How are you using News?

[kmj2318]

I'm curious how you are using the News app. I started off with the handful of suggested channels. I also added a few larger publications, but I soon realized that following a popular channel is too overwhelming. They post new stories every few minutes.

Instead, I got rid of all those big names and started following topics. Following individuals is manageable (like Gruber or Marco), but following Slate or Wired would make my entire feed feel like spam. I occasionally heart stories too so I'm hoping it starts showing me only things I want to see.

As of now, it's still sort of a mystery. I suppose I just have to trust what it shows me.

 

[Jessica Lares]

I'm following The Atlantic, Bloomberg Business, National Geographic, The New Yorker, NPR, Recode, Slate, Smithsonian, The Verge, a few topics, and a few other blogs.

Mostly am using the individual channels. Doesn't make sense to use "For You" with just the latest news, you really need to go into all the sections and indicate what you like to make it work correctly in the long run because I presume it's based on the tag shown on the right of the article.

 

[mpfuchs]

What really bugs me so far is that multiple news outlets obviously post stories about the same 'news'.
So if I already have XXX news from CNN I don't need the same XXX headline from NYTimes, and other outlets right below it. Not sure how that would be controlled though.

This is especially annoying when 3 out of the 5 Siri suggestions on the search screen show the same topic.

 

[SamGabbay]

Donald Trump 2016 baby... This News App was just in time too

 

[gsmornot]

What really bugs me so far is that multiple news outlets obviously post stories about the same 'news'.
So if I already have XXX news from CNN I don't need the same XXX headline from NYTimes, and other outlets right below it. Not sure how that would be controlled though.

This is especially annoying when 3 out of the 5 Siri suggestions on the search screen show the same topic.

Not sure either but I have seen the same issue in several other news apps I have used over time. Flipboard does the same thing and it really comes down to so many outlets grabbing a story and re-posting to draw traffic to their site.

 

[The Doctor11]

I am absolutely loving the news app. For you has actually allowed me to discover a lot of news I'm interested in yet would have never found other wise.

I do have one very big problem though. I am seeing news from Vox and Reuters (both sites I had never heard of before news) and they show as giant ass ad like articles. Even worse I absolutely don't care for the news they present at ALL and I'm not subscribed to either. I can not dislike these articles and I just want them to go away. Honestly I rather see ads the size of these articles rather than these articles.

 

[HowEver]

Still waiting for the News app to appear... in Canada.

 

[bushido]

i am overwhelmed by the amount of news so i end up not reading anything at all lol

 

[Michael CM1]

I'm on the other end and really wish I knew how it all worked. I got a channel set up after being told the problem was I submitted a logo white a white background instead of a transparent one. I knew I did that, but I forgot that Apple is super serious about how things look. So I fixed that and the channel has been uploaded.

But now I don't know how to do certain things such as make photos appear. I'm guessing News pulls photos from somewhere in the code, but I don't know where. This Newsflow app I have on my Mac has photos from the stories that use them. But on News it's all text. I'm guessing the cover image like the New York Times and Sports Illustrated have is for those people who got early access to the News formatting.

I can even see the benefits of just putting the RSS feeds into this. One column was about Donald Trump, and so there was a link to the Donald Trump topic. Reverse the flow and other people looking for that topic will end up finding our stuff. I just hope in the future there's a way to control those tags. So like on National Signing Day each story dealing with a signing could use that topic, basically the same as a hashtag.

On what to read, I'm guessing the best way right now is by using Favorites. As I mentioned the tags in each story aren't exactly very customizable yet, so I don't think browsing by topic will be the most convenient. But I am kind of worried that traditional news organizations will get drowned out by people who just post a lot of stuff related to hot topics. So basically it will point you toward just quantities of stories and not quality stories. I mean do you want a Washington Post article on the presidential race or the 15 stories Huffington Post will post on Donald Trump every day?

If you ask me, News needs to learn from Beats and get news professionals in there who can curate reading lists. Obviously make it a different section, but make it like the Apple Music playlists with pros selecting some top stories on various topics instead of just keywords bringing them to you. (Dear Apple: You can mail a royalty check to me on that one!)

 

[haudvereor]

i am overwhelmed by the amount of news so i end up not reading anything at all lol

Ditto!