Apple News+: Is it Worth the $9.99 per Month Subscription Price?

[Sanlitun]

The idea that I would pay for the same fake news and consumer politics I avoid elsewhere is silly.

There is an element of Apple being slightly stuck in a bubble and out of touch with this one. I agree it will be a catastrophe.

 

[nburwell]

NO, it's NOT !

I expect the price to go down by 50% to $4.99/month by the end of the year.

At that point, it could take off, but NOT before.

I have to agree here. As I have mentioned in other posts, I have enjoyed News+ but I certainly will not be continuing my subscription once the trial is over. I really only read Sports Illustrated and a photography magazine (and I don't read those on a regular basis).

I too don't think this will really take off. If the price were cheaper, I could see more people subscribing. But certainly not at the current price point. Thanks but no thanks, Apple.

 

[Icaras]

Worth every penny and then some to me. I’m a huge fan of the Apple News app and use it daily. The addition of magazines make it a no brainer. Love New+!!!

 

[The_Martini_Cat]

When my New Yorker subscription runs out, it might be worth a try. But I just signed up for two years of that, so wake me in 2021.

 

[imlynxy]

is priceless

 

[RudySnow]

I’m running the trial but don’t find enough worthy sources that i’m interested in to maintain yet another $10/mo. I’m “subscribed-out” between Apple Music, Hulu TV, Netflix, Amazon Prime, MLB TV, and the still-paltry Apple cloud storage plan to justify AN+ or even Apple TV+. I know Apple sees the benefits of expanding their services revenue, but their offerings just aren’t compelling enough for me at this time.

 

[RONS67]

Nope! The New Yorker doesn't include the comics. The interface is too confusing. (In Textures, The New Yorker does/did include comics and the UI wasn't as bad.)

 

[Pruus]

No, no, no, no

 

[b11051973]

I signed up day one for the trial. I hearted a bunch of magazines and then never went back. I cancelled the auto-renewal 2 days ago. I just don't see going back to reading magazines.

 

[thadoggfather]

$10 a month is nothing. That's a single day of lunch. I live in LA and it's nice to get the LA Times as part of it and WSJ has some good articles too.

I read off of it every day. Worth it for sure.

That mentality adds up quick when all your bills on top of rent / mortgage / car payments are Just “benign $10/mo services”

People have serious service exhaustion right now and understandably so

If it was just Netflix like it used to be when this was a novelty, fine. But it isn’t. We’ve since “evolved”

Gaming services. Netflix. Hulu. Amazon video. Apple Music. Spotify. Amazon music. Disney’s stream, apple’s stream, YouTube tv, etc etc to just name a handful-- it goes on endlessly

 

[1madman1]

Zero interest, wouldn’t use it even if it was free. I pay no attention to what passes for “news” outside of the tech industry.

 

[Buran]

Not going to keep it. I want to read the NYTimes and it doesn't offer that. If I could just spend 99 cents a month for National Geographic, I'd do that.

If Apple offers the paper I want, I'd pay.

 

[Tmybrgr]

I actually liKe magazines and subscribe to texture. But this app is a mess. As noted in the article you can’t easily select your favorites like you could easily do in texture. Also they don’t even update in a timely manner texture updates all the issues daily for the released magazines and this app you wait until apple gets around to it. It’s another apple tries to take over something and does it half ass. It’s sad because I do enjoy texture and I do like the updated interface of apple news plus but ugh can apple get its act together and do something somewhat polished they bought texture a year ago and it pretty much works and this is what they roll out?

 

[bluespark]

Texture was worth $9.99/month, so if you are into magazines it is worth it. If not, maybe not so much... Should have been called Magazine+

I think you're on to something here. For multiple magazine subscriptions, that's not a bad price, but the name doesn't alert potential customers that this is a magazine subscription service (or something other than just news, which they probably get through an aggregator (such as Apple News itself) or from the source in the case of NYT and WaPo). So if you use Apple News and find it plus your other news apps sufficient for your *news* needs, you're not likely to ever even consider something called "News +."

 

[Freida]

The problem with Apple is that they are not a services company and most likely the never will be. Everytime they touch something with services they fail. And more and more stubborn they are and going for services instead of focusing on hardware and software symbiosis. As a result, we get failed hardware or no hardware.

 

[78Bandit]

As it is right now Apple News is not worth it to me. I'm subscribed to the free trial, and while I do find myself reading a few more articles from magazines than before it isn't enough. I was hoping the daily news would play a larger role in the service. Maybe given some more time we'll see NYT, Gannett, or Tribune Publishing come onboard, but until then I will probably cancel before my paid sub begins and just take a wait-and-see approach.

 

[calstanford]

It‘s not worth having yet another subscription.

Also I am getting pissed how **** Apple software development is.

News has been barely useable for me since launch and they never fixed the main bug (read an article, change to another app - e.g. to reply to a message) and come back to News. The article you‘re in the middle of reading is GONE. Gone. And you‘re back on the main page at the top. Good luck finding the article again like the idiot you are

 

[atomicjuiceboy]

I'm really angry that Apple is about to shut down the Texture app. Been with this service since the beginning. Still worked on my original iPad and iPad Mini. It actually gave them a purpose. Apple News+ requires the latest iOS so all my devices except my iPhone 8 are dead to this. Too bad, because I will really miss my magazines.

 

[nutmac]

For Apple News+ to be worth $9.99/month, I would like to see the following:

• Library tab that gives me full control over (1) channels (news and magazines sources), (2) topics, and (3) stories. All those "suggested" crap can remain in Today tab.
• Categories button. I don't want to scroll infinitum . Let me quickly jump to contents that I am interested in.
• Allow me filter out magazines that aren't offered in Apple News Format. If I am using an iPhone, I shouldn't have to read tiny text from PDF articles.
• Dark mode.
• Search bar. Following tab is terrible for search. I want to search for anything without clicking through limited Following tab interface and contents.
• Safari. I often want to read the full article on a browser without hitting the paywall. Safari should hook into News+ subscription to let me read available articles from News+ sources.

And few ideas to increase subscriber base:

• Bundling discount. If I am subscribed to Apple Music and/or iCloud, at least a token $1/month discount.
• Limited tier. How about $4.99/month plan that allows me to pick just few News+ sources?

 

[Xenious]

For sure, there's 3 guitar and one electronica mag I like. Two or three others my wife wanted and many more my kids like. Cheaper than all those magazine subscriptions combined.

 

[lssmit02]

I disagree with the general negative take in this thread so far. First, there are several magazines that I wouldn’t subscribe to, but enjoy having access to through the app (Sports Illustrated, for me, to name just one). Second, I have found that for the subscriptions I do have, I am using the electronic version more and more, often through an iOS app. Therefore, where I can substitute a single subscription here that covers several that I otherwise have, or for which I am willing to substitute another contained in the app, this actually saves me money. Third, I read Apple News daily, so this expands the offerings for stories that are included in the news feed. Likely I’ll kill off feeds from papers I don’t subscribe to and are not part of Apple News+ (Washington Post, for example). Just my two cents.

 

[awp69]

Not renewing here. I was liking the fact that it had the WSJ and there are some magazines I'd read on occassion but the way the content for it is curated sucks. Heck even just giving us the same front page that the WSJ has would be an improvement. As it is, the news on the WSJ page in News+ is often outdated. And it's not easy to find more unless you are searching specifically for something. So nope.

 

[BigJohno]

I'm going to cancel mine at the end of the trial. Design isn't intuitive to me. Why can't I make "playlist" of the magazines I like and always have them updated. I have to manually search each magazine and download it?

 

[480951]

In my personal view, it's not worth the price and I don't see the value in it compared to something like a music or movie service. I won't be continue after the free trial but I'll continue using the app.

 

[nwcs]

I’m tempted to sign up but haven’t yet. Just don’t have the time. There are about 5-6 magazines my wife really likes and a couple I like. That alone makes it worthwhile eventually for me. The news stuff is fine but I’m actually less interested in that than I am the magazines. I’ll bet Apple will be quickly iterating the news app now across the next 12.x release and iOS 13.