44 MACWORLD APRIL 2020
iOSCENTRAL WHY APPLE NEWS+ HAS STUMBLEDApple Arcade is an unqualified success, at least judging from the
number of people chatting about it on social media.
interested in talking about it at all—not
even in the form of random Apple-bashing
in the Android subreddit. When we do
hear about Apple News+, it’s usually in the
form of tepid statements like that from
Condé Nast CEO Roger Lynch last week
(via Variety; go.macworld.com/jury), when
he said the “jury is still out” on the service.
CNBC (go.macworld.com/cnbc) also
dropped a report last week saying that
Apple has struggled to gain more than
200,000 subscribers in the months since
launch. For many, I imagine the main
impact 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 (go.
macworld.com/enth) about a new button in
May. The best we’ve gotten recently is a
rumor from Bloomberg (go.macworld.com/
bmbg) 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.