Apple Stepping Up Plans to Expand News App to More Countries

[Jeeve Stubbs]

I am not getting into this, as it is not the place, but you Americans and I want to say what I want. Good luck in the future. You will need it.
The U.K may have its faults, but I am so glad I live here, and we have what is called decency laws. You Americans do what you do.

As a Canadian I totally understand what you mean. After the US became independent, the UK decided it wouldn't let things get out of hand here, and it shows.

 

[svish]

Great to hear this. But not sure how many more countries will be getting it this year. Expansion of Apple services outside US has been slow always. Hope it comes to my country soon.

 

[Marbles1]

I was thinking about this again and I wonder if the main flaw is a pricing problem.

Most people don't read magazines any more, and news subscriptions are tough to justify... but if Apple News were a few pounds/dollars a month I'd probably subscribe to it just to get access to a few of the more esoteric sources, or some intersting history articles etc.

I can't justify £12.99 a month / £155.88 a year for that, when it's not even full access to all sources.

I happily pay for the Financial Times, and for the Guardian app to get some different viewpoints (FT = follow the money, centrist/centre right, Guardian = centre left to far left, with a sprinkling of Neoliberalism).

 

[cgs1xx]

I don't need the NEWS app - give me the SPORT app. I don't understand where Apple sees the problem in not releasing the SPORT app to the whole world. OMG

I don't get why Sport is part of the News app either... and there's no way to switch it off 🤷🏻‍♂️
They should be completely separate

 

[Razorpit]

That's the main reason why I don't use it. Blocking channels is like replying to spam emails "to be taken off of their list." It almost appears Apple amplifies the "news articles" from the same sources I tell them I don't want to see.

Ok @2DeedleD I have to ask. You gave me thumbs down but no post afterwards, why? Do you agree with Apple continuing to push articles from blocked sources? Or are you one of the ones sending spam emails? 😄

 

[Bazza1]

When there are free (arguably better) news aggregators out there (Flipboard, Feedly et al) and free access to your local library's magazine / newspaper collections via apps like Libby, you have to wonder why Apple's product should even be considered.

 

[Ad47uk]

As a Canadian I totally understand what you mean. After the US became independent, the UK decided it wouldn't let things get out of hand here, and it shows.

We just said get on with it

 

[HEYsteve]

With the DMA / DSA, I think the chance is tiny we'll be getting News in the EU.

That goes for both News and news.

 

[Cunir]

I posted about this, and in detail about my experiences with Apple, trying to get them to unpin certain political topics that were being pushed to me against my will, and was silenced by the moderator. This issue is more serious than it seems. It seems designed in a way that you can pick your areas of interest and publications (but only from the narrow assortment available,) but Apple will send you what it wants anyway. Either that is a failure of programming (utter incompetence) or it is by design.

I don’t think it’s anything to do with Apple pushing their favoured stories on us, it’s just advertising. If you try and downvote or block one of the News+ papers or magazines that only subscribers can read, then their articles seem to keep cropping up in the ‘Apple spotlight’, ‘must read’ and ‘reader favourite’ sections anyway. So presumably Apple has promised the News+ publications a certain level of impressions to make it worth their while. For all the free publications they just make money off the ads inserted in them

 

[MacFarmer]

Would I pay for it? Not if it was separate from the Apple One subscription. Because it's included, I use Apple News about every week or two.

and how do you like it? Don't you feel it is a bit too curated? Or they do balance the opinions from both sides of the stories?

 

[neuropsychguy]

and how do you like it? Don't you feel it is a bit too curated? Or they do balance the opinions from both sides of the stories?

It's fine. I don't use it as much as I might because ad blocking doesn't work in it (even with a Pi Hole device) so I mostly read news in a browser.

It's only as good as the news sources. I've blocked many of the sources because I'm generally very selective in the sources I read and mostly want tech, science, and some business news from it.. I've also spent some time curating what's shown by doing the "suggest more" and "suggest less" votes on stories. There are other stories shown that I don't care for, but they are easy to quickly pass by.

 

[Razorpit]

and how do you like it? Don't you feel it is a bit too curated? Or they do balance the opinions from both sides of the stories?

It's extremely one-sided.

 

[HEYsteve]

It's extremely one-sided.

My experience with it reminds me of the comments a friend made a few years ago "I try to take in all of the sides. I watch both NBC and Fox, read both the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal." In other words, the "one side" it contains is that which is already part of a preordained set of accepted perspectives. Of course the business model of its corporate content sources and the business models of the independent sources are responsible for this. Being reposted for pennies on the dollar only makes sense for the corporations, and perhaps the influence operations like those run by the Emerson Collective, which has its own odd connection to Apple. All of which to say, trying to get news from this app is like trying to buy eggs from the hardware store. The business conditions governing its supply chain necessitate that.