Apple reportedly planning to support paid content through its News app
- jan
- 26
Apple is reportedly planning to offer content from paid subscriptions through its News application. Currently, publishers with subscriber-only content, like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal tend to offer small snippets of articles, leaving the rest behind paywalls. It's unclear at this time how paid content arrangements would work.
From Reuters
By making paid content available through its News app, Apple would give publishers a way to maintain relationships with readers and perhaps attract new subscribers. It is unclear how Apple would authenticate subscribers or if it would take a cut of payments from readers who become subscribers through the app. Apple declined to comment.
Apple News rival Flipboard offers a way for subscribers to outlets such as The New York Times to enter their subscriber information, enjoying both paid and free content inside Flipboard. However, you cannot create a new account through Flipboard, so the Flipboard itself doesn't take a cut.
Publishers have evidently been frustrated by the lack of reader data coming from Apple News. In allowing subscribers to connect or pay for their account through News, Apple is reportedly hoping to alleviate some of that frustration. Apple has the infrastructure in place to accept subscriptions, which already allow users to pay for services like Netflix and Hulu, along with magazines and news publications.
Apple previously tried to offer a similar one-stop shop for news and magazines, Newsstand, which was replaced by the News app with the launch of iOS 9.
Source: Reuters
