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Newsstand Publications Can Update Only Once Per Day

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Publications participating in Apple's Newsstand feature, coming this fall in iOS 5, will only be able to update their issues once per day, according to documents obtained by AppAdvice.
The background downloading feature of Newsstand is interestingly handled by push notifications. That is, when new content is ready, the developer can, once a day, send a push notification to your device with special data, and your iDevice will then (if it's ready to do so, battery and connection-wise) start downloading new content in the background.
Click to expand...
The ability to only update once per day is a curious decision, as it seems publishers will not be able to automatically update their pubs to reflect breaking news or publish corrections as they currently can via a website or dedicated app.

This isn't a huge deal for weekly or monthly print publications which are used to having deadlines before closing the book on an edition. But for daily newspapers, who are getting into the habit of updating a newspaper webpage dozens of times a day, it may present some difficulties. Oddly, digital technologies like the iPad have pushed publications towards an "up-to-the-minute" news cycle, but Newsstand seems to be going back to a more traditional "once-a-day" publishing model.

As with all Apple's content efforts, getting publishers on board isn't going as smoothly as the company would hope. Eight French publications are banding together to negotiate with Apple regarding Newsstand access, with concerns over the 30% cut in revenue that Apple traditionally takes, and access to customer data.

Article Link: Newsstand Publications Can Update Only Once Per Day
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2011/09/21/newsstand-publications-can-update-only-once-per-day/
rti92391

rti92391

macrumors regular
Jun 9, 2011
109
169
Daily on iPhone?

Has anyone else noticed a version of The Daily on the iPhone's Newsstand?
 
I

iPad 3

macrumors member
Aug 21, 2011
87
0
Apple really don't help themselves do they, they go out of their way to make things as unattractive as possible for publishers it seems to me.
 
R

room237

macrumors 6502
Oct 20, 2008
322
1
Queens, NYC
Well, this sucks. I guess I'll stick to RSS apps and Instapaper. Disappointing. Why not give us the option to limit how many times a day it updates?
 
B

Biolizard

macrumors 6502
May 20, 2008
314
0
London, United Kingdom
Oh come on MR, this is a complete non-issue you're trying to peddle as the next big controversy.

Apple is positioning Newsstand as an easy way for traditional print publications to be digitally supplied; you are literally reading the print magazine on an iPad. This requires a hefty amount of information transfer in one go and so it's logical to allow Newsstand to auto-download an edition by itself. This happens once and once only for each edition of the publication.

If however you want to receive up-to-the-minute information, that needs a dedicated app; Newsstand is not, and should not, be the place, for that. Now, if the traditional app frameworks don't provide for the kind of push notifications you want to achieve, that's a separate issue altogether; don't try to put the round peg in the square hole by wanting to use Newsstand for something it shouldn't be used for.
 
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room237

macrumors 6502
Oct 20, 2008
322
1
Queens, NYC
Biolizard said:
Oh come on MR, this is a complete non-issue you're trying to peddle as the next big controversy.

Apple is positioning Newsstand as an easy way for traditional print publications to be digitally supplied; you are literally reading the print magazine on an iPad. This requires a hefty amount of information transfer in one go and so it's logical to allow Newsstand to auto-download an edition by itself. This happens once and once only for each edition of the publication.

If however you want to receive up-to-the-minute information, that needs a dedicated app; Newsstand is not, and should not, be the place, for that. Now, if the traditional app frameworks don't provide for the kind of push notifications you want to achieve, that's a separate issue altogether; don't try to put the round peg in the square hole by wanting to use Newsstand for something it shouldn't be used for.
Click to expand...

In my opinion, that was the whole advantage of newsstand. If it only downloads once a day, well, when will that be? Before I leave the house each morning? Maybe not. So, in the subway I could be stuck with yesterday's content, unless I manually download everything before leaving, and that defeats the purpose of push. So while I agree with you about push limitations being a separate issue, I was hoping Newsstand would be the way around that limitation. Otherwise, all it's really good for is keeping your publications in the same place, something I can do with dedicated apps and folders.
 
F

flash84x

macrumors regular
Aug 5, 2011
189
132
This for background downloads of issues, this in no way limits the app creators ability to have a breaking news section just like the news apps have today. This is ADDED functionality it takes nothing away. Terrible positioning on this article MR. They can still use push notifications just like CNN etc do today to alert the user of a new article in the breaking news section.
 
N

nastebu

macrumors 6502
May 5, 2008
354
0
room237 said:
If it only downloads once a day, well, when will that be? Before I leave the house each morning? Maybe not. So, in the subway I could be stuck with yesterday's content, unless I manually download everything before leaving, and that defeats the purpose of push.
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And what if it *does* download before you leave for work? In that case, the system works quite well I think. So before you buy that subscription, make sure you know what time the updating happens so you won't be stuck.

It seems perfectly reasonable to me. There's a useful distinction between a website and a magazine. Websites can be 100% up-to-date. Magazines can provide a more thoughtful and deeper persepective.
 
S

ssspinball

macrumors 6502
Aug 6, 2008
348
174
iPad 3 said:
Apple really don't help themselves do they, they go out of their way to make things as unattractive as possible for publishers it seems to me.
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Correction, Apple goes out of their way to make things as attractive as possible for users. Publishers are and will always be secondary to users in Apple's decisions.

Every time I hear about how Apple won't give away user data to third-parties I cheer for them. Every time I see Apple do something that makes it impossible for irresponsible third-parties to drain your battery life or significantly affect the OS in anyway, I cheer for them.
 
NAG

NAG

macrumors 68030
Aug 6, 2003
2,821
0
/usr/local/apps/nag
I'm hoping apps like Instapaper can take advantage of this so I don't have to remember to open the app at some point to sync the reading list.
 
A

accessoriesguy

macrumors 6502a
Jul 8, 2011
891
0
I think this is good. That way we don't get spammed. During the whole apple lost the iphone in the bar a second time there were like 15 updates in the day, about apple impersonating the police and that there was no report taken (which were both false i think). waiting for things to subside we saw the full picture.

If we want a constant amount of updates, we could add them on twitter or some other means but not for things like the newspaper, which i enjoy getting a broad range of information at once at an enjoyable pace, rather than a facebook wall.
 
R

room237

macrumors 6502
Oct 20, 2008
322
1
Queens, NYC
nastebu said:
And what if it *does* download before you leave for work? In that case, the system works quite well I think. So before you buy that subscription, make sure you know what time the updating happens so you won't be stuck.

It seems perfectly reasonable to me. There's a useful distinction between a website and a magazine. Websites can be 100% up-to-date. Magazines can provide a more thoughtful and deeper persepective.
Click to expand...

I agree with you. But unless you have a 3G data plan on the iPad, you can't always access a news website or dedicated app. I think that it gave the impression (to me, anyway) that the updates would be more frequent, much like emails which are pushed and downloaded as they become available. It's not the end of the world and yes, it does ADD functionality, but if some content could be text only, I don't see the big deal with allowing more frequent updates.
 
Dhelsdon

Dhelsdon

macrumors 65816
Feb 5, 2010
1,337
2
Canadian Eh!
They can only print their magazines once a day, so how is this any different. If they want up to the minute then this outlet isn't for them.. it's pretty simple.
 
jlgolson

jlgolson

Contributing Editor
Jun 2, 2011
383
8
Durango, CO
accessoriesguy said:
I think this is good. That way we don't get spammed.
Click to expand...
This isn't what I mean at all. It's not about getting spammed.

I want it so that when I take my iPad away from Wi-Fi, I will have the latest and greatest news on it.

Not have to update manually. Period. No updating manually, ever, and still have the latest news.

Newsstand doesn't do that.
 
M

Meriana

macrumors member
Aug 31, 2009
83
0
Your aware that constant updating will eat your i-Whatever devices battery pretty fast?
 
D

DeaconGTG

macrumors member
Sep 21, 2011
76
0
room237 said:
In my opinion, that was the whole advantage of newsstand. If it only downloads once a day, well, when will that be? Before I leave the house each morning? Maybe not. So, in the subway I could be stuck with yesterday's content, unless I manually download everything before leaving, and that defeats the purpose of push. So while I agree with you about push limitations being a separate issue, I was hoping Newsstand would be the way around that limitation. Otherwise, all it's really good for is keeping your publications in the same place, something I can do with dedicated apps and folders.
Click to expand...

I would assume that the download schedule would work somewhat the same way as newspapers do on the Kindle.

I don't know when you leave the house each morning, and I don't know when the exact update time on the Kindle is. But I do know that I've ocassionally woken up around 5 a.m. (Central) and found the latest copy of the New York Times waiting on my Kindle.
 
jlgolson

jlgolson

Contributing Editor
Jun 2, 2011
383
8
Durango, CO
Ted13 said:
Because every email you receive is in the 10 to 200 MB range?

Thank you, Apple, for yet again doing the smart thing.
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It's not smart, it's dumb. I want the most up-to-date news, always. As soon as I turn the thing on.

If there is an option to force fewer updates (like setting email to retrieve every 30 or 60 minutes, as opposed to push), that's great, but the whole idea of the iPad is to have everything at your fingertips -- not 6 hours ago news at your fingertips.
 
I

IzzyBorden

macrumors newbie
Sep 20, 2011
3
0
jlgolson said:
It's not smart, it's dumb. I want the most up-to-date news, always. As soon as I turn the thing on.

If there is an option to force fewer updates (like setting email to retrieve every 30 or 60 minutes, as opposed to push), that's great, but the whole idea of the iPad is to have everything at your fingertips -- not 6 hours ago news at your fingertips.
Click to expand...

Wow, for a Macrumors editor you certainly didn't do your research. :rolleyes:

I think you are confusing Newstand with something like an RSS Feed/Reader. Watch the WWDC Keynote again; they make it VERY clear that Newstand is for those daily/weekly/monthly magazine and newspaper subscriptions; to make it easy for you to say, if you have a subscription to New York Times, when you go to bed at night, the newest daily edition of that NYT will be on your iPad when you wake up in the morning.

This is how it's supposed to be. It is NOT a RSS up-to-the-minute news reader. It's for subscriptions! Again, If you subscribe to Wired Magazine, you'll only get it once a month (because, you know, Wired is only published ONCE A MONTH!)
 
entropys

entropys

macrumors 65816
Jan 5, 2007
1,230
2,334
Brisbane, Australia
If you have a contract with a cap on 3G downloads, this is exactly what you want. To automatically download the bulk of the publication while you are asleep via your wifi network, then only update when you want to during the day once a notification is received.

Even better would be the ability for a notification to detail what articles are in the updates and allow you to choose which ones to download, with a choice to download the lot in the notification if that is preferred.
 
jlgolson

jlgolson

Contributing Editor
Jun 2, 2011
383
8
Durango, CO
IzzyBorden said:
Wow, for a Macrumors editor you certainly didn't do your research. :rolleyes:

I think you are confusing Newstand with something like an RSS Feed/Reader. Watch the WWDC Keynote again; they make it VERY clear that Newstand is for those daily/weekly/monthly magazine and newspaper subscriptions; to make it easy for you to say, if you have a subscription to New York Times, when you go to bed at night, the newest daily edition of that NYT will be on your iPad when you wake up in the morning.
Click to expand...
When you go to the New York Times website, do you see the news that was published at 11PM the night before?

How about we use the technology in new and fancy ways, rather than going backwards to the way they did it before?

Why would you have an iPad at all when you can just get the paper delivered to your home AND have something to wrap your fish in?
 
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