Apple offers past Apple News+ subscribers another free month

Posted:
in General Discussion
Apple is offering a free month of service to users who tried Apple News+ but have since canceled their subscriptions.

Credit: Apple
Credit: Apple


The $9.99-a-month Apple News subscription service, which offers users a range of magazines and premium media content, first launched in March 2019. The service is said to be struggling in terms of gaining new customers while at the same time appeasing participating publishers.

It now appears that Apple is launching a new promotion that will let users who have previously canceled their Apple News+ subscriptions get another month for free. The offer was spotted by 9to5Mac.

The promotion comes ahead of a potential launch of an Apple News+ audio component, which was first rumored in May and corroborated by icons found in an iOS 13.5.5 beta.

In late June, The New York Times announced that it would be pulling out of Apple News due to the fact that the platform provided "little in the way of direct relationships with readers and little control over the business."

At its latest earnings call, Apple announced that Apple News has 125 million overall users -- which includes both the free standard component of the app and the Apple News+ subscription.

Apple in June also sent out emails to past Apple Arcade subscribers inviting them back for another free month. Those emails came just before a report of Apple Arcade shifting its strategy to focus on games with higher "engagement."

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 19
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    Sometimes even free isn’t worth it.
    MisterKitDAalsethchemengin1
  • Reply 2 of 19
    flydogflydog Posts: 1,123member
    Sometimes even free isn’t worth it.
    Your free forum post proves that. 
    bonobobfastasleepdavenlkruppOferDancingMonkeysstevenozosmartormenajrJanNL
  • Reply 3 of 19
    Rayz2016Rayz2016 Posts: 6,957member
    flydog said:
    Sometimes even free isn’t worth it.
    Your free forum post proves that. 
    Zing! 

    However I think one of the problems is local content. Everything seems geared towards the American market. 
    Ofer
  • Reply 4 of 19
    fred1fred1 Posts: 1,108member
    Please, Apple, stick to what you do well: hardware and software. Leave news and movies to the experts. If you want more revenue, make devices that make us want to buy them, like in the old days. 
    lkruppSpamSandwichkkqd1337elijahg
  • Reply 5 of 19
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,301moderator
    fred1 said:
    Please, Apple, stick to what you do well: hardware and software. Leave news and movies to the experts. If you want more revenue, make devices that make us want to buy them, like in the old days. 
    Apple is neither authoring news nor producing movies, they are providing a platform for them, just as they have done for software and music. Convenient services make ecosystems nicer to use. Apple News has 125 million users, that's a huge userbase. It's hard getting a lot of people to pay for digital news when so much news is available for free. Most popular publications like New York Times and Wall Street Journal have around 2-3 million digital subscribers, which is very small compared to 125 million overall users:

    https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/06/media/new-york-times-q1-2020-earnings/index.html
    https://www.niemanlab.org/2020/02/the-wall-street-journal-joins-the-new-york-times-in-the-2-million-digital-subscriber-club/

    I think Apple's branding for this service is underselling the most appealing aspect, which is magazines. News sounds like it's just newspaper content. The parts listed in the box is what comes extra with the subscription:



    People love the free part but the extras with the paid part can't be offering enough value to justify $10/month. There have been some issues described with it like not getting full access to everything, some of the content quality not being optimized for digital displays, still showing ads:

    https://www.engadget.com/2019-03-26-apple-news-plus-hands-on.html

    If I was unfamiliar with Apple News+ and I saw an ad with that brand, there's no way I'd know that magazines like Men's Health, National Geographic, fashion magazines, gaming magazines were in there. But also, magazines are best viewed on platforms with big displays, that's iPad and Mac users.

    Maybe they can offer cheaper subscription tiers where people choose the magazines they want to subscribe to like 5 magazines for $2.99/month, 20 magazines for $4.99/month, all magazines for $9.99/month. Then I think they could do with putting out some ads that let people know that some really popular magazines are in there. There's a lot of ways they can boost that service with it being digital like health magazines can have celebrity workouts and diets linking with apps like the fitness trackers and cooking/shopping apps. Fashion magazines can link with product sites. Music magazines can have audio tracks from musicians that can be added to iTunes libraries. Then celebrities can be recommending the service.
    edited July 2020 lkruppGeorgeBMac
  • Reply 6 of 19
    lkrupplkrupp Posts: 10,557member
    Apple News+ is a bargain at $9.99/mo. Consider that a subscription to any of the major magazines is at least $30/yr and a few subscriptions add up quickly to the cost of Apple News+ at $120.00/yr. National Geographic Magazine alone is worth the price. Has anyone even browsed the number of magazines available on Apple News+? Something for everyone. Critics here seem never to accept that their myopic view of what is worthwhile doesn't match the real world.
    edited July 2020
  • Reply 7 of 19
    AppleishAppleish Posts: 683member
    What happened to the 'bundle' that was supposed to launch at WWDC? I'd like to try Apple News and Arcade again, but I can wait.
  • Reply 8 of 19
    kkqd1337kkqd1337 Posts: 423member
    People just don’t like news aggregators 

    So many companies have had a go at this. No one is interested. Most people just don’t like to consume news / magazines this way. 

    I thought it was real bizarre for Apple to throw their hat in this market without doing anything new 
    lkruppstevenozentropys
  • Reply 9 of 19
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,301moderator
    kkqd1337 said:
    People just don’t like news aggregators 

    So many companies have had a go at this. No one is interested. Most people just don’t like to consume news / magazines this way. 

    I thought it was real bizarre for Apple to throw their hat in this market without doing anything new 
    People don't like *to pay* for news aggregators or even just news. People like *to use* free news aggregators, which is why they have 125 million users. Apple News is doing well, Apple News+ is not doing so well.

    People will pay for any kind of premium content as long as it is seen to have value. Most news these days is pretty low value and doesn't feel worth reading at all let alone paying for it. Special interest publications can still do high quality work though and it's a case of getting the best providers, packaging their work up into a platform that matches the potential buyer's expectations.

    I think a part of the problem is the reading platform. News articles can be easily consumed on the iPhone because it's mostly just text. Premium content like magazines are best consumed on bigger screens like the iPad and Mac. That audience is much smaller than the iPhone. When the iPhone audience represents 125 million, the addressable audience for Mac and iPad would be around 20 million for free users. Paid users is going to be a small fraction of that. This is an example of a service that would be boosted considerably by supporting Windows just due to volume.

    But there are other options to try. Subscription volume scales considerably with lower prices. That in turn creates some word of mouth and people will start to see the value on offer. I think it would help if they rebranded it from News+ to Magazines, Publications or similar because the magazines are the premium content, not some pretentious news bloggers trying to dress up their meaningless drivel into something payment-worthy. Photos, videos, quality editorial. It doesn't fit the brand "news" because that means current affairs, things that are hot off the press. Quality editorial is different from news and people need to know that's what the subscription represents.
  • Reply 10 of 19
    ITGUYINSDITGUYINSD Posts: 510member
    lkrupp said:
    Apple News+ is a bargain at $9.99/mo. Consider that a subscription to any of the major magazines is at least $30/yr and a few subscriptions add up quickly to the cost of Apple News+ at $120.00/yr. National Geographic Magazine alone is worth the price. Has anyone even browsed the number of magazines available on Apple News+? Something for everyone. Critics here seem never to accept that their myopic view of what is worthwhile doesn't match the real world.

    That $30/yr is not reality, especially if you actually look for deals on magazines online.  Depends on what you read, but I find tremendous deals on what I read, and I've seen some of what I "need" isn't offered on Apple News+.
  • Reply 11 of 19
    ITGUYINSDITGUYINSD Posts: 510member
    Rayz2016 said:
    flydog said:
    Sometimes even free isn’t worth it.
    Your free forum post proves that. 
    Zing! 

    However I think one of the problems is local content. Everything seems geared towards the American market. 

    That's because given current events, America offers the most entertainment for your dollar (or whatever your currency is).  It's plain crazy over here!
  • Reply 12 of 19
    matrix077matrix077 Posts: 868member
    kkqd1337 said:
    People just don’t like news aggregators 

    So many companies have had a go at this. No one is interested. Most people just don’t like to consume news / magazines this way. 

    I thought it was real bizarre for Apple to throw their hat in this market without doing anything new 
    Wrong! +100 millions users showing people love news aggregator. People may not like to pay for magazine sub (News+) anymore but that’s very different than what you stated. 
  • Reply 13 of 19
    DAalsethDAalseth Posts: 2,783member
    Sometimes even free isn’t worth it.
    Certainly isn't for me. I have my news sources, BBC and CBC. I check them a couple of times per day. Anything more is just bad for my blood pressure. 
  • Reply 14 of 19
    GeorgeBMacGeorgeBMac Posts: 11,421member
    I subscribed to News+ mostly to get access to the Wall Street Journal.   But that access was largely just a come-on:   WSJ articles on News+ are limited and often slow to appear.   It is more of a teaser than access.

    I continue to maintain my subscription.   I just don't understand why.   False hope I suppose.
  • Reply 15 of 19
    As soon as it launches on my country, I’ll subscribe! Paying for news is my own small way to make things better. Things I’ve always taken for granted, are crumbling. And that, at least in part, is because news had become married to advertising!

    On the Apple Arcade front, I’ll admit I expected better. 9 months in and I’ve only just sampled less than a handful of titles I found appealing. Which half of them turned out not to be as entertaining as I first thought!

    I’ll bear through the rest of this year. But if game developers don’t deliver, I’ll search for better value to my hard earned money.
  • Reply 16 of 19
    GeorgeBMacGeorgeBMac Posts: 11,421member
    Just a thought:

    When Apple introduced AppleTV they explicitly and publicly were rejecting the cable TV model of providing a broad swath of low quality product, most of which was never watched.

    But, with News+ and AppleArcade, it seems that is exactly what they are offering:   a broad swath of low quality products, most of which are never viewed or used.
    DAalsethentropyskkqd1337
  • Reply 17 of 19
    entropysentropys Posts: 4,148member
    Just a thought:

    When Apple introduced AppleTV they explicitly and publicly were rejecting the cable TV model of providing a broad swath of low quality product, most of which was never watched.

    But, with News+ and AppleArcade, it seems that is exactly what they are offering:   a broad swath of low quality products, most of which are never viewed or used.
    Totally agree. And in addition to that, subscribers let someone else decide what news they see, trusting the “curators”.
    Anyone that lets someone else decide what news they see deserves what they get.
  • Reply 18 of 19
    GeorgeBMacGeorgeBMac Posts: 11,421member
    entropys said:
    Just a thought:

    When Apple introduced AppleTV they explicitly and publicly were rejecting the cable TV model of providing a broad swath of low quality product, most of which was never watched.

    But, with News+ and AppleArcade, it seems that is exactly what they are offering:   a broad swath of low quality products, most of which are never viewed or used.
    Totally agree. And in addition to that, subscribers let someone else decide what news they see, trusting the “curators”.
    Anyone that lets someone else decide what news they see deserves what they get.

    That doesn't bother me at all.   I always look at the source and ask two questions:
    1)   Are they pushing an ideology or agenda?
    2)  Do they have a history and reputation of reporting facts and truth honestly and completely?
  • Reply 19 of 19
    michelb76michelb76 Posts: 601member
    Apple News may be discontinued before it even comes to my country lol
    kkqd1337
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