The growth of Apple News+ appears to be slowing, according to new circulation figures for the top 25 titles on Apple’s premium news aggregation service obtained by Press Gazette.
William Turvill for PressGazette:
The top 25 titles on Apple’s premium news aggregation service had a combined circulation of 1,333,088 in the first half of 2022, according to a ranking provided by the Alliance for Audited Media (AAM).
This is up 6% year-on-year from the first half of 2021, when the top 25 had a combined circulation of 1,254,802.
But the total has fallen 18% from the second half of last year when top 25 AN+ circulations totalled 1,622,823.
AN+ circulations are calculated by the AAM using average unique opens per issue of a magazine…
Apple has not released any News+ subscription data. Analysts at Cowen reportedly estimated in 2021 that the service could reach 19 million subscribers by 2023. The AAM figures, while not providing a total figure, suggest this forecast is not realistic.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple News+ is a relatively new service, so this is typical. Strong early growth as the initial flood of subscribers sign on followed by slower growth over time.
Please help support MacDailyNews. Click or tap here to support our independent tech blog. Thank you!
Shop The Apple Store at Amazon.
Apple News/News+ needs some love. The user interface/experience leaves a lot to be desired.
1. No pinch to zoom or double tap to zoom, to increase the size and width of text. Very rigid viewing experiencing
2. Difficult to re-order your Following list, especially if you have a long list
3. Ads look horrific and are extremely intrusive – no ad block available for any apps, for that matter
4. Slows down and is buggy, have to shut it down and restart it periodically
5. Lack of UX consistency across publications. Some you can open an image, others you can’t
On the other hand, the daily curated emails are quite nice.
i agree with your comments on News.
Add to the list:
It is very annoying that there is no “Reader View” available.
And you’re right — ads are extremely intrusive, jarring, repetitive and repetitive…
Apple News is a dismal experience, one made by people who clearly have no interest in the needs of the customer. As mentioned above, the ads are ridiculous in how intrusive they are. Further, I am PAYING for these articles- why do I need to have ads in the first place??
I have been a subscriber since day 1 of Apple News. I am disappointed with yet another Apple service and am likely not to re-subscribe.
FIRE Tim Cook!
“I am PAYING for these articles- why do I need to have ads in the first place??”
I had no idea. That is absolutely atrocious. I will never sub to A-News…just b/c. Free news in available everywhere.
“Intrusive” is part of a number of comments above, per News. It’s a word consistent and progressing with Apple. Apple speaks of preserving user’s security…”intrusion” from the outside. Ironically, “intrusion,” from the host, when part of the “walled-garden” is ok.
The “walled-garden” has always been ok in the past…there was privacy and lacking of intrusion. Cook’s regime has changed this.. It’s now part of the ethos. This is the true erosion of Apple.
I disagree with your last paragraph. The Walled Garden has NEVER been ok in the past. I don’t know where the myth began that iOS was ever private or “lacking in intrusion”. You were never given full control of the phone Apple sold you, it’s always been open to their snooping at all times. With exceptions, many apps won’t even function without an internet connection through Apple. Perhaps the reason it is so successful is that the sheep never knew how closely Apple monitored them.
iOS has ALWAYS been an example of unchecked corporate monopoly power over 3rd party software developers and users, plus another venue for Apple to push ads with no real user recourse to avoid them. The proof is abundant if you step outside of your glass house and look at facts. The only surprise is why it took so long for the former fans to figure this out. Blinded by easy profits, perhaps?
The Mac remains the only personal computing platform Apple offers, but it too has been degraded with trackers and cloud-based junk for years. The decline didn’t start with Cook, either. Just as hardware assembly was outsourced to China long before Cook was CEO, so too was iOS strategy set before Cook took the reins. He had the easiest CEO job in the world at that point, just maintain the course Jobs set. He has done so.
iOS was Jobs’ way to out-Microsoft Microsoft itself, using dominant market power to decide what 3rd party apps thrive and which are held back. You gullible app buyers don’t have a voice in that decision. Unfortunately Apple succeeded. Drunk on easy profit, it now picks and chooses what apps to promote, which apps it steals from to incorporate core OS features, and which platforms to banish. Their nannying hasn’t made the internet a nicer place. Jobs simply didn’t live to see what a shitscape of crappy timewaster games the app store has become, and the lie-filled mess that social media has become as sensationalism and extremism are now the primary tools for ad clicks. If actually pushed to tell you the truth, MDN will tell you that they only reason they’re in business is to support Google Ad revenue. To get more hits, they focus on lightning rod topics. The Mac is dead, as far as this site is concerned. Change the name to Marsupial Daily News and the same trolls would come to talk about the same non-Mac political garbage. All posted by people who bought made-in-China computers.
Yes, the ad experience is complete junk, I remember when this was rolled out how they touted they would do something great with ads.
Also, need to allow users the ability to remove any section, the Favorites seems redundant to Channels, since wouldn’t you only follow a Channel you liked anyway, if it wasn’t a favorite, I wouldn’t subscribe too it in the first place.