I canceled before the 30 day trial period was up. I agree that it felt unfinished. Apple tried to launch to many services at one time.
They only launched one service, News+. The others were only announced. But I also cancelled my trial before the month was up, thinking I would have till the end of month to sample it, like almost every other subscription out there. But no. It ended the day I canceled which was pretty annoying.
I also cancelled before the 30 day period was up. I found it impossible to get directly to the mags I wanted to read. I get the managed selection of articles in the Free app, but at least they are news. I don’t get the value of a curated collection of articles from random mags. I’m not surprised the revenue is massively lower than forecast. Looks nice on the surface, but it is junk. Took the money I would have spent and found deals on both NYT and WaPo for less combined. Hate the NYT navigation also, but at least it’s actual news.
The problem being mentioned isn't that the service's relatively small fee for access to a wide range of sources is a bad deal for subscribers. It that those news and magazine publishers aren't seeing business reasons to invest in the platform if revenues are not at least equal to what they were seeing when it was Texture, and according to the article it is not for many of them, certainly not the 10x income Apple is promoting to get them on board. That's the reason for the mention of "rejiggering" the service. Publishers may not stick around and new ones may make their publications available, leading to Apple making less money and having less reason to put time and effort into it.
I canceled before the 30 day trial period was up. I agree that it felt unfinished. Apple tried to launch to many services at one time.
They only launched one service, News+. The others were only announced. But I also cancelled my trial before the month was up, thinking I would have till the end of month to sample it, like almost every other subscription out there. But no. It ended the day I canceled which was pretty annoying.
I also cancelled before the 30 day period was up. I found it impossible to get directly to the mags I wanted to read. I get the managed selection of articles in the Free app, but at least they are news. I don’t get the value of a curated collection of articles from random mags. I’m not surprised the revenue is massively lower than forecast. Looks nice on the surface, but it is junk. Took the money I would have spent and found deals on both NYT and WaPo for less combined. Hate the NYT navigation also, but at least it’s actual news.
The project manager of News app is one of the most tone deaf group of people in Apple. They changed one of the perfect app on iOS to this atrocity. At first when new version of News launched we could not even hide the sidebar on iPad. I mean.. really? the 1st version of News is so perfect. This is the case of somebody wants to make their marks that gone wrong.
(That said I’m still using News everyday because the content is great, not because the app is)
With the rapid pace of news and how major shifts in events and direction happen within minutes, hours and days, from a news perspective, I find magazines almost worthless. Today reading news articles about what happened yesterday is like reading what happened in a football game yesterday -- the world has already moved on.
And, in trying to keep up with all of that, I simply don't have time to read general interest magazine articles.
But, it seems that the overwhelming majority of Apple News + are magazines. There is some limited reporting from the WSJ there. But, it's in no way complete.
I'm thinking of dropping my subscription but holding off hoping Apple will bring in more current sources. But, based on this article, it doesn't sound like that's going to happen.
I enjoy Apple+ selection and convenience. Especially getting my magazines in one place...and can take them with me to read anywhere.
Just 3 things I wish they would do that would improve the experience for both reader AND publisher:
1) I want to read the ENTIRE magazine not just selections. Heck one of the reasons women get Vogue, Elle, In Style and other fashion magazines is to see the ADS! That’s where the fun is. Apple+ only has selected ads. Running all the ads means publishers can charge advertisers more
2) Wish they had an actual magazine interface like Zino
3) Wish I could delete magazines from my device when I’m done reading ...not have them downloaded for 30+ days taking valuable storage on my devices.
Otherwise...Great start and I just have to find time to read my favorites. The above changes would make it more like the real thing!
Apple needs to enforce the UI and not allow magazines that just push PDFs. It needs to be a unified presentation. Where differentiations should be besides in content is how they help engage the reader, for example, through image interaction, sound bites, comparison sliders, etc. Why just present more static pages when they could literally WOW readers?
There is a lot of good content, and reasonable value. But several things are detracting: • the differentiation between paid & free content needs better differentiation • the included magazines have newer content available from their sites, which are paywalled, and when I tried to find those newer stories on Apple News+, they aren't there. This may discourage some new subscribers. • finding a cover story for a magazine should be easier, or when we click on a story link, it should always go to that story. • iPhone content UI is OK, and improving. The content on the Mac is of course easier to read, but the user experience has been clunky. • Overall, it still doesn't feel like a magazine rack (yet). • Selecting too many categories will cause some duplication & confusion. Maybe the categories should be reduced, or somehow explain that most of that content is always available under an already selected category. • The comments here about non-USA publications need to be addressed. • Keeping publishers on-board is top priority for AN+ to be a success. • Running AN+ with a deficit budget for even a couple of years would mirror the track record of some of the most successful magazines over the decades. • Very high profile publications (NYT, WaPo, etc.) may need a lot of convincing if they ever come on board. There's still plenty of good value.
I wish they rolled it out to more territories. Though, in all probability, they would make the most money in the US so if the service is struggling there, then it may not really help to roll it out to a wider audience.
Comments
The project manager of News app is one of the most tone deaf group of people in Apple. They changed one of the perfect app on iOS to this atrocity. At first when new version of News launched we could not even hide the sidebar on iPad. I mean.. really?
the 1st version of News is so perfect. This is the case of somebody wants to make their marks that gone wrong.
(That said I’m still using News everyday because the content is great, not because the app is)
And, in trying to keep up with all of that, I simply don't have time to read general interest magazine articles.
But, it seems that the overwhelming majority of Apple News + are magazines.
There is some limited reporting from the WSJ there. But, it's in no way complete.
I'm thinking of dropping my subscription but holding off hoping Apple will bring in more current sources. But, based on this article, it doesn't sound like that's going to happen.
Just 3 things I wish they would do that would improve the experience for both reader AND publisher:
1) I want to read the ENTIRE magazine not just selections. Heck one of the reasons women get Vogue, Elle, In Style and other fashion magazines is to see the ADS! That’s where the fun is. Apple+ only has selected ads. Running all the ads means publishers can charge advertisers more
2) Wish they had an actual magazine interface like Zino
3) Wish I could delete magazines from my device when I’m done reading ...not have them downloaded for 30+ days taking valuable storage on my devices.
Otherwise...Great start and I just have to find time to read my favorites. The above changes would make it more like the real thing!
But several things are detracting:
• the differentiation between paid & free content needs better differentiation
• the included magazines have newer content available from their sites, which are paywalled, and when I tried to find those newer stories on Apple News+, they aren't there. This may discourage some new subscribers.
• finding a cover story for a magazine should be easier, or when we click on a story link, it should always go to that story.
• iPhone content UI is OK, and improving. The content on the Mac is of course easier to read, but the user experience has been clunky.
• Overall, it still doesn't feel like a magazine rack (yet).
• Selecting too many categories will cause some duplication & confusion. Maybe the categories should be reduced, or somehow explain that most of that content is always available under an already selected category.
• The comments here about non-USA publications need to be addressed.
• Keeping publishers on-board is top priority for AN+ to be a success.
• Running AN+ with a deficit budget for even a couple of years would mirror the track record of some of the most successful magazines over the decades.
• Very high profile publications (NYT, WaPo, etc.) may need a lot of convincing if they ever come on board. There's still plenty of good value.
I think Disney plus will help people understand what Plus is supposed to mean.
Also you should automatically get access to there publications pay walled websites so when new stories come out you can read them.