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Apple News+ Struggling to Get New Subscribers

Macaholic868 said:
It’s not condescending at all. I had no idea you could do any of that. That’s awesome! Thank you!!!!!
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You’re very welcome, I’m always happy to help where I can. It’s a relief though, one can never be sure on these forums if by offering a suggestion you are being helpful, or insulting.

In fairness Apple haven’t exactly gone out of their way to make any of this sort of thing clear at all. They seem to just expect us to discover it by ourselves.

Which is all very well, but I know because my wife is a bit of a technophobe, that not everyone will go out of their way to explore every nook and cranny of all of the software they use. Not because of any problem understand technology, in my wife’s case, she just uses it and if a feature doesn’t make itself known, she will just assume it’s not available.
 
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MacRumors said:



Apple has been struggling to add new subscribers to its Apple News+ service that launched in March, according to a new report from CNBC that cites people familiar with Apple News+.

When Apple News+ debuted, Apple signed on approximately 200,000 subscribers within 48 hours, but has not had luck attracting many new customers. The subscriber count has not "increased materially from its first couple of days," based on information from CNBC's sources.

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Apple News+, which offers up access to magazines and newspapers for $9.99 per month, was promoted at launch, but Apple has not been heavily marketing it since then. Despite this, Apple is said to be committed to improving Apple News for years to come.

Publishers who thought the service would bring in more revenue are "disappointed" with poor sales. Apple takes 50 percent of the revenue from every Apple News+ subscriber, while the rest of the money is doled out to publishers based on the amount of time that subscribers spend reading their content.

One publisher has received between $20,000 and $30,000 per month from Apple News+, which is lower than expected. Another publisher told CNBC that while Apple News+ revenue growth is lower than anticipated, advertising from the free Apple News product has consistently climbed.

A Bloomberg report from earlier today suggested Apple is considering a bundle that would include Apple Music, Apple TV+, and Apple News+ for one monthly price, which could potentially make Apple News+ more appealing because other services would be available alongside it. Such a bundle could be released as early as 2020.

Article Link: Apple News+ Struggling to Get New Subscribers
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If Apple added The NY Times I'd be in.
 
Everyone crying for services to be bundled, will only cry again for them to be able to choose ala-carte.

Subscription services are going the way of the cable company model, where lower revenue generating "channels" or "subscriptions" will be subsidized by higher revenue generating "channels" or "subscriptions".

Let these services stand on their own, if they suck, the market will determine it. A "bundle" will only be slightly less than what you can get ala carte, but now I'm forced to to pay more for services I didn't use.
 
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We subscribed to Texture before it was purchased by Apple. We still subscribe to Apple News+, but will probably drop it. The interface was much better when it was Texture.
 
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jdrtina said:
We subscribed to Texture before it was purchased by Apple. We still subscribe to Apple News+, but will probably drop it. The interface was much better when it was Texture.
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I subscribed on-and-off to texture for years before the Apple purchase, even back when it was called next issue.

Texture was a magazine reading service. News+ tries to break the magazine model and pervert it into a news aggregator. This model just does not work. As many people have mentioned on this thread, magazines are dead as a news medium. Niche hobby magazines are still doing very well and Texture and now News+ had/have a great selection of these magazines, but News+ just destroys any ability to enjoy them.

The very fact that they call this service News+ shows that Apple utterly fails to understand what magazines are and how to market them. The fact that this thread is just full of people complaining they don't want their news from magazines, while these people are totally missing the point of all the non-news magazines in the service shows that Apple has utterly failed to grasp what magazines are in the 21st century.
 
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ruka.snow said:
Why would I pay for "free" content?
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You are paying to support the news outlets in the continue creation of this “free” content, plus Apple’s hand in curation.

I wouldn’t be so quick as to write off News+ yet. As though Apple is just going to stand by idly and watch their service wither and die.
 
One foot firmly planted in the past. Went to apply for Apple Card this weekend. Declined with unable to verify identity. Some kind of ID scanning problem with my new 11 Pro Max.
 
marco114 said:
who wants to pay for biased opinion journalism?
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All journalism is biased, to one degree or another. Even if they claim to be impartial, you are still likely to find that person’s opinions on a subject making themselves known.

Ultimately the best you can hope for is to find someone who’s opinions meet your own, if that’s what you’re looking for. Though personally I find some of the most interesting, thought provoking articles to be ones which offer up a different view than my own.
 
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I've never quite understood what Apple News+ was... other than a 'cover charge' to read someone else's published article.
In today's vast internet landscape of free information, if I come across a pay-to-view model, I simply move on to someplace else. The information is obviously not that valuable or pertinent to anyone if they have to put the information behind a payment method.

I admit I've come across some really interesting articles, but when I see Apple's pay model block my ability to read the article, the ONLY person who is losing is the publisher and author of the article, because I believe that ALL INFORMATION SHOULD BE FREE!!!
 
People are too smart to need 'news' anymore. You wanna know what Trump said? Go watch the video unedited online, in its entirety and make up your mind. You want a true account of what Apple announced? Watch the keynote.

Looking at the world through someone elses biased lens (via News) is what's wrong with us these days
 
My wife and I are moderate to heavy readers. I grew up reading Ranger Rick and any newspaper neighbors threw out. When I could pay for it - LA Times, Scientific American, Economist, and WSJ. After I started college I could no longer afford the $200-$400 subscription fees.

We signed up for Apple News+ initially but the limited WSJ selection, inability to find things, and the horrible horrible algorithms trying to figure out what we read .... don't get me started at trying to read magazines on an iPhone. The only place I can actually read those are on my 4k monitor at home on my Macbook and even then it's not a pleasant experience.

I've used Flipboard and various other news services and ... they sure seem to me to be a lot better.

Right now, reading a paper magazine is so much better than the experience you get with Apple News+. It's horrible.

That said, I can't stand to give most magazines $ because 3/4th of it is ads or of no interest to me. The stuff I want to pay for (WSJ/Economist/etc.) are way too expensive for me.

No Apple News+ for us.

Wife and I are spending most of our time in our local library or on Libby (ebook library app through our local library). I keep hearing that you can get magazines through the library so we'll have to look at that.

The most fun? Going to these small hole in the wall bookstores and donating books we've read and picking up a few.

We have a Barnes N Nobles membership and try to buy a few books every few months to help keep them alive.
 
Personally, I’d have called it something other than Apple News(+). It draws too much focus to the news aspect, which I’m perfectly happy to have. But I think their main focus should be the magazine’s first, newspapers second and general news third.

One need only look at the continually climbing subscriber base and profits of companies such as Readly and Magzter to see that’s where the real value lies. Particularly as news itself isn’t exactly hard to come by for free.

Though unless Apple plans to get a move on, or buy out one of these companies, they have a long way to go to catch up to the literal thousands of magazines those services have to offer.

Even ruling out the foreign language publications, Magzter has more content which interests me than I could ever actually keep up with. Which is a good thing, it ensures a broad spectrum of interests for as many people as possible.
 
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I don't know anyone who still reads magazines (except my mom, but she's 66). It's a dead medium, IMO. Hopefully Apple offers a News subscription that removes ads!
 
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bjoswald said:
I don't know anyone who still reads magazines (except my mom, but she's 66). It's a dead medium, IMO. Hopefully Apple offers a News subscription that removes ads!
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I cannot stand ads. I pay Macrumors not to see ads.

One big thing that upsets me - WSJ and Economist expect you to shell out $200-$400/year and still serve you with MASSIVE ads on their website. WTF?!
 
TrueBlou said:
One need only look at the continually climbing subscriber base and profits of companies such as Readly and Magzter to see that’s where the real value lies. Particularly as news itself isn’t exactly hard to come by for free.
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I think that's part of the problem but because of the internet, reading a magazine or the WSJ online is old news. With the internet you can literally get free up to the second breaking news on your phone or computer.

Apple's News+ isn't the problem but the medium/delivery is. It's right up there with advertising in a phonebook vs advertising online. The phonebook died many years ago because finding a business online was easier and cost less money to advertise. Now seniors are also using Google to do searches.
 
TrueBlou said:
You’re very welcome, I’m always happy to help where I can. It’s a relief though, one can never be sure on these forums if by offering a suggestion you are being helpful, or insulting.

In fairness Apple haven’t exactly gone out of their way to make any of this sort of thing clear at all. They seem to just expect us to discover it by ourselves.

Which is all very well, but I know because my wife is a bit of a technophobe, that not everyone will go out of their way to explore every nook and cranny of all of the software they use. Not because of any problem understand technology, in my wife’s case, she just uses it and if a feature doesn’t make itself known, she will just assume it’s not available.
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It’s posters like you who make these forums worth reading! Thanks again!!! I signed back up and was able to get everything working the way you described. You’d think they’d have more subscribers. To me there’s enough content there to make it worth while. For a little more than a subscription to one or two monthly magazines you get a lot more content. The experience of reading magazines on the iPhone X isn’t great but it’s perfect on my iPad. Thanks again!!!!
 
Marty80 said:
Apple in 2019 has become more of media company than a tech company. It’s time they revise many of there aging gadgets i.e iMac, iPad mini etc rather than the digital content.
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Media is the future for growth and profitablity. As devices become more content deliverers than creators they become commodities unless you can provide access to content that keeps you tied to their devices; driving Apple's content push. Apple will still want to deliver content over their devices but will not stay tied to devices. I would also be not surprised if Apple moves to buy a delivery company, such as T-Mobile, to provide ned to end content development and delivery.
 
Tried it for a couple of months. The free version is more than enough for me. Curated or not. Dont really care. I use Apple news for entertainment not news.
 
I wouldn’t be so quick as to write Apple news off just yet. Apple has a proven track record of iterating on products and services and pushing them forward and I believe they will continue to support said service for the long term.

A redesign might be on the cards. A bundle also makes sense to introduce news to more users.

It’s still early days.
 
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