Apple announces Flipboard-like app News, new rich media format for news items; publishers keep revenues from ads they sell, 70% from iAd ads; kills Newsstand
iOS 9, OS X, watchOS and Apple Music Tim Carmody / Medium : Quick thoughts on Apple's announcements at WWDC Timi Cantisano / Neowin : Apple's new multitasking features are great, but they won't be arriving on all iOS devices Owen Thomas / ReadWrite : With Women On Stage, Apple's WWDC Finally Reflects The Future Of Tech Stuart Miles / Pocket-lint : What is Apple News? Luke Villapaz / International Business Times : Apple's ‘Move To iOS’ App For iOS 9 Makes Ditching Android Easier Than Ever Jordan Kahn / 9to5Mac : How to publish on the new iOS 9 Apple ‘News’ app Cam Bunton / TmoNews : Apple announces iOS 9 - Coming this fall with revamped Siri, Notes, News and more... MacDailyNews : Apple unveils News app for iPhone and iPad Nate Hoffelder / Ink, Bits, & Pixels : Apple Launches News App, Moves Into Competition With Flipboard Jaime Rivera / Pocketnow : Apple Maps gets major improvements with iOS 9 Seeking Alpha : Apple reveals Music service, News app, iPad multitasking, watchOS 2 Bryan Chaffin / The Mac Observer : Apple Introduces News App with ‘Apple News Format’ for Publishers Max Taves / CNET : Apple: News app delivers the stories you want to read Mikey Campbell / AppleInsider : Apple's ‘Move to iOS’ app transports user data from Android to iPhone Tweets: Alastair Coote / @_alastair : Also, users can report your articles as “offensive or problematic” which may result in Apple disabling your channel. pic.twitter.com/S8mxXTyH0i Paul Quigley / @paulyq : Interesting - Apple's new News app runs off RSS. No better standardised system out there I think. http://www.niemanlab.org/... FJP Media Lab / @the_fjp : Why news organizations should pay attention to today's Apple announcements: http://www.niemanlab.org/... See also Mediagazer
Context & Ripple Effects
At WWDC 2015, Apple retires Newsstand and replaces it with News, a Flipboard-style reader built on a new rich-media Apple News Format, launching that fall with more than 50 publishers already signed up. The stated economics favor publishers who bring their own sales: they keep all revenue from ads they sell and 70% from iAd-sold inventory.
First-order effects
- Publishers must rebuild their output in Apple News Format to keep the Newsstand shelf presence they are about to lose, while Flipboard faces a preinstalled rival chasing the same format.
- The 100%-vs-70% ad split immediately rewards publisher-direct ad sales over iAd inventory, pushing newsrooms' sales teams to treat News placements as owned inventory.
Second-order effects
- With no subscription mechanism at launch, Apple's next move is predictable and confirmed by reporting: building a paywall system for subscriptions inside News to capture recurring-revenue publishers the free model leaves out.
- Curation becomes the battleground for attention inside the app, since placement — later handled by algorithms plus roughly 30 Apple journalists serving some 90M regular readers per Apple's own curation operation — determines which publishers see traffic at all.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, distribution consolidates around OS-level platforms: News+ later draws warnings that it decimates publishers' direct reader relationships even as outlets grow dependent on it, with The Daily Beast projecting $3M-$4M from the bundle and Time citing seven-figure annual revenue.
- The long-run risk flagged when News+ launched is structural: Apple sits between publishers and their audiences, controlling format, curation, and increasingly payment — the opposite of the publisher-favoring terms announced here.
The trend: News distribution is migrating from publisher-owned channels like Newsstand to curated, platform-controlled feeds run by operating-system owners, whose revenue terms tighten as publisher dependence deepens.