The iOS 9.2 update today brought a sort of about-face for Apple’s own News app.
The launch strategy was to highlight stories based on user tastes and reading behaviors, but Apple has since shifted — at least in the morning and evening — to bring about a more newspaper-like experience featuring curation of the day’s top stories by its own editorial team.
Throughout the course of the day, you’ll still get your typical algorithmically-sorted news stories that you’ve grown accustomed to, but in the morning and afternoon, Apple’s curators will hand-select a number of the day’s top stories, much like a newspaper.
Additionally, Apple is now offering a comScore integration so publishers can get accurate numbers for the views their content generates. This addresses one of the primary concerns publishers had with Apple News and shows a willingness to move forward in attempts to improve not only the app itself, but Apple’s relationship with publishers.
So far, Apple has proven to offer a lucrative arrangement for content providers: publishers keep 100 percent of advertising revenue generated on their own content as well as 70 percent of revenue for ads Apple sells, and serves, on its own.
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As the publishing world enters an age of off-platform deals with the likes of Apple, Facebook and others, these types of improvements are necessary to further entice publishers into these types of agreements.
➤ Apple Updates Its News App to Make It More Like a … Newspaper [ReCode]
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