details on some “early headaches” with media site Digiday.
When encouraging publications to sign up, Apple promised
design resources and templates for customizing content for the Apple News format, but
as it turns out, Apple is shutting out some smaller publications and
“playing favorites” with larger publishers.
of publishers has been provided with access to a private Slack channel.
Slack channel where they could connect with Apple more directly, a move that
exasperated several sources when they were informed of the channel’s existence.
“They’re basically playing favorites,” that first source said.
“It always seems to be good for the big guys, but not for the rest of
us.”
content templates to publishers and has “largely outsourced”
templates to vendors, which has resulted in bugs and other issues, along with
much more work for publishers.
Magazine publishers need to use tools to scanPDFs and convert them into individual articles and advertisements, but the
technology is said to be so buggy that each issue needs to be “effectively
copy- and design-edited all over again.”
Smaller magazines that don’t have the resources
for these full redesigns need to either invest time and money anyway or submit
a PDF instead. A lot of the content within Apple News+ at the current time
is PDF-based, which does not make for the greatest user reading experience.
Publishers are also said to be frustrated with
the “uneven user experience” in Apple Newswith the split between
PDFs and the new Apple News format. “You think of Apple, and
they’re so design-conscious,” said one publisher. “This doesn’t feel
like that at all.”
According to
spoke to said that the flaws in Apple News+ do not “bode well for its
long-term future” unless Apple adapts its approach and makes some key
changes to the service.
service, and at MacRumorswe’ve heard numerous complaints from Apple customers confused
by the unintuitive user interface and unhappy with the lack of features.