Apple News to open to all publishers this week, get public reader metrics by mid-2016

Apple is opening the iOS 9 News app to all publishers this week, potentially greatly increasing the amount of content on the service, the company revealed on Tuesday.

Smaller publishers and even individual bloggers can now access the service's publishing tools, Apple informed Bloomberg. Since the News app debuted in September, its feeds have been populated only by higher-profile publications allowed in by Apple, such as The Atlantic or the New York Times.

An anonymous source meanwhile claimed that Apple has fixed a problem with inaccurate reader metrics, which it admitted to January. The app has been properly integrated with ComScore, the person said, and traffic figures should be made public by the middle of the year.

Apple is also planning to make it easier for publishers to see data like shares, unique views, and reading time, the source noted. Separately, the company should launch an ad campaign to draw in more readers.

Recently Apple published a developer document with guidelines for iAds in the News app, which may have been in anticipation of today's announcement. The Bloomberg source mentioned that publishers should keep 100 percent of the revenue from ads they sell in articles, while Apple will take a 30 percent cut from ads it sells.

10 Comments

kevinpeterson 56 comments · 11 Years

About 8 years ago

My blog has been on Apple News since launch.

nolamacguy 4750 comments · 10 Years

since I recently installed content blockers, I find the experience a bit jarring when I'm redirected to a full website but one which doesn't honor my content blockers. I may as well stick to safari.

CoreMe 2 comments · 8 Years

If Apple would make the app for OS X (with sync capabilities), I would drop Feedly and any other newsreaders in a heartbeat. That would have to increase readership and income for all!

6Sgoldfish 108 comments · 9 Years

Still waiting for News app to show up in the Netherlands :-(
I hope 9.3 will make it happen.

bobschlob 1074 comments · 11 Years

sog35 said:

I like Apple news. Only 2 complaints:

1. sometimes it takes LONG to load new articles

2. hate when you get redirected to read the whole article. The native sites suck and are full of crap full screen ads. Wish Apple would only allow all articles to be in the AppleNews app format only.

Feel same way. Really like it. But to add to the 'long time to load' issue is the fact that if I don't open it for a few days, it seems to load alllllllll the stories that I missed during that time (dozens and dozens and dozens of them). And it's all old news at that point; I don't really need it see it.