I subscribed to Apple One not least because of Apple News.
And my God, is the app for that a stinker. It's a very modern Apple app, in that it's borderline user-hostile and scratching Apple's itch, rather than the user's.
That is so incredibly useless and intensely annoying. Why show me this?
You can make News hide these, via one of its few config options. Just tap "Restrict Stories in Today". But doing so means you lose features – you can no longer see Top Stories, Trending Stories, and Featured Stories.
Why is Apple being so user-hostile here? Restricting headline categories like that is just an arbitrary decision. It has nothing to do with the fact I don't want to see certain news sources.
There's no global setting to do this.
I have to adjust this setting individually for every single news source. This is infuriating. Open a news story. Squint. Tap to enlarge text. Repeat, ad nauseam.
Why isn't there just a central setting, like Books, to adjust the font scaling?
Can I change the fonts being used, say to a sans serif font that's easier to read for people with poor eyesight? No. Not even for individual sources, never mind as a global config option.
I don't care for sports, for example. Some news web sites let you simply hide the sports section. Can Apple News do this? Nope. You're getting sports whether you like it or not. Here's the range of configuration options for the Mac version of the app. Just four of them. OK I know Apple sweats the small stuff. They aren't Microsoft or Linux, firing 1000 config options at you. But this is absurd.
At the top is the aforementioned option to hide news sources I've deactivated – that also kills much of the News app functionality. I'm pretty sure they made this so obtuse for licensing reasons. The corporations they're signed-up with just didn't like users having the power to hide their content, so Apple created a messy compromise that still showed hidden content.
Below that is what feels like a legal requirement from Apple. Scratching their itch...
Third is sports!
Fourth is a bizarro game centre option. What?! Again, Apple scratching their itch to encourage more use of their ecosystem. That was considered so important that it was developed over, say, a basic config option to increase font sizes globally. Who does Apple care about here?
There's no way to search the history, perhaps because the list flows in from the cloud as you scroll (so isn't all in memory when you first look at it). You can tap and hold on each entry, though, to get useful options like saving it, or sharing it.
Sometimes I tell my wife about an article having read it the previous day, and she asks me to share it with her. But there's no history within News. I can't find it without manually searching. True, if you go in to the app after a break it will highlight the most recent news story you were reading. But you can't get it to show you all the stories you viewed, say, yesterday.
This is super simple. I mean, a teenager designing a news app as part of their computer science school qualification would have that on their feature list.
For example, let's look at the last article in that screenshot. It's about saving lives from synthetic opioids. OK, I might be interested. Is that about government/political action? Is it about care teams on the ground assisting people? Is it a science article about how somebody's created a new compound that helps? I've no frickin' idea.
Again, I feel as if Apple deliberately leaves out descriptions to encourage consumption. I have to tap through to find out. I engage with the content in any event. Win for Apple! But please, why am I being manipulated like this? I'm the one paying for this service. I'm not the product being sold here. Or am I?
When you open News, you see the "Today" list of stories. That's stories from... well, today, right? Nope. Stories in that list can be days or even weeks old. OK, so it might still be be good content. But stories can move fast, and frankly anything over a few days old may well have developed beyond that original write-up.
The Apple News app is 10 years old. And it was actually an app that Apple bought in from outside, it's actually even older.
Apple News+ is six years old.
These are not baby apps and services. They should be much better at this point. Imagine if Microsoft had launched Word and taken the same approach. 10 years after launch and it's still a basic text editor.
But this is another sin of modern Apple, as well as launching basic stripped down apps like this.
They launch... and abandon.
Apple's developers are like school kids playing soccer. Soccer should be a strategic game where players keep their position on the pitch, and only deal with the ball when it comes their way. But on the school playing ground, it's basically 10 kids chasing a ball. They all want their heroic moment. They all think they're better than the other players. They all don't want to do the boring work, like maybe position themselves for a pass so they can actually score a goal.
And I think Apple's development culture is like this. Nobody wants the dull thankless work of improving existing apps. They want the hero work of doing the cool new stuff. They're chasing the ball. This is probably how Apple attracts the upcoming talent leaving college.
I'm just disheartened that Apple is so... well, crap at certain things. It could be so much better. All of the above is super simple. It would take a single developer maybe a week or two to implement, never mind a team. But Apple just has zero interest.
And my God, is the app for that a stinker. It's a very modern Apple app, in that it's borderline user-hostile and scratching Apple's itch, rather than the user's.
Hidden sources
So, you can hide news sources you don't want. I don't care for tabloids here in the UK, like the Sun and Daily Mail, so I hide them. But... Their stories still appear in the news feed! Just greyed out.That is so incredibly useless and intensely annoying. Why show me this?
You can make News hide these, via one of its few config options. Just tap "Restrict Stories in Today". But doing so means you lose features – you can no longer see Top Stories, Trending Stories, and Featured Stories.
Why is Apple being so user-hostile here? Restricting headline categories like that is just an arbitrary decision. It has nothing to do with the fact I don't want to see certain news sources.
Accessibility isn't
I use News on my phone and iPad mini while in bed at night. At that point I've taken out my contact lenses and no longer wear glasses. I have to enlarge the text.There's no global setting to do this.
I have to adjust this setting individually for every single news source. This is infuriating. Open a news story. Squint. Tap to enlarge text. Repeat, ad nauseam.
Why isn't there just a central setting, like Books, to adjust the font scaling?
Can I change the fonts being used, say to a sans serif font that's easier to read for people with poor eyesight? No. Not even for individual sources, never mind as a global config option.
Configuration? Nope.
There are almost no configuration options.I don't care for sports, for example. Some news web sites let you simply hide the sports section. Can Apple News do this? Nope. You're getting sports whether you like it or not. Here's the range of configuration options for the Mac version of the app. Just four of them. OK I know Apple sweats the small stuff. They aren't Microsoft or Linux, firing 1000 config options at you. But this is absurd.
At the top is the aforementioned option to hide news sources I've deactivated – that also kills much of the News app functionality. I'm pretty sure they made this so obtuse for licensing reasons. The corporations they're signed-up with just didn't like users having the power to hide their content, so Apple created a messy compromise that still showed hidden content.
Below that is what feels like a legal requirement from Apple. Scratching their itch...
Third is sports!
Fourth is a bizarro game centre option. What?! Again, Apple scratching their itch to encourage more use of their ecosystem. That was considered so important that it was developed over, say, a basic config option to increase font sizes globally. Who does Apple care about here?
No history
EDIT: There is, in fact, a history list of articles you've viewed. It's just hidden away. You have to tap the Following option. Yes, that's right.There's no way to search the history, perhaps because the list flows in from the cloud as you scroll (so isn't all in memory when you first look at it). You can tap and hold on each entry, though, to get useful options like saving it, or sharing it.
This is super simple. I mean, a teenager designing a news app as part of their computer science school qualification would have that on their feature list.
Useless tables of content
If you open one of your subscribed magazines and look at the index/table of contents, it's just headlines. No descriptions. Sometimes you get author names beneath.For example, let's look at the last article in that screenshot. It's about saving lives from synthetic opioids. OK, I might be interested. Is that about government/political action? Is it about care teams on the ground assisting people? Is it a science article about how somebody's created a new compound that helps? I've no frickin' idea.
Again, I feel as if Apple deliberately leaves out descriptions to encourage consumption. I have to tap through to find out. I engage with the content in any event. Win for Apple! But please, why am I being manipulated like this? I'm the one paying for this service. I'm not the product being sold here. Or am I?
"Today" = days or even weeks old
I've put this one at the end because it's not as bad as it used to be. But it's still an issue.When you open News, you see the "Today" list of stories. That's stories from... well, today, right? Nope. Stories in that list can be days or even weeks old. OK, so it might still be be good content. But stories can move fast, and frankly anything over a few days old may well have developed beyond that original write-up.
EDIT:
See below for some comments below about the appalling ads we get served, which are basically the same as spam: "Women in your area are looking for men like you etc." Often with horrible AI slop images and copy. Is this really the best Apple can manage?/EDIT ENDS
"It'll get better"
I know what you're going to say. Apple News is a relatively new app. It'll get better over time.The Apple News app is 10 years old. And it was actually an app that Apple bought in from outside, it's actually even older.
Apple News+ is six years old.
These are not baby apps and services. They should be much better at this point. Imagine if Microsoft had launched Word and taken the same approach. 10 years after launch and it's still a basic text editor.
But this is another sin of modern Apple, as well as launching basic stripped down apps like this.
They launch... and abandon.
Apple's developers are like school kids playing soccer. Soccer should be a strategic game where players keep their position on the pitch, and only deal with the ball when it comes their way. But on the school playing ground, it's basically 10 kids chasing a ball. They all want their heroic moment. They all think they're better than the other players. They all don't want to do the boring work, like maybe position themselves for a pass so they can actually score a goal.
And I think Apple's development culture is like this. Nobody wants the dull thankless work of improving existing apps. They want the hero work of doing the cool new stuff. They're chasing the ball. This is probably how Apple attracts the upcoming talent leaving college.
I'm just disheartened that Apple is so... well, crap at certain things. It could be so much better. All of the above is super simple. It would take a single developer maybe a week or two to implement, never mind a team. But Apple just has zero interest.
Last edited:
