April 2020 • Macworld 77impact of these reports was to remind them Apple
News+ exists at all.
It’s hard to determine Apple News+’s success
because Apple doesn’t discuss the specifics about
it in its earnings calls, and it’s easy to get the
feeling that Apple wishes it would just go away.
You don’t see ads for it. You don’t see patch notes
detailing improvements, aside from a weirdly
enthusiastic press release about a new button in
May. The best we’ve gotten recently is a rumour
from Bloomberg claiming that Apple is thinking
about bundling it with services like Apple TV+ and
Apple Arcade in 2020 – and while I’ve long been a
fan of the idea of an Apple services bundle, this isn’t
a good look. It suggests Apple thinks the only way
more people will pay for Apple News+ is if it tacks it
on to something more popular.
What went wrong?
Most of Apple’s seeming trouble with Apple News+
may spring from the fact that it’s the only one of
Apple’s large paid services that’s mainly out of its
direct control. And as the company best associated
with the term ‘walled garden’, Apple clearly loves
being in control. It thrives on it. I’ll even go so far
as to say that with the right conditions and proper
products, this control is a good thing.
But journalism is messy, as I can easily attest
as a journalist. With Apple News+, Apple finds
itself struggling with multiple publications in
various stages of the shift from print to digital
media. It’s struggling to find the best ways to pay