“Conde Nast CEO Roger Lynch told the audience of Recode’s Code Media conference that he hadn’t made up his mind yet about Apple’s news subscription service,” Janko Roettgers writes for Variety:
“I think the jury is out,” Lynch said, adding that he had inherited Conde Nast’s deal with Apple from his predecessor. “I hope Apple News Plus is wildly successful,” Lynch said. “Whether it’s good for publishers like us or not is to be determined.”
The service offers consumers access to hundreds of magazines and newspapers for around $10 a month. The service signed up 200,000 paying subscribers within 48 hours after its launch, but CNBC recently reported that the company has been struggling to expand its audience beyond those early numbers.
He declined to comment on specifics of Conde Nast’s deal with Apple, but suggested that the company ultimately could sever ties with Apple if News Plus wasn’t working out. “Over time, we have options,” Lynch said.
MacDailyNews Take: Bring on Apple Prime! A bundle like that, if Apple can work out the deals and they’re attractive enough to consumers, will only help Apple’s individual services like Apple News+ to gain subscribers.
Magazines are mostly ads. Why would you want to pay?
I am so done with ads, 99.99999999% of which address little of my wants and desires. I don’t see why I should waste a hefty portion of my remaining life seeing them anymore. I don’t care what they support. Too bad so sad. Get rid of the lot!
My Apple shares hope it’s wildly successful too – but as a user of Apple News who hasn’t yet decided to subscribe to Plus, I don’t like the way Apple is trying to push it down my throat.
Plus articles are being heavily interspersed with News articles, and it’s hard to avoid clicking on one, only to get an extremely annoying message that you can read this if you subscribe. That just comes across as hard sell and trickery.
Has someone at Apple News forgotten that the user always comes first, not the dollar?
It’s too expensive and lacks important newspapers, like NY Times, WaPo, Dallas dMorning News, LA Times, etc.
If you don’t need to line a bird cage, why the H would you want NY Times or Wapo?
To counter your bullshit for one…
I can’t wipe my ass with digital NY Times, LA Times, Washington Post…so no need to subscribe.
I wish there was a way to filter out + news headlines for people that don’t subscribe. They are fucking annoying as hell.