19/12/2019
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On Apple released publicly last week iOS 9 betaWhich, along with bug fixes and improvements, also contains many innovations. One of them is Apple News - a new service that the company is positioned as a one-stop source of information and news. Let's understand what it represents.
Why reinvent the wheel
In fact, Apple is not going to change the existing and well-established way of consuming information. Apple News, by and large, does not fundamentally different from Flipboard, Zite and other aggregators of news that have appeared in recent years.
Of course, visually there are differences, more stylish design and better fits the iOS interface. Also do not forget that the content in your News selected not only with the help of algorithms, but also special curators. Well, the most important trump card - Apple app alreadypreinstalled and is located on the desktop of every iPhone and iPad.
Whether all this will help Apple - is still unknown. News concept is not new. But if users want to stay abreast of what is happening in the world, using their smartphones, and if the standard application allows you to do it quickly and with ease, then why not?
Setting and Getting Started
News Now application works only in the US, but try it and everyone can, enough to change the regional settings on the device. That's what I did.
Russian-language sources, of course, you will not see here, but there are many popular Western media.
Like all similar services, when you first start News offers to choose topics that interest you and issues.
Personalize your profile so you can get high-quality content that will surely be interesting to you.
Interface and concept
personalized recommendations
News on the structure is very similar to the updated application, "Music", there is even a tab of the same name, "For you." It contains exactly what you're thinking: the materials that fit your tastes. The more articles you read, the more accurate will be the recommendations of Apple News.
Materials favorite publications
The second tab, "Favorites", includes content from sources and topics that you have selected during the initial setup. It can be considered a simple way to quickly view you are interested in news.
How will look the publication of each section depends on the publisher. Some of them, as, for example, Wired, working with Apple and optimize your content for Apple format News. Other articles, such as, for example, Mashable, presented simply in a grid of thumbnails.
It remains an open question whether they want publishers to optimize their content for an attractive display in the News.
Expanding horizons
For the discovery of new sources and materials meets the third tab, "View» (Explore in the original). Here you can find and subscribe to new editions or publication, as well as to expand their horizons.
For example, there is a channel "Technology", and it contains more specific sub-sections: "Cloud Computing", "wearable electronics", "Nanotechnologies". In each of them you will find more thematic publications.
Search and deferred reading
The remaining two tabs, "Search" and "Saved", allow you to search the news by keyword, and save selected articles for offline reading. The latter function will be in great demand by users, who like to read on the way to work: in the morning for coffee to view and save interesting articles, and then calmly read them on the subway.
Impressions from the use of
At WWDC 2015 Apple has paid a lot of attention to how attractive look article in News. This is true in spite of the beta version of the application and content it look amazing.
Transition animations, minimalism, excellent readability. Regardless of whether the content under Apple News format or not optimized.
Publishers have two ways to publish their materials. First - this is the usual, familiar to all RSS. The media just give Apple content rss-stream, and then formats the company and its readers is in a proprietary format. Depending on the source policy, the article may be available as a whole or in part, with a link through which you can read the full version. Fortunately, they are opened in the embedded browser, Safari which is not inferior in any convenience or speed.
The second option - a special Apple News format. At present the company has not announced all the specifications, but some publishers are already working with Apple's, and you can see how will look like the native materials. Such content is something like books with interactive elements, such as electronic versions of journals in the form of apps for the iPad.
In addition to the stunning appearance, the main advantage of the publications in the Apple format News is an incredible discovery rate. On the iPad Air 2 article open instantly without any delay. I do not know whether it is a merit of the improved JavaScript in Safari on iOS 9 or not, but one thing is certain: Apple understands that when people want to see the news, they want to do it quickly.
R.I.P. "Kiosk"
However, admiring the News, we should not forget that this is not the first attempt to Apple to enter the business of news aggregators. In 2011, the company introduced the "Box", the idea of which was to collect all subscriptions to the electronic versions of books in one place. It was fine in theory, but encountered some problems in practice.
In fact the "Kiosk" has become a strange folder, a dumping ground for all publishers of applications. Notifications of new releases each log were lost in the stream, and you forget about them. It is difficult to say how the situation would improve, whether at the individual application publications, but, anyway, it would give more opportunities for interaction with readers.
Now Apple has gone further. Companies do not need just a place in which to collect your subscription, it needs its own news platform. In other words, Flipboard and Facebook, a new competitor.
Great opportunities, big risks
Notwithstanding the foregoing, Apple News is still in development. Recommendations do not work quite the way we would like, but publishers still need to build their business strategies to the new service. Those of them, who will use Apple News format, there will be additional advertising opportunities.
You probably worried about two major questions about Apple News. Do we need another news platform? And if we want to try one more personalized in our personal taste magazine?
A striking example - Flipboard. The last five years of service attempts, and not very successfully, to turn beautiful app business. And how many more have been such attempts? The same applies to personalized newswire. What in fact it will be different from the news feed in Facebook, «VKontakte" or your other favorite social networks?
This is beneficial for Apple, because why companies give up their user base Google or Facebook? But here is whether it will be beneficial to the users themselves - the big question.
However, there is an even more important question: whether they want publishers to support another platform alongside existing? On the one hand, there is no doubt. Now for more coverage of the audience used even such non-traditional platforms like Vine, Snapchat and Periscope. So many platforms are now fighting for the attention of content creators: Medium, Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat, Flipboard, Tumblr.
For larger publishers support for additional platforms is not a problem, they always try to emerging services, but what about the small publishers? There are resources with a significant number of readers, who in this case is not the big teams, and content management systems. whether Apple will be able to facilitate the publication of materials for them? There would be WordPress-extension for the translation of content in Apple News format and tools to validate its display.
Whatever it was, I'm sure the resolution of all these problems - only a matter of time. If Apple will take over the News with the same enthusiasm as took over the Music, then we can already get news aggregator dreamed about in the near future. As for the appearance of News in Russia, there is no information on that yet. However, the appearance in our country Apple Music among the first to give grounds for hope that the news and we do not lack.
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