Apple and the Winter Olympics:
? Apple News has a new, dedicated Winter Olympics section. (Gorgeous work.)
? Apple TV TV app sports tab will feature live footage from NBC.
?⛸? pic.twitter.com/nDESpBCit6
— Rene Ritchie (@reneritchie) February 8, 2018
It’s 2018 and Apple News is still available in only a handful of countries, despite the fact that many people can read and write in English, even if it isn’t their first language.
Jim Dalrymple:
When Apple started Newsstand, I thought it was a way to reach readers with unique content, pay writers well for their content, and create a great experience on an iOS app. I guess I should have realized when Apple killed Newsstand that it was over, but I pressed on. That was a mistake on my part.
Apple’s heart wasn’t in it and I wish they’d done more to promote Newsstand, but they could have handled the transition much more gracefully.
Now I’m starting to wonder if Apple News has a future. It’s biggest problem is that if I share an article on social media, only people that have the app can read the article. Not a good start.
Jack Marshall & Steven Perlberg:
The company mistakenly has been underestimating the number of readers using the News app since its launch, and passing that inaccurate information on to publishers.
Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services, said the company missed the error as it focused on other aspects of the product. The company didn’t explain how the problem occurred or say exactly when it might be rectified.
“We’re in the process of fixing that now, but our numbers are lower than reality,” he said. “We don’t know what the right number is,” but he added that it was better to undercount than overcount traffic.