In iOS 14, Apple News+ publishers' web links are opened in the Apple News app by default for Apple News+ subscribers, though this feature can be turned off
Apple News in iOS 14 and macOS Big Sur has a toggle that's designed to open web links from Apple News+ publishers directly …
MacRumorsJuli Clover
Context & Ripple Effects
This lands mid-arc in Apple's tightening grip on News+ traffic. When News+ launched with its Texture-inherited UX, critics flagged that the bundle made individual outlets hard to find; now, instead of fixing discovery, Apple is routing subscriber clicks back into its own app. The move follows reports that Apple never told its publishing partners that News+ users would be forced off publisher sites.
The mechanism has since widened: later iOS 14 betas add Smart App Banners that prompt users opening a News+ partner's webpage to read the story in the News app rather than the publisher's own app. With roughly 125 million monthly News users and growing revenue contribution across four countries, Apple is converting distribution scale into default ownership of the reading session.
First-order effects
For Apple News+ subscribers, tapping a News+ publisher's web link now opens inside Apple News unless they find the toggle — meaning publishers' sites lose those sessions, and the page views, analytics, and newsletter or subscription prompts tied to them.
Second-order effects
Publisher apps are bypassed alongside publisher sites: the Smart App Banner behavior pushes readers toward the News app over each outlet's own iOS app, eroding the direct-reader relationship that outlets built through push notifications and home-screen presence.
Ad-side arrangements weaken too — deals like the one letting top publishers run their own ad tech such as Google's DoubleClick inside News depend on inventory flowing through Apple's surfaces, so defaults that keep readers in-app shift leverage further toward Apple.
Third-order effects
If the pattern holds, the concern raised when News+ launched — that bundling could accelerate outlets' decline by decoupling them from their audiences — extends from paywall economics to traffic itself: news publishers become increasingly dependent on Apple's app as the interface between them and readers, with defaults, not editorial quality, deciding who owns the session.
The trend: Platform defaults are becoming the decisive layer of news distribution, with Apple converting its News audience scale into control over whether publishers ever see their own readers.
Woah, I wonder how many publishers in Apple News+ realize that the new iOS14 and MacOS Big Sur are by default intercepting traffic to their sites and sending it to the Apple News app instead.
Apple News, which I don't use and don't want to use, is breaking the web in new ways. There ought to be a law. Google is even worse. https://www.theverge.com/...
@arctictony @mathewi As a user I noticed it as I kept getting notices that Apple News had crashed, which is weird because I didn't have it open. But it was intercepting links I was opening in background on browser. What a weird experience. Who wants to open another whole app to r…
As a free market libertarian I support vigorous competition among those who seek to hikack web links - for too long Google had a monopoly on pushing everything to an AMP page, it must now compete with Apple redirecting everything to its News app https://twitter.com/...
Just in case anyone is out there covering this story, worth checking into how publishers entered into contracts with a company called Texture, which then Apple bought, effectively locking publishers into predatory terms like these. https://twitter.com/...
This is super interesting. Also why all publishers should be incredibly reluctant to seed any control of any of their content to a third party, but especially Big Tech. https://twitter.com/...
@tomcoates You're definitely confusing two things. I'm running ios14 and it has never opened a link in Apple News because I don't subscribe to News+ which is paid and not comparable to News, the free app.
Apparently this only happens if you're an Apple News subscriber, but regardless—if it is true—it seems highly dubious and will almost certainly drain revenue from publishers. https://twitter.com/...
This has been a longtime problem and one that drives everyone who ever gets a shared link from a colleague or friend or whoever absolutely nuts. https://twitter.com/...
OK, tested out: This tweet is just a little oversimplified. It's working right. It's only for News+ subscribers, to help them get around paywalls to the content they already paid for. (News+ continues to be a terrible deal for journalists, don't do it.) https://twitter.com/...
Especially worth noting how many ways Apple News does things that are disallowed on iOS browsers/Safari or for other apps 1. other apps can only bind to a finite number of domains 2. non-Safari browsers cannot intercept traffic in any way ... https://twitter.com/...
I also wonder how many of those publishers have done the math on how much money they'll lose from visits to their sites becoming detours into the Apple News app, where Apple keeps 50% of News+ subscription revenue. https://twitter.com/...