Apple
News is a stripped-back, better alternative to heavy, slow news
sites for your phone. You don’t need everyone’s individual apps anymore,
just the one, that offers consistent, easy to read and distraction free
news.
The app is broken up into a number of tabs. ‘For you’ is a selection
of stories from the publications you subscribe to, ‘Favorites’ shows
what you’re subscribed to, ‘Explore’ offers suggestions on what to
follow and ‘Saved’ is a simple way to save stories for later reading.Each site can customize their section of the app, but only in very limited ways so that the experience is consistent. Right now, they can change their logo, the background color of the top bar and define the sections news is broken up into.
Stories in the app are presented in a consistent, clean way, though publishers can modify their font and add other elements.
That should be terrifying if your business is making money from online publishing.
The app cuts out the cruft, ad trackers and other elements found on many news sites that can slow loading times.
Readers can swipe up to see an article on its original site, or stick to Apple’s format. With this model there’s few reasons to visit news sites anymore, which is exactly what Facebook’s trying to sell too.
It’s a bold move on Apple’s part to steal more eyeballs from the traditional advertising businesses run by Google and AOL. Apple might as well be yelling that news sites are broken and it’s going to fix them for everyone, whether they like it or not.
While everyone’s panicking about Facebook Instant Articles, I’ve seen something much more terrifying and exciting: Apple News.
The app, which will be installed on every iPhone that upgrades to iOS 9, is a new centralized home for content.
Publishers can input their content via RSS feeds or, if they’re willing to go all-in, add special HTML markup that allows their content to be presented in interesting ways with custom branding in Apple’s app.
Apple News is fast, responsive and enjoyable to use. It puts everything I want to read in a single place, without the need to download a third-party app and it loads incredibly fast, thanks to the company’s content delivery network.
It also recommends new sites you might enjoy following by learning what you read over time.
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