Apple News+ looked cool enough. I updated iOS as soon as I could and signed up for the month long free trial. From Apple’s description, I expected to find a large number of curated articles, easy subscriptions, and beautiful layouts.
I was wrong in nearly every way. Apple News+ is certainly not what Apple claimed.
I didn’t even use Apple News+ for the entire month before I gave up on it. I just couldn’t force myself to use it. I’m a news fiend. I read hundreds of articles each week. I still couldn’t bring myself to stick with Apple News+. Here’s why.
In This Article:
The Good
Apple News+ isn’t all bad. It does show some promise. There’s the potential for a useful news service hidden under all the garbage that is the rest of the app. So, before we get into the worst of the app, let’s take a look at the good parts.
I swear, there were a few parts.
Cross Platform
Apple News+ is available on iOS and macOS, and your favorited publications will sync between devices. You likely won’t want to do most of your reading on macOS, but it’s nice to have it as an option. The syncing comes into play when switching between iOS and macOS though. Here, you can start reading your magazines on one device and finish on the other.
Large Selection
There are hundreds of different publications available on Apple News+. I found a number of magazines that I used to enjoy when I was younger, from Apple and Mac focused magazines to my favorite astronomy magazines. Then I found other interests, from tech, to video games, guitar, music, photography, and more. I couldn’t find everything I wanted, but there was a lot here.
The Bad
I saw this icon instead of my magazines frequently.
This is going to be the longer section, I’m afraid. There was just so much wrong with Apple News+ that even a avid news reader such as myself was immediately thrown off. Now, I’ll admit, I haven’t been reading magazines. I used to read magazines a lot, but haven’t since I was able to read news online. The fact that there’s so much information online, mostly for free, is too tantalizing. Plus, I can read up on any topic I want, even those that wouldn’t sell as many magazines, and could never work in print format.
Now, I believe in supporting journalism. I wish there was an easy way to donate money to your favorite news websites as you browse them, as well as singular subscription services that combine a number of premium newspapers and websites. But that isn’t what Apple News+ is. Apple News+ is a news stand with a bunch of magazines, but it never feels like you get to walk away with any of them.
No Bookmarks
Magazine articles aren’t short. Some may take only a few minutes to read, but others may take half an hour to get through. If you only have a few minutes to read on your commute, or during a break at work, then you’re going to need a way to bookmark what you’re reading. Anyone who has read a news article knows this. Hell, anyone who has read anything longer than 2,000 words knows this. Apparently, no one at Apple reads. You can’t set bookmarks. You can’t mark a publication as “currently reading.” If you can’t read that 30,000 article on your commute, too bad, you’ll have to figure out what you were reading later.
Difficult to “Subscribe”
It might sound silly to subscribe to a magazine within a subscription for magazines. However, unless you’re interested in every magazine under the sun, you’re going to want to customize what you’re reading. You’re not going to need the latest articles on woodworking if you don’t like to work with wood. Plain and simple. So, you’re going to want to subscribe to your favorites.
Unfortunately, Apple didn’t think of that. They, apparently, believed that everyone would be interested in every magazine. You can open a recent issue, tap the name of the publication at the top of the screen, then tap a heart icon, but this just “favorites” it. You’ll find your favorites a little bit more quickly on macOS, but you’re likely not reading on macOS, are you? You also won’t find a dedicated section for your favorites, or auto-download these articles. Basically, you’ve liked something and need to hunt down those likes again later.
This is the strongest case for the fact that Apple News+ should have been a separate app, or at least integrated into Apple News in such a way that Apple News was improved similarly.
No Data Management
If you do download a magazine, you’ll find you can’t delete it when you’re done reading it. Apple says they delete them after 30 days, but, if you do happen to read many magazines, that’s going to take up a lot of space. Many of these publications have large photos, custom markup, and others are simply PDFs (more on that in a second). Basically, this is a ton of data just sitting on your device, and you can’t remove it easily.
PDF Magazines
Many mainstream publications have a new format made just for Apple News+. You can easily find the table of contents and jump around to each story. However, other publications are simply PDFs of the original print magazine. This means you get the ads, no easy searching, and tiny script on your iPhone that’s illegible. Many magazines are like this, even some larger ones that you’d expect would have a modern interface.
You’ll feel like you pirated these magazines, and would likely be better off seeing if you can find the same articles online instead.
Can’t Search by Category or Keywords
You had better know exactly the name of the magazine you want to read. Otherwise, you’ll find it can be hard to find something. Perhaps you want to read a particular magazine, but Apple doesn’t have it in Apple News+. So, you decide to find other magazines that have the same topic. Is it under outdoor, hobbies, or sports? Do you know how Apple categorized it? You can’t search by category or keywords pertaining to a magazine, so you’ll have to either sort through Apple’s filters or look at all of Apple’s magazines, A-Z.
Afterwards, you had better remember whatever you found, because Apple did not make saving articles, magazines, or saving your subscriptions easy.
No Curation or Personalization
If you’ve only got 15 minutes on the train, you likely don’t want to go through all your magazines to find something to read. You want to open the app and find a few links into those magazines ready to go. You want Apple to use machine learning to use your reading habits to serve you up a morning digest. That’s what Apple does with Apple News, surely they can do it with Apple News+, right?
Nope! You won’t find those kind of deep links into articles that will interest you, just generic links from publications Apple knows are popular. Hope you like celebrity news and mainstream sports!
Made By Someone Who Doesn’t Read
Whoever made Apple News+ doesn’t actually “read it for the articles.”
Honestly, after going through this, I came to a conclusion. Apple News+ was either designed by someone who sits around all day reading every magazine they can from cover to cover (for a living), or, they have a job as a designer or product manager at Apple, and never read the news. I’m guessing the latter. Maybe they spend their time jumping through meetings, rather than catching up on any news throughout the day, and they certainly don’t read on public transport during their commute. The fact that you can’t bookmark a page of a long form article that would take someone reading at 700wpm over 10 minutes to read is ludicrous. It’s a system made by someone who either has all the time in the world to read or never reads.
And that’s what the rest of the Apple News+ experience feels like. It’s made for someone who doesn’t read the news. It’s not made for someone to find curated articles from their favorite magazines. Instead, it’s just a huge flashy show from Apple. Look at all the magazines we have! It was Apple trying to corner a market before anyone else, and not worrying about whether or not they were making a good product.
This is the kind of garbage you see from Samsung with products like the Galaxy Fold, not the kind of thing we’re used to seeing from Apple. It’s a half-finished tech demo, not an actual service, and everyone at Apple in charge of its design should be ashamed.
I forced myself to use Apple News+ for a few weeks, but I couldn’t make it through the whole month. Using it was such a pain that I couldn’t put up with it. I canceled Apple News+, and you’ll likely want to do the same.