreshed stats and new features such as a GIF creation tool, personalized navigation menus, updated pages for the football scores, teams and players and lots more.

Read on for the full breakdown…

The GIF creation tool is called the Loops and allows you to capture, touch up and share your favorite sports moments as they happen, directly from the game page.

Yahoo explains:

Think of a Loop as an animated GIF, with captions, effects and comments added to memorable moments in every game.

Basically, you will choose your game and then pick a segment you like, add captions and effects and voila – you have a GIF ready to go viral.

Here’s an example GIF.

Ball-To-The-Face

On the downside, these GIFs can be created for select games and on the iPhone only. According to TechCrunch, Loops is supported for the NFL, NHL, NBA, MLB and NCCAB games, with support for other leagues coming soon.

Check out the old vs. new app icon.

Yahoo Sports (app icon, small)Yahoo Sports 5.0 for iOS (app icon, small)

As the screenies attest, the application has adopted much of the flattened iOS 7 look and feel.”If Brady and Gisele made a sports app, it might not be as good looking as this,” Yahoo boasted.

The redesigned pages for teams and players now feature nice cover photos, with easy access to the latest news The football scores pages have also been redone with redzone and scoring play indicators.

Yahoo Sports 5.0 for iOS (iPhone screenshot 004)

The app allows you to personalize your league navigation with custom order for your preferred leagues, so your favorite sport can be just a tap away, right in the navigation menu. Finally, this version of Yahoo Sports  fixes a bunch of bugs and a few crashes.

And here’s the new iPad interface.

Yahoo Sports 5.0 for iOS (iPad screenshot 001)

Yahoo Sports is available free in the App Store.

And yes, iOS 7 is now mandatory.