I mentioned on Monday as part of my first look at Apple’s announcements that I wasn’t so sure about Apple News+. After just a couple of days of use, I’m starting to change my mind.
My initial thought was that I stopped reading magazines years ago and that I wouldn’t read digital magazines. Strangely, that part is still right for me. If Apple News+ was a collection of magazines that I could download and read, I probably wouldn’t bother with it beyond the free trial.
I love to read fascinating stories from great writers. After work, I rarely read technology stories—I tend to read more human interest or sometimes just quirky bits of information that I can thoroughly enjoy.
The same is true for the podcasts I listen to regularly—not one of them is a tech podcast. I listen to podcasts that have fascinating interviews with people from around the world.
These types of stories and podcasts take me away from the typical information I get as a tech blogger and podcaster.
And this is where Apple News+ surprised me a bit.
The main page of Apple News+ is set up just like the free version of Apple News is on the iPhone. There is a collection of stories in a variety of topic areas that you can choose to read.
As I began reading, I noticed that very few of the stories were from the same magazine. Instead, I was reading stories that interested me, not magazines that interested me. That’s a huge distinction.
I do not have the time in my day, nor the inclination, to sit down and thumb through a magazine to see if anything interests me.
I like the way that Apple News+ presents the information to me. There is no doubt that these magazines have talented writers, but there is no way I would ever find some of the stories I’ve read in the last couple of days if I was left to find them on my own.
If Apple News+ is able to continue recommending quality stories, I will continue to be a subscriber.
I’m pretty amazed that you « love to read fascinating stories from great writers ». I prefer read shitty fake news written by monkeys. I guess you have a better life than many others here.
The navigation is really clunky. If you tap on the magazine cover icon (“open”) it opens a table of contents but you can’t tap on the cover so that you can browse from the cover into the rest of the magazine. That is, Apple makes it very hard to browse a magazine from start to finish unless that’s exactly how you started. The Tablet app works much better.
Of course, you’re changing your mind. You’re an apologist.
I doubt many newspapers will choose to sign up with Apple for this.
Which is fine. The real success is with Apple taking a service they bought, and repackaged it in a way people will actually know of it and some will buy into it.
The magazines were already on board with this in this service’s life prior to Apple buying it, and will likely be loving the resulting boost in income and readership.
Wow, a couple commenters are just plain rude here, unnecessary.
Don’t like what Jim wrote? Why bother reading it, go the hell away.
Anyway, it almost sounds like this is not much different than the Apple News as it is. I’ll be interested to hear a follow up from you, hopefully you post one.