Apple just announced Apple News Plus, a news subscription service for $9.99 a month
Apple announced a new subscription news service, Apple News Plus, on Monday during an event at the Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino, California. Starting Monday, the company said, Apple News Plus will curate articles from more than 300 news outlets and magazines via the Apple News app for $9.99 a month.
Apple says magazines and articles included with the Apple News Plus subscription will appear in a new tab on the Apple News app in a redesign released later Monday as part of an iOS software update.
Apple News Plus will feature content from several major news outlets including The Wall Street Journal, Vox, and the Los Angeles Times as well as the more than 300 magazines that were included with Texture, the digital magazine app Apple purchased last year. Notably absent among national news brands are The New York Times and The Washington Post.
Though Apple's app offers a significant discount for publications like The [Wall Street] Journal, which charges $19.50 a month for an all-access digital subscription, it appears that Apple subscribers will not have full access to all the partners' content. Reports Monday cited an internal memo as saying only some Journal articles, for example, would be offered via Apple News Plus, with The Journal's business reporting remaining exclusive to direct subscribers.
Apple Arcade Announced: New Game Subscription Service Coming To iOS, Mac, Apple TV This Year
Apple is expanding its presence in the games industry with its own game subscription service. Named Apple Arcade, the service is designed to provide access to titles for mobile, desktop, and the living room. Unlike Google's Stadia, however, it won't stream the games from the cloud.
[...] Essentially, Apple's service takes the form of a monthly subscription that provides unlimited access to a curated selection of paid titles on the App Store; it sounds sort of like Xbox Game Pass. [...] Apple Arcade covers more than just iOS games, although these will work on devices like iPhones and iPads. Beyond that, you'll be able to play on MacOS and Apple TV, meaning these games span mobile, laptops, and TV. And these versions won't operate independently of each other; your progress transfers between the different platforms.
Also at Reuters.
Previously: Apple in Talks to Create "Netflix for News" Subscription Service
New York Times CEO Warns About Apple News Service
Related: Google and Microsoft Eyeing Streaming Game Services
Google Announces "Stadia" Streaming Game Service
Related Stories
Apple CEO Tim Cook alluded to more services coming this year, and this week we're learning more about what the company has in store for news. According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, Apple has been in talks with publishers about a subscription news service that would be a new paid tier of its existing Apple News app. However, the company has been butting heads with publishers over monetary details—Apple reportedly wants to keep 50 percent of subscription revenue from the service.
[...] In addition, Apple wouldn't share customer data with publishers. Information including credit card numbers and email addresses would not be provided to publishers if they agreed to Apple's terms as they currently stand. That information can be crucial for publishers to grow their subscriber base, market new products to readers, and more.
Will news publishers take half of the subscription revenue and forego money from customer profiling and tracking?
The Goog posted a teaser video clip about its vision for the future of gaming to be revealed on Tuesday at an annual Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.
The clip cycles through an accelerating collage of scenes one might find in video games, but says nothing about what Google will announce at the event, which will be live-streamed on YouTube.
In a potentially related bit of prospecting someone uncovered a recent patent
that Google filed for a video game controller [which] hinted that the tech firm might be planning to release its own console and controller to go along with a streaming service.
Microsoft appears to share this vision,
Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella said late last year that a keenly anticipated "xCloud" streaming service was in "early days."
Amazon also has a related pre-existing entry into this same space with it's popular Twitch game play-streaming service, and I can't imagine they are sitting still.
The US video game industry generated a record $43.4 billion in revenue in 2018, up 18 percent from the prior year, according to data released by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) and NPD Group.
I suppose that's just too attractive a pie to leave in the hands of customer-centric game developers like Activision, Sony, and EA.
Are you ready for the 800lb streaming gorillas?
Google jumps into gaming with Google Stadia streaming service, coming "in 2019"
At the Game Developers Conference, Google announced its biggest play yet in the gaming space: a streaming game service named Google Stadia, designed to run on everything from PCs and Android phones to Google's own Chromecast devices.
As of press time, the service's release window is simply "2019." No pricing information was announced at the event.
Google Stadia will run a selection of existing PC games on Google's centralized servers, taking in controller inputs and sending back video and audio using Google's network of low-latency data centers. The company revealed a new Google-produced controller, along with a game-streaming interface that revolves around a "play now" button. Press this on any Web browser and gameplay will begin "in as quick as five seconds... with no download, no patch, no update, and no install."
"With Stadia, this waiting game will be a thing of the past," Google's Phil Harrison said. He then demonstrated Stadia gameplay on a Pixel 3 XL, followed by "the least-powerful PC we could find." The following gameplay was advertised as "1080p, 60 frames per second." Harrison confirmed that existing "USB controllers and mouse-and-keyboard" will function with Stadia games as well.
See also: The 9 biggest questions about Google's Stadia game streaming service
Previously: Google and Microsoft Eyeing Streaming Game Services
New York Times CEO warns publishers ahead of Apple news launch
Apple Inc is expected to launch an ambitious new entertainment and paid digital news service on Monday, as the iPhone maker pushes back against streaming video leader Netflix Inc. But it likely will not feature the New York Times Co.
Mark Thompson, chief executive of the biggest U.S. newspaper by subscribers, warned that relying on third-party distribution can be dangerous for publishers who risk losing control over their own product.
"We tend to be quite leery about the idea of almost habituating people to find our journalism somewhere else," he told Reuters in an interview on Thursday. "We're also generically worried about our journalism being scrambled in a kind of Magimix (blender) with everyone else's journalism."
Thompson, who took over as New York Times CEO in 2012 and has overseen a massive expansion in its online readership, warned publishers that they may suffer the same fate as television and film makers in the face of Netflix's Hollywood insurgence.
See also: Apple secures deal with WSJ for paid Apple News service, NYT and Washington Post opt out
Apple reaches deal with Vox for upcoming Apple News subscription service, report says
Apple is on a hardware-launching bonanza ahead of its big TV announcement
Apple teams with media literacy programs in the US and Europe
Previously: Apple in Talks to Create "Netflix for News" Subscription Service
The Financial Times says the company is spending 'several million dollars each' on more than 100 games, putting Apple Arcade's budget in excess of $500 million dollars. At its March event, Apple announced that Arcade would launch in the fall but did not announce pricing.
The report also says that Apple is offering an 'extra incentive' to a developer if their game remains exclusive to Apple Arcade.
Our sources indicate that all Apple Arcade games will not be offered on Google Play Store. The deal is essentially 'mobile exclusive', so developers will be allowed to launch on games consoles like PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo Switch — just no Android. Arcade games will not be sold in the App Store as normal downloads.
The customer pitch for Apple Arcade is an alternative offering to the countless freemium games that dominate the App Store charts. For one monthly fee, users can play any game in the Arcade catalog. An Apple Arcade game will have no additional purchases or upsell, no limited levels, and no ads. Arcade games will also not be able to share any data with publishers unless the customer provides explicit consent.
Also at Engadget.
Previously: Apple News+ and Apple Arcade Announced
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 27 2019, @02:15AM (4 children)
Please, don't do like the green site and post an article for every Apple brochure that came out the other day.
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Wednesday March 27 2019, @02:31AM (1 child)
Why not? This is newsworthy, as are most product announcements from major tech companies.
It will be interesting to see just what happens to Apple News as a result of this announcement. The current iteration is an aggregation service based on your reading history and stated preferences. It does a pretty good job of serving up articles that I find interesting, though it's easy to see how it can create an echo chamber for its users. I do occasionally break out and visit a MSM news front page to see if there's anything out there I'm missing (there usually isn't). Anyway, my point is that Apple News Plus would need to offer something significantly different than Apple News to convince me to pay $10 per month for something I (mostly?) get for free today. Whether that is by providing something new and amazing in Plus, or just crippling the regular Apple News, remains to be seen.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 27 2019, @06:36AM
I am fascinated that you find that interesting. A news aggregator is newsworthy? The Mac Pro might be newswothry. These silly trinkets not so much.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday March 27 2019, @02:34AM (1 child)
I felt that splitting the News+ one (Arcade is along for the ride) and the Credit Card one would be better.
With the Credit Card one, you get to talk about how Apple is unveiling its shiniest dumb status symbol ever and getting deeper into banking. With the News+ one, we see the launch of Apple's attempt to control online news revenue and distribution.
Putting them back to back? Well, we know who to blame.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 27 2019, @06:43AM
Let's hold off until we get some Mac Pro news. This stuff is just so much.. one click emo shit. OY! I wish Joan Rivers was alive to host the Apple Shopping Channel... She was assassinated you know, and they got away with it.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday March 27 2019, @02:24AM (2 children)
Curating news from 300 sources might sound impressive - until you consider that People Magazine might be called a source of news. Articles on the Kardashians and thousands of other "celebrities" doesn't qualify as "news".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 27 2019, @02:38AM
Neither do Apple press releases, but here we are, responding. OY! What's up with the damn Mac Pro??! Are we still going to be stuck with AMD video cards? Yuck!
(Score: 3, Informative) by VLM on Wednesday March 27 2019, @02:25PM
I think we can safely assume its going to be sources such as "Nation" "Mother Jones" "Democracy Now!" "Chapo Trap House" "ADL" "Huff Po" "MSNBC" "Paid wikipedia editors" "SPLC" etc. Not so much people magazine.
(Score: 3, Informative) by looorg on Wednesday March 27 2019, @02:25AM (3 children)
Was it to much to ask for them to just call it the Apple News+ Echochamber? They are "curating" the news for you so you don't ever have to read any of that boring stuff, or something that you don't like. It's the all happy news around the clock echochamber for dimwits, and you only have to pay them another $10 a month for it.
So how much are the content creators getting again? For actually writing the articles? Is it a fraction of a cent per read or something? Desperate times ...
(Score: 4, Interesting) by hemocyanin on Wednesday March 27 2019, @05:23AM (2 children)
What seems nuts to me is that people can go to google new or bing news or $any news and get the same result for free. In fact, most major news sites just echo each other so you can get the same result by going to LA Times or NY Times, and if you want to cut out even more middlemen, just hit reuters or UPI or whatever. It's all the same mass market stuff.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Farkus888 on Wednesday March 27 2019, @06:58AM (1 child)
Not quite. No news aggregation service currently guarantees favorable coverage for the next bendgate or "your holding it wrong" scenario. Plus imagine the value for Apple when the new tech news in your news aggregation service doesn't ever mention Google and Android.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by VLM on Wednesday March 27 2019, @02:06PM
If you thought the snowflakes melted down after the 2016 prez election, wait until the snowflakes are paying $10/per to get hyper censored echo chamber news and then reality slaps them in the face after the election, its gonna be epic. "I stuck my head in the sand and I don't understand how I can't see whats going on in the real world!"
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday March 27 2019, @02:13PM
I have a slightly different take on the propaganda echo chamber of curated news; as an older gen-x kid I was familiar with "weekly reader" in grade school, pretty fluffy stuff, but someone was paying to shovel that at us kids.
My guess is Apple isn't collecting rental income off my kids and their school issued iPads right now, and there will be some kind of push to defund school libraries, much like they defunded high school shop classes, to pay for propaganda subscriptions for all the K12 kids.
Its not too ridiculous to see a $30K/yr high school librarian aide defunded from full time to half time to release 15K of funds, that would pay for 1.5K students to get a year of "highly curated" propaganda on their iPads.
My guess is this whole thing is a variation on the high cost academic journal scam, aimed at K12 students.
Something strange to think about is if you remove all the infrastructure from a high school like shop classes and libraries, you end up with a parody of an open office or maybe a low-sec prison (is there a difference? Other than the prisoners have a higher standard of living?)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 27 2019, @02:13PM
"this deal is getting worse all the time."
(Score: 2) by nobu_the_bard on Monday April 15 2019, @01:01PM
But what games will be on the Arcade? If it's Bejeweled 5 and NFL 2019 or something, hard pass.
Well, not that I really care, except as a reason to pick a fight with someone. I have no fondness for Apple's expensive hardware and it'd take a truly incredible life-changing game to get me to buy their stuff for just gaming.
Personally I think streaming services should be platform agnostic. They'd have a better chance getting someone like me if it could run on any platform.