Apple Releases Documentation to Help Publishers Prepare for Apple News Format

[MacRumors]

Apple has released an Apple News Format Reference in the iOS Developer Library that provides developers with technical details on how to prepare for the upcoming release of Apple News Format, which allows news publishers to create customized layouts with iOS fonts, rich photo galleries, videos and animations optimized for iPhone and iPad.

Apple News Format will allow for all news publishers to have customized layouts with rich graphics and other content, rather than basic articles being pulled straight from an RSS feed, as initial selected partners have had since iOS 9 was released. Apple has shared a direct download of example articles as a guideline.

Apple has also released an Apple News API Reference that explains how publishers can use the Apple News API to integrate Apple News with their existing content management system to access a rich suite of tools for measuring user engagement with published content. Apple also updated its News Publishing Guide with new Delivering Content and Managing Content sections.

Apple News Format is still listed as "coming soon" on Apple's website.

(Thanks, Eric!)

Article Link: Apple Releases Documentation to Help Publishers Prepare for Apple News Format

 

[Asarien]

Let me know when Apple updates iBooks Author to something modern. Shameful that it's still using an iWeb interface.

 

[superberg]

I'm going to stick with RSS until either it dies or I do.

 

[OldSchoolMacGuy]

WordPress is working on a plugin for this to make conversion easy. It's available in development now.

 

[OldSchoolMacGuy]

I'm going to stick with RSS until either it dies or I do.

This format offers far more to publishers than RSS does. Stuff like rich media galleries and far less overhead making it download much quicker on Apple devices.

 

[Defthand]

Can’t wait. I was a beta tester. When I saw the uninspired layout, I was dumbfounded. Where was the polished presentation spoke of during the keynote unveiling? Instead, it looked like Craigslist. Only a smattering of articles exploited the app’s potential.

RSS feeds are visually insipid, something existing news apps sought to improve. The best, by far, was Zite. Its layout/UI resembled a casual magazine. Unfortunately, Flipbook acquired Zite and is shuttering it. Flipbook, in comparison, is a tacky kaleidoscope of content and bloated UI. Browsing it is a chore.

 

[nt5672]

I wonder if this Apple technology is about the reader experience or tracking the reader experience? In addition, will we continue to see censorship masked under the need to protect the Apple brand? If so no dice, I don't need to see news filtered by Apple's political correctness.

 

[nostaws]

So will there be an android version? if I'm a publisher, I want all the eyes I can get. Lotsa iPhones are good but there are a lot of android users out there too.

 

[loby]

I wonder if this Apple technology is about the reader experience or tracking the reader experience? In addition, will we continue to see censorship masked under the need to protect the Apple brand? If so no dice, I don't need to see news filtered by Apple's political correctness.

It is not just political correctness and protecting Apple negative press...etopian society that just "gives you the news that you want" like a drug. This is the tag line for the advertisement of the app: "Give you the news that you want..."

Give you what YOU want to read?!? This is not news, but a better way to control what you really know...or what they want you to know...

 

[Defthand]

…the tag line for the advertisement of the app: "Give you the news that you want..."

Give you what YOU want to read?!? This is not news, but a better way to control what you really know...or what they want you to know...

People are self-censoring by nature. That is, we turn a deaf ear to news and opinions we don’t already agree with. How many of us, for example, bother to read any of the Android-centric product reviews or blogs to see what their camp is actually achieving? How many of us will read the opinions of an opposing political proponent rather than rely on soundbites fed to us by our party?

nt5672 does have a legitimate concern. News organizations are slanted. What is to prevent Apple from excluding articles that are critical of it?

 

[AdonisSMU]

People are self-censoring by nature. That is, we turn a deaf ear to news and opinions we don’t already agree with. How many of us, for example, bother to read any of the Android-centric product reviews or blogs to see what their camp is actually achieving? How many of us will read the opinions of an opposing political proponent rather than rely on soundbites fed to us by our party?

nt5672 does have a legitimate concern. News organizations are slanted. What is to prevent Apple from excluding articles that are critical of it?

Are you saying all this time Google has slanted search results in its favor?

 

[matrix07]

It's coming along nicely. Can't wait to read a proper iMore in News.

 

[CFreymarc]

I wonder if this Apple technology is about the reader experience or tracking the reader experience? In addition, will we continue to see censorship masked under the need to protect the Apple brand? If so no dice, I don't need to see news filtered by Apple's political correctness.

Years ago at a SigGrapgh conference a very interesting UI was presented with a "wing slider" at the bottom of the app view. Slide to the left, more liberal, slide to the right, more conservative.

It had a self-layout algorithm that gave more, less or no layout space to an article based on the political history of an article byline according to how it matched the setting of the wing slider.

A very fluid flow of a newspaper layout was done sliding the wing slider from the left to the right of the screen. Thus user and not the editor had control over layout. The mainstream media types in the audience were notably disturbed seeing this demo.

 

[SteveW928]

WordPress is working on a plugin for this to make conversion easy. It's available in development now.

Oh, that's good to hear! I've tried to make a good feed for Flipboard on one site with a 3rd party plugin, but it's been a nightmare. If we can just create a compatible feed easily with a WordPress site, that will be excellent! (And, get the service actually used.)

 

[OldSchoolMacGuy]

Oh, that's good to hear! I've tried to make a good feed for Flipboard on one site with a 3rd party plugin, but it's been a nightmare. If we can just create a compatible feed easily with a WordPress site, that will be excellent! (And, get the service actually used.)

You can download the plugin already. Not seeing any recent updates but now that Apple has published more on the format they should start updating soon.

https://github.com/alleyinteractive/apple-news

 

[nt5672]

Are you saying all this time Google has slanted search results in its favor?

Absolutely, at least where Google figures it has a reasonable chance to get away with it. So the trick that Google uses is not to be obvious and then to be quick to say "Ops". Worked for Microsoft, why not Google.

 

[boulderjack]

WordPress is working on a plugin for this to make conversion easy. It's available in development now.

Is there a link where I could learn more about the wordpress plugin?

UPDATE: Disregard. I see link above.

 

[Benjamin Frost]

Years ago at a SigGrapgh conference a very interesting UI was presented with a "wing slider" at the bottom of the app view. Slide to the left, more liberal, slide to the right, more conservative.

It had a self-layout algorithm that gave more, less or no layout space to an article based on the political history of an article byline according to how it matched the setting of the wing slider.

A very fluid flow of a newspaper layout was done sliding the wing slider from the left to the right of the screen. Thus user and not the editor had control over layout. The mainstream media types in the audience were notably disturbed seeing this demo.

That sounds like a superb idea.

The best news app would give you control according to your views on everything you could think of. I don't want to see any articles from people who are pro-abortion, anti-hunting or writing about rap music, for instance.

I look forward to someone catering to our needs, though I doubt it will be Apple; Tim Cook has turned Apple into his own political party.

 

[CouponPages]

I went through a long series of rejections before I could get one of my RSS feeds to work in the News App. All of the rejections had to do with the format of the logo, but they never gave a specific reason why the logo was rejected, making it more of a guessing game to figure out why it was always rejected. If nothing else, if they plan on using "Canned" rejections, it would be helpful if they had more specific details.... such as telling you if you should correct the aspect ratio, or insure there's no borders, etc.

I finally got it approved, however... Even though my RSS feed was accepted several weeks ago, it always says "No Stories"

No warnings in the settings in iCloud... just "No Stories".

Anyone else have this problem?

 

[SteveW928]

Is there a link where I could learn more about the wordpress plugin?
UPDATE: Disregard. I see link above.

Also note, this seems to be the original in the WordPress repository:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/publish-to-apple-news/

I've no idea on the status of it.

The best news app would give you control according to your views on everything you could think of. ...

I look forward to someone catering to our needs, though I doubt it will be Apple; Tim Cook has turned Apple into his own political party.

The problem is that then you're never seeing anything but your own views. I think it's important to keep tabs on the other side(s). You don't have to read everything in depth, but I don't think totally filtering it out is good. But, no kidding about Apple these days (and, it seems, all the big companies)... they seem enamored to join the 'tolerant', 'open-minded', 'anti-bully', 'diversity', 'inclusive' gang, where all of those words, in fact, mean the opposite.

All of the rejections had to do with the format of the logo, but they never gave a specific reason why the logo was rejected...

Any tips?

 

[CouponPages]

After tinkering with the size to get the right ratio, I also discovered that it had to have no blank space around it. I eventually made it just the name in a bold font and I manually stretched it so it touched the entire canvas.

Also, be sure it's transparent. They intend to overlay it. I used a PNG file.

 

[SteveW928]

After tinkering with the size to get the right ratio, I also discovered that it had to have no blank space around it. I eventually made it just the name in a bold font and I manually stretched it so it touched the entire canvas.

Also, be sure it's transparent. They intend to overlay it. I used a PNG file.

Interesting. Good to know... thanks!