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Apple News+ Offering Three-Month Free Trial in U.S. and Canada This Weekend Only

coolsean20 said:
What Apple really should have made instead of Apple news+ is an audiobooks/digital books subscription where you can read/listen to as many books as you want. I’d definitely pay for that.
Click to expand...

Amazon has a book subscription where you pay a flat $10/month for unlimited digital books. They also have an audiobook service though you are buying this books in that at $15/month for 1 book/month or $23/month for 2 books.
For subscribers to the unlimited digital books service, they have an option to buy the audiobook, which sometimes is just a few dollars.
They really are both excellent services.
 
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chucker23n1 said:
It's interesting how wrong I would have predicted their 2019 services launches.

I would've expected something like:

Apple Arcade: C+
Apple Card: B+
Apple News+: A-
Apple TV+: B-

Instead, it's almost the reverse. Consensus appears to be something like:

Apple Arcade: A (seems generally well-loved!)
Apple Card: B+ (this one… basically matched the relatively low expectations)
Apple News+: B- (not doing great)
Apple TV+: A- (no smash hit, but reasonably satisfying)

Would you have bet that Apple would do a much better job launching a gaming(!) platform than a news one?
Click to expand...

Your analysis seems pretty accurate. The only thing I would’ve done is given TV+ an A. I think people like it as much as if not more than Arcade.
 
Paying for news in 2019 seems insane to me. If this was a standalone service and not part of Apple, a billion/trillion whatever company then the service would close within a year I think.

I’m sure there’s some that love News+ and that’s lovely; but I don’t.
 
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Daniel James said:
Paying for news in 2019 seems insane to me. If this was a standalone service and not part of Apple, a billion/trillion whatever company then the service would close within a year I think.

I’m sure there’s some that love News+ and that’s lovely; but I don’t.
Click to expand...

First, look at the magazine list. 95%+ of the magazines have nothing to do with news (which is a good thing). This is not a news service, it's idiotically named and since the name has confused most people as it has confused you, the service is flopping horribly due to Apple's incompetence. Apple bought Texture without even knowing what a magazine is. Which makes sense from Timmy "what's a computer" Cook. Nobody knows what news+ really is and nobody wants what they wrongly thing it is. In 2019, magazines are not about last week's news, they're about niche interests. And that's what 95+ of the magazines cover.

Second, if you really think paying for news is insane, it's because you're just wallowing in the ignorance spread by "free" news. Here's a hint; News is a for-profit business. If you're not paying for it, then somebody is, and that somebody is the real customer. Now think about what that somebody really wants for their money, and that is exactly what your "free" news is delivering. It's not insightful quality journalism, it's manipulative fake news and click-bait. But please, go on enjoying your "free" news, if you want to wallow in ignorance, that's your free choice (pun intended).

It amazes me how many times people post this exact same thing without having read any of the posts on any of the threads about the service. I guess it shouldn't surprise me from people who want their news free and/or in 140 character summaries.
 
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coolsean20 said:
What Apple really should have made instead of Apple news+ is an audiobooks/digital books subscription where you can read/listen to as many books as you want. I’d definitely pay for that.
Click to expand...
Yes, an Audible clone would have been a much better idea if you ask me. Good call.
 
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gsmornot said:
Yes, an Audible clone would have been a much better idea if you ask me. Good call.
Click to expand...

As a former Texture customer and current Audible customer, all I can say is: God, I hope Apple leaves the audiobook market alone.
 
DevNull0 said:
Amazon has a book subscription where you pay a flat $10/month for unlimited digital books. They also have an audiobook service though you are buying this books in that at $15/month for 1 book/month or $23/month for 2 books.
For subscribers to the unlimited digital books service, they have an option to buy the audiobook, which sometimes is just a few dollars.
They really are both excellent services.
Click to expand...
I was looking into this a while back and noticed that bestsellers and new releases weren't included. Can you tell me if that has changed as maybe I'd reconsider.
 
zinacef said:
I was looking into this a while back and noticed that bestsellers and new releases weren't included. Can you tell me if that has changed as maybe I'd reconsider.
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I just checked and it looks like you're right. I never knew that the selection of new stuff was limited. I've been an audible subscriber for years and they get all the new stuff right away, though it's not unlimited access.

I haven't tried Kindle Unlimited because I don't have as much time as I want to just sit and read these days, which is why I love audible so much.
 
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I didn’t even last 24 hours on this free trial.
They need to cancel this entire project.

It’s an utterly unattractive offering in 2019 and beyond.
This feels like a product that would’ve been good in 2009
 
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Interesting, I click the ad for the 3-month trial, it switches me to the app, and the app offers the same 1-month trial that you see every day. Pretty lame, Apple.
[automerge]1575146137[/automerge]
cardfan said:
It’s basically magazines+. If more newspapers I might consider. Not to mention how horrible the app is.
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Yea, and I get all the digital magazine content I need from my local library system.
 
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I read the headline as, for this weekend only, Apple News+ is offering a three month visa for the US and Canada.
 
Well let’s rank the services....

Apple News: F I completely forgot it even exists.

Apple TV+: It’s free and I like two shows, more than I can say about Netflix. It’s free though.

Apple Card: Don’t need another.

Apple Arcade: A-, Finally non-IAP and commercial free games are featured. No true killer app but a lot of great B+ titles.
 
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Hah, nope. $12.99 Canadian is way too much per month. There is plenty where to get news for free without paying yet another subscription fees.

I occasionally browse the free Apple News, and its good enough for me.
 
The annoying thing is they still stuff the News app with big subscriber only blocks that you can’t turn off so even if you know you’re never going to subscribe on a whim, the app is cluttered with ads. And now the iTunes TV Shows store is getting the same way with Apple TV+ taking over huge sections.
 
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It’s basicall
Daniel James said:
Paying for news in 2019 seems insane to me. If this was a standalone service and not part of Apple, a billion/trillion whatever company then the service would close within a year I think.

I’m sure there’s some that love News+ and that’s lovely; but I don’t.
Click to expand...
DevNull0 said:
First, look at the magazine list. 95%+ of the magazines have nothing to do with news (which is a good thing). This is not a news service, it's idiotically named and since the name has confused most people as it has confused you, the service is flopping horribly due to Apple's incompetence. Apple bought Texture without even knowing what a magazine is. Which makes sense from Timmy "what's a computer" Cook. Nobody knows what news+ really is and nobody wants what they wrongly thing it is. In 2019, magazines are not about last week's news, they're about niche interests. And that's what 95+ of the magazines cover.

Second, if you really think paying for news is insane, it's because you're just wallowing in the ignorance spread by "free" news. Here's a hint; News is a for-profit business. If you're not paying for it, then somebody is, and that somebody is the real customer. Now think about what that somebody really wants for their money, and that is exactly what your "free" news is delivering. It's not insightful quality journalism, it's manipulative fake news and click-bait. But please, go on enjoying your "free" news, if you want to wallow in ignorance, that's your free choice (pun intended).

It amazes me how many times people post this exact same thing without having read any of the posts on any of the threads about the service. I guess it shouldn't surprise me from people who want their news free and/or in 140 character summaries.
Click to expand...

Good points. But even if they marketed this service as magazine+... magazines are dying a slow death ever since the internet started to take over in ~2007
https://www.forbes.com/sites/tonysi...-newsstand-industry-in-distress/#2fec47c15930

they are dying because we have better, much more efficient ways of communication and information distribution.
And they are not some pdf Scans of magazines...

The way I see it, 200.000 old people signed up for this service. And yes I get the nostalgia for print, I still love the smell of a new Mac magazine, but the internet is better, and I almost always have access to it.
 
FlyingDutch said:
What a silly statement. Apple sends email before the end of the trial period as reminders...
This trial is to get people interested in the service. Nothing else.
[automerge]1575110494[/automerge]

Please...
What a silly statement. Apple sends email before the end of the trial period as reminders...
This trial is to get people interested in the service. Nothing else.
Click to expand...

Not silly at all. People keep services for months or years without using them and providers count on it. Not everyone reads every email. Gyms stay in business on the backs of people who shell out $40-$99 every single month without visiting. They get regular emails saying the charge is about to hit and they don't stop it, in full knowledge that they've spent over a thousand dollars to not exercise. Apple News will hit my card along with Apple Music and iCloud storage etc. and I could easily imagine not canceling it on time to avoid at least one month's charge.

Just because you wouldn't neglect to cancel before the first charge doesn't mean that all subscribers will, and 10% of a lot is...a lot.
 
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Marekul said:
Good points. But even if they marketed this service as magazine+... magazines are dying a slow death ever since the internet started to take over in ~2007
https://www.forbes.com/sites/tonysi...-newsstand-industry-in-distress/#2fec47c15930

they are dying because we have better, much more efficient ways of communication and information distribution.
And they are not some pdf Scans of magazines...
Click to expand...

To be fair, that article talks about the dying magazine newsstand, and goes on to talk about how shrinking sales are making it hard for as many middle-men in the supply chain to stick their fingers in the pie.
Magazines as a news format are dead as we have all been saying, and I imagine that if that is the case, a business selling news magazines to walk-by traffic is going to be in a lot of trouble, as the article says.

I still do read several niche hobby magazines with print runs in the 25,000 range. If 10,000 copies are from magazine stores and the total markup is $4/copy that's $40,000. When your article talks about wholesalers, distributors, and retailers all wanting a cut of that, it's really not worth anyone's while. But when the Barnes and Nobles do all distribution in house, it is still a viable business.

Plus your article didn't mention subscription sales at all. If the magazine is $4 by subscription the publisher will gross $100,000/issue at 25,000 copies before accounting for ad revenue at all. That's a very viable business for a magazine publisher that might have 6 employees and do a few related magazines.

One woodworking magazine I subscribe to costs $8/month at the cover price, and is full of project patterns. What is the "modern" alternative? Things like instructables are total crap by comparison, there's no editing and no curation so it's a disaster. I can buy similar patterns on places like etsy but they cost more than the $8 for a single pattern much of the time. Plus there are reviews of new hardware, tips on technique, etc. Being 2019, there's an active forum where I can quite easily communicate with the designers and the testers that the magazine employs to make the projects before publishing to make sure there will be no issues for the readers. There's nothing like it for free and as a business it does just fine with a print circulation of 24,000. There's no electronic version.
 
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I love Apple news but to me it’s just so insane that there’s no search field anywhere! If I hear about something I open Apple News hoping it’s in the top but if it’s not how am I supposed to find a story? A topic? Or even part of an article specifically? 🤷🏻‍♂️
 
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