Apple Launches Audio Stories in Apple News, Adds Local News in Five Regions

[Braderunner]

Apple News ... further left than CNN or MSNBC.

If you want unbiased “news”...there’s Fox. 🤣. Because who needs facts...when you’ve got feelings. 🤣🤣🤣

 

[jonnyb098]

Wow so you have to dig into a menu to close player at the bottom??????? That’s TERRIBLE UI design showing how sloppily slapped together this was.

And no iPad access?

Seriously wtf???

 

[matrix07]

Wow so you have to dig into a menu to close player at the bottom??????? That’s TERRIBLE UI design showing how sloppily slapped together this was.

And no iPad access?

Seriously wtf???

Apple UI lately has been atrocious. And no iPad access is a kick in the nut.

 

[ipedro]

I really love News. But it does have some holes.

While all the magazines are an incredible value, I've felt that News+ had been missing... well, news. All these new additions of local papers helps solve that. News Today is fantastic. Listening to the first episode, it's a refreshing approach to reading the news. It's already something I know will be a part of my day, every day. I'm already looking for a way to turn it into a Shortcut to play on my HomePod at the start of my day.

 

[DJMarty]

Still need a way to block Fox News...

 

[macpurist]

I have a love/hate relationship with News/News+, just the same as with the new Music app. Too many "we think you'll be interested in" aka "curated" instead of serving me what I followed or downloaded ... then there are times when I click on a link someone forwards one time, and throw the algorithm off for the next two months I get served with something I might not want to see again. I paid for News+ for over a year and cancelled it, no matter what I did; restricted stories in Today, blocked topics, blocked sources, reset identifier, reset the app, called Apple help ... I can't seem to figure it out.

There are times when I just want to tune things out, not because I'm insensitive, but because I want to focus and relax with what really interests me and lowers my blood pressure. I was hoping for a newsstand replacement where I can have all the magazines/subjects I'm interested in in one spot ... I now would much rather subscribe to individual magazines and call it a day.

Same "rant" applies to the Music app/service, I have the developer beta and iOS13 versions. Listen Now, Browse, and Radio seem to have overlapping content many times unrelated to the music type I listen to or I'm interested in because I clicked on a link someone sent me. Seems the library portion of the app is taking a back seat ... Paying for family Music, but daily I think I might just go back to buying songs and disabling all those other sections ... well anyway just my 2c.

I know in the grand scheme of things the above is very insignificant, and is just a click/tap away from me going elsewhere ... but why did Apple separate iTunes for music, podcasts, news, apps, and now it seems they're slowly merging them back together, with "stories" being everywhere as an example.

I had exactly the same issue with Apple News, they ignored my subscriptions or even likes and follows, and instead pushed hard their own editorial. Bad algorithm for sure, we want to read what we are interested on, not what they want us to read.

The fact that we can't export anything to PDF, or save it offline, even ONE article is also an issue. Overall, the service itself is good, the recommendation engine needs to improve, or just be gone altogether. I've tried Readly.com an alternative magazine subscription service, so far not bad at all, worth checking out, but not that great either. It seems they all have issues, and is more of a choice where we still need to compromise.

All said though this audio feature is quite good, and might be the reason I subscribe back to Apple News.

 

[hieromonk]

Doesn't appear to be functional for me in iOS Public Beta.

I am on iOS 14 developer beta
is it just me ? because I dont even see the audio tab on my apple news app
god I LOVE apple news + and their endless magazine stream
[automerge]1594876711[/automerge]

I have a love/hate relationship with News/News+, just the same as with the new Music app. Too many "we think you'll be interested in" aka "curated" instead of serving me what I followed or downloaded ... then there are times when I click on a link someone forwards one time, and throw the algorithm off for the next two months I get served with something I might not want to see again. I paid for News+ for over a year and cancelled it, no matter what I did; restricted stories in Today, blocked topics, blocked sources, reset identifier, reset the app, called Apple help ... I can't seem to figure it out.

There are times when I just want to tune things out, not because I'm insensitive, but because I want to focus and relax with what really interests me and lowers my blood pressure. I was hoping for a newsstand replacement where I can have all the magazines/subjects I'm interested in in one spot ... I now would much rather subscribe to individual magazines and call it a day.

Same "rant" applies to the Music app/service, I have the developer beta and iOS13 versions. Listen Now, Browse, and Radio seem to have overlapping content many times unrelated to the music type I listen to or I'm interested in because I clicked on a link someone sent me. Seems the library portion of the app is taking a back seat ... Paying for family Music, but daily I think I might just go back to buying songs and disabling all those other sections ... well anyway just my 2c.

I know in the grand scheme of things the above is very insignificant, and is just a click/tap away from me going elsewhere ... but why did Apple separate iTunes for music, podcasts, news, apps, and now it seems they're slowly merging them back together, with "stories" being everywhere as an example.

why dont you try and handpick from the magazine that you might be interesting in to try and improve the algorithm ?

you need to go against the algorithm
for example when Apple Music try and force feed me black music I just keep on pressing suggest this less
and you need to go all out and manually press suggest less black music in order to keep them from spamming you with it

thats all it will be showing up on my recommendation now on Apple Music , just electronic + indie + jazz + alternative + rock

 

[insomniac86]

Why do they always make this stuff limited to the US?
There are News+ subscribers in the UK that would quite like access to this kind of stuff.

A lot could argue that many features are not available in their Country.
But the different is, considering Apple News+ is the same price in Australia and the UK, you think it would be feature parity. We Pay the same price for Less.

All paying subscribers would also like this.

 

[blotto123]

Apple News is still crippled from lack of basic features: phone app is sluggish, can't download Apple News+ Audio to phone/iPad, Apple News for desktop can't print or Save articles to different file formats, lack of sort & search options of Followed magazines, and no more articles from The New York Times. Apple News & News+ reminds me of early Apple Maps: very poorly implemented & lacking.

 

[hieromonk]

Apple News is still crippled from lack of basic features: phone app is sluggish, can't download Apple News+ Audio to phone/iPad, Apple News for desktop can't print or Save articles to different file formats, lack of sort & search options of Followed magazines, and no more articles from The New York Times. Apple News & News+ reminds me of early Apple Maps: very poorly implemented & lacking.

Doesn't appear to be functional for me in iOS Public Beta.

I dont even see the audio tab on apple news app, is it just ios14 beta4 or its only available on iOS 13.6 ?

 

[hieromonk]

Ok it works for me now , I love Apple News audio !

I love how Apple team up with publishers to select the best News+ magazine and newspaper stories to be read aloud and dropped into your personalized playlist. And the app allows you to go back and forth seamlessly between reading and listening. So if you haven’t finished that 5,000-word article you started, you can pick up the audio story right where you left off.

 

[xxray]

I don't understand why Apple hasn't added the audio feature on the Mac and iPad. All it takes is an audio player...

 

[hieromonk]

I don't understand why Apple hasn't added the audio feature on the Mac and iPad. All it takes is an audio player...

well.. its Tim Cook ... you know macOS will always be Sub-par comparing with iOS .......