It's free for a reason. It's profiling you so it can generate more adverts that you're likely to click on. Scary just how relevant and fresh your news feed is huh! That's no coincidence.
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Apple News+ Just a really poor app – what is wrong with Apple's devs nowadays?
- Thread starter woolypants
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I agree with News App complaints. I've never opted in to anything, never set anything up, but get pop ups once or twice a day for articles that are behind paywalls. It seems like such a featured part of the OS, but is clearly just annoying and cumbersome for most users. I turned off notifications, but you would think it wouldn't be so painful to walk the free and unintrusive route.
I miss the days when opting out of payment for digital media was simple. It will be fun to tell my grandkids about the old times.
I miss the days when opting out of payment for digital media was simple. It will be fun to tell my grandkids about the old times.
The 'TC Approach' is to throw a bunch of ideas out there and see what sticks.
Granted, Apple have always made at least some poor software, but I feel like the ratio has increased dramatically over recent years as they've tried to dip their finger into too many pies.
Granted, Apple have always made at least some poor software, but I feel like the ratio has increased dramatically over recent years as they've tried to dip their finger into too many pies.
At this point I’m not going to be surprised if Apple ventures into agriculture sector and provide AI solutions to corporations who are interested in that in the future.
Family member already has a combine and closed-cab tractor with factory CarPlay.
Please elaborate on that. Because just like Microsoft and Google, they have more than enough cash in the bank to do basically whatever they want.
Apple makes their own hardware, their own operating system and their own applications. If anything, they're one of the few companies in the world to control the full stack, along with game consoles, Google with their Pixel phones and a handful of small companies making open hardware that runs a distro of Linux.
So what's happening here? Why can't Apple have good software like they did a decade or two ago? What changed, internally at Apple? Did they get rid of a centralized QA team, whose job was to also make sure that, for example, the weather app on the iPhone displayed the information in the same format as the Apple watch? Because unless the latest updates fixed it, it's not. My Apple watch displays the temperature at the top and the time at the bottom while my iPhone does exactly the inverse.
What's needed is someone at the top who has a clear view of what the future hardware and software should be for the users. Someone who cares about the users, not the shareholders. Someone who actively uses a Mac, not an iPad. Someone who cares more about the company's future than what the spreadsheet numbers need to be six months from now.
Tim still seems to be the master of the supply chain. He's clearly good with numbers and profit margins, but he's no leader and certainly no visionary. What's the point of Apple having billions in the bank if they cannot even maintain their own standards from one of two decades ago?
I think most Apple users care about such small details. But when the company no longer care about their loyal users, all they're left with is users who wouldn't blink twice about switching to another ecosystem. After all, if Apple becomes as bad as Microsoft then what's the point of overpaying for Apple's hardware and locking ourselves in their ecosystem?
We don't want Apple to fail, we want Apple to do better.
Same here. I've had an Apple one premier (haha) subscription for years and was so looking forward to crisp, clean news.
Boy, was I wrong. Apple news is junk. I open it about once a year to see if anything has changed and it is always such a load of frustrating, time-wasting junk. I only keep the subscription for 2TB iCloud (good), Fitness (good), Apple TV (good, but sparse) and Apple music (lousy UX, but tolerable otherwise)
Just bought "News Explorer" too. Thanks @Apple_Robert for the recommendation. Looks really good. A steal at $5.
My recommendation is to stop reading news entirely.
Unless your job is related to the news, there is nothing you need to know. You can't change anything and 90%+ is just clickbait without nuance anyway. And if there is something really important, somebody will text you about it. Let your friends aggregate for you and then go about your day without yelling at the clouds in the sky.
Unless your job is related to the news, there is nothing you need to know. You can't change anything and 90%+ is just clickbait without nuance anyway. And if there is something really important, somebody will text you about it. Let your friends aggregate for you and then go about your day without yelling at the clouds in the sky.
It's money. That's the motivation behind Apple bending its own App Store rules and why some developers try to get away with things—and they do.
Tim and all of his executive buddies would just milk apple for as long as they can before packing up and moving out, leaving the company dry and die. After all, even if Tim is sacked now, he already earned way more enough for him and his family, several generations over.
Unfortunately only shareholders have a say on that. And if their collective will is demanding Apple to fail (regardless of their true intention is), Apple will fail regardless of customer support.
Images are the biggest pain point for me. In many Apple News+ articles you can’t pinch-to-zoom an inline image, and on far too many of them you also can’t tap to open a larger, standalone view. That means anything with detail—maps, charts, infographics, screenshots —becomes a squinting exercise on a phone. Even rotating to landscape rarely helps; the image just sits there, small and fixed, with no way to inspect the finer points.
This isn’t just an annoyance, it undercuts the journalism. If an image carries key information, readers need basic tools to examine it.
Great point. Apple puts the layout decisions of the publisher ahead of the user.
The reason is probably copyright related. I think the whole reason why the News app is so poor is related to rights, in fact. I suspect Apple probably presented the app to these corporate content providers, got it signed off, and now can't change it without asking them again. And that's expensive and difficult. For whatever reason, Apple failed to build in vital features before they showed it to the content providers, like proper accessibility, or the ability to view images full-screen. It's just a hot mess.
Click-bait headlines which don't even match the headlines that the source uses
2-week old news articles that age worse than 2-week old fish
Spam ads in the middle of articles for obviously scam products
More than half the price of NYT for less than 5% of the news
But someone must be paying for it, or they'd just shut it down
2-week old news articles that age worse than 2-week old fish
Spam ads in the middle of articles for obviously scam products
More than half the price of NYT for less than 5% of the news
But someone must be paying for it, or they'd just shut it down
Nah, it's like the old cable TV bundles: Apple News only exists as a "make-weight" for an Apple One subscription.
Nobody would pay for it on its own.
Absolutely. Aperture was a game changer, and you never had to worry about photos being mismanaged or lost the way you do with Lightroom. I would still pay/subscribe to an Aperture-like service from Apple; it was just so much easier to use than the alternatives.
I love the content on Apple News + and subscribe for this reason. However, not having an ability to sort or categorise Saved Stores (folders, tags, anything...) is a real problem for me. I've left feedback to Apple about it a few times.
Try swiping from the very edge of the screen. The swipe gesture in the middle of the screen switches between articles, while swiping from the left edge traverses the navigation stack.
100% echo all your points, including this one about the Ads...ads in Apple News are the most annoying, intrusive and irritating ads I think I've seen ever, in any app or web app....so much AI slop, and HUGE animated images of people's feet for some reason, advertising a 'naked shoe' over and and over and over again....when I pay for a paid news service, I expect either no ads or very few ads, but Apple News serves the worst ads and there's zero difference between free vs paid when it comes to this. Surely a paid subscription should mean that 50% of your screen isn't taken up by pictures of some guy's feet....
This is actually very accurate. Their backends are even worse. Unreliable, opaque, no logs, no history, zero visibility. A support system that is the great wall of China - only it extends from ground to the high above - they are the last word, no escalation path, no recourse unless you want to legal and if your country does'n't have some sort of class action thingie or a robust consumer resolution system (which mine doesn't), good luck getting even response or going anywhere.
The only reasons Apple survives are: its fan base (it has a small customer base; and giant fan base), and the fact that Google tracking everything you do - and you can test it, verify it and the Android OS is open source (almost entirely). The sad part is so does Apple, it just that you can't do much to verify that.
Apple sells good hardware (with almost ZERO repairability), pathetic software and even more pathetic cloud services in the name of privacy theatre.
I've never used Dark Sky, I jumped on the Apple bandwagon quite recently, but I have now learnt that it was integrated into the Weather app. I have to say, the Weather app in Mac OS is probably the best I have ever used, at least among the ones that ship preinstalled (I should say I have never looked for alternatives).
Was going to say... I don't know if I support the statement that ALL Apple apps are horrible. The news App is a terrible app. But I don't for a second think Safari, Apple Notes, iMessages, Music, Photos, <list goes on, I won't bore you> are horrible apps.
As someone using Apple since 2011 for my personal computing (lifelong Windows user (still use it to work everyday)) - I like Mac OS's ability to stay out of the way so I can do what I want to do without needing to update, customize, fix, tweak, whatever. Apple is not perfect perfect but I like what the ecosystem does for me and don't see leaving it anytime soon.
Apple News ... however ... is an abomination and pushes me closer to that edge where I start looking elsewhere.
As someone using Apple since 2011 for my personal computing (lifelong Windows user (still use it to work everyday)) - I like Mac OS's ability to stay out of the way so I can do what I want to do without needing to update, customize, fix, tweak, whatever. Apple is not perfect perfect but I like what the ecosystem does for me and don't see leaving it anytime soon.
Apple News ... however ... is an abomination and pushes me closer to that edge where I start looking elsewhere.
I agree with all the comments here, but what I find the most frustrating about Apple News is that it literally refuses to show stories from the sources I follow in my For You section.
The sources I follow, including my Favorites, are less than 1% of the stories in my “For You”. The only time I see news from my sources is when I navigate directly to their channel.
“For You” should be called “For Apple”. As the OP commented, Apple is determined to scratch their own itch by forcing THEIR favorite sources down my throat no matter how many times I click the dislike button, and no matter how many times I click the like button on stories from my sources.
It seems hostile to ignore the user’s preferred sources when creating their For You page. The only alternative is Restrict Stories in Today, which eliminates ALL suggestions and curation.
Another annoying thing is how close the like/dislike buttons are to the back button. I’m constantly hitting them by mistake when trying to navigate back to my feed.
I had deleted Apple News a few years ago and hadn’t used it again until now because I got it with Apple One Premium. I’ve already cancelled my subspription after seeing how bad it remains. New features like Puzzles, Sports and Recipes don’t interest me, yet they’re also hardcoded into the menu bar and forced on the user, so Apple can rub our noses in their “premium” Apple News+ features.
The sources I follow, including my Favorites, are less than 1% of the stories in my “For You”. The only time I see news from my sources is when I navigate directly to their channel.
“For You” should be called “For Apple”. As the OP commented, Apple is determined to scratch their own itch by forcing THEIR favorite sources down my throat no matter how many times I click the dislike button, and no matter how many times I click the like button on stories from my sources.
It seems hostile to ignore the user’s preferred sources when creating their For You page. The only alternative is Restrict Stories in Today, which eliminates ALL suggestions and curation.
Another annoying thing is how close the like/dislike buttons are to the back button. I’m constantly hitting them by mistake when trying to navigate back to my feed.
I had deleted Apple News a few years ago and hadn’t used it again until now because I got it with Apple One Premium. I’ve already cancelled my subspription after seeing how bad it remains. New features like Puzzles, Sports and Recipes don’t interest me, yet they’re also hardcoded into the menu bar and forced on the user, so Apple can rub our noses in their “premium” Apple News+ features.