Aaron Abraham

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The Age of New Journalism: Apple News

Jul 19, 20208 min read

Apple is undergoing massive change. Transitioning the company’s priority from hardware to services, Tim Cook is shaking up the very foundations of Apple. One of the flagship service products that Apple has launched is Apple News. In this post, I will be dissecting the app from a product perspective and provide some recomemendations on improving Apple News.

Apple’s Vision

Let’s dive a little bit into the evolution of Apple’s vision under its two CEOs, Steve Jobs and Tim Cook.

Jobs vs. Cook

Steve Jobs was all about changing the world by introducing better tools; it was completely dependent on hardware. In the early days of Apple, his meticulous design mind crafted some truly extraordinary and visionary products, like iPads and iPhones. What made Apple so successful in those days was Jobs’ dedication to quality. He effectively made Apple a status symbol whose feature resonated well with users. I think this quote really summarizes what Jobs wanted from Apple:

“I’ve always been attracted to the more revolutionary changes. I don’t know why. Because they’re harder. They’re much more stressful emotionally. And you usually go through a period where everybody tells you that you’ve completely failed.”

Tim Cook was a completely different CEO. I think that he gets an incredibly unfair rap on how he is ‘just not the same’ and too many people draw terrible comparisons between him and Jobs. Let’s make one thing clear: Cook is not, will not and can not be the same CEO as Jobs simply because Jobs was so rare. Cook is not driving innovation; he is driving the business. While Jobs was focused on making revolutionary products, Cook is maintaining Apple quality and expanding the service offering of Apple.

Apple’s Move to Services

I think its worth digging into why Apple is moving more into services rather than hardware. I would hypothesize the following:

  1. Innovation is hard: there is no doubt in my mind that creating the next hardware delicacy is incredibly difficult. It takes years of R&D and a certain conviction that customers don’t know what they want (that’s actually a quote from Jobs). Unfortunately, Tim Cook cannot match Jobs in this front, so Apple hasn’t been at the forefront of the industry in terms of innovation anymore. Sure, Airpods and Apple Watch have seen strong unit sales growth over several quarters, but I would not place these products as truly revolutionary or at the forefront of the hardware industry
  2. Network effect: Apple is in a really unique position. Currently, Apple has 1.4 billion active devices in the world, with 900 million iPhones. According to estimates, that’s around 1 billion users of Apple. That is absolutely huge. With such a massive user base, Apple is in a unique base to make tons of revenue from its users through the use of users who are so brilliantly locked in to the Apple ecosystem (there are extremely high switching costs for users; another brilliant strategic move by Apple). Cook has taken advantage of this, making Apple the first trillion dollar company. I would argue that Apple still has a long way to go before
  3. Slowing growth: If we dig into Apple’s financial numbers, we see that Apple’s revenue has been consistently growing (last quarter, Apple’s revenue grew by 9% year-over-year). However, if we look at what constitutes this rise, its mostly from increased prices and users upgrading models (planned obsolence, another brilliant move). New users to the Apple ecosystem have been slowing down.

If we look at the major drivers of revenue for Apple, about 60% of the revenue is from the iPhone, while services makes only 20%. Not only is this a slightly dangerous stance for Apple, but services has a lot more room to grow than iPhone sales. Bigger cameras and bigger screens are not fueling bigger customer demand.

What is Apple News

Apple News is a part of the new service push from Apple. Advertised as a one-stop shop for all news products, Apple News has become more popular since its launch in 2015. Since it’s launch, News has grown to about 85 million monthly active users with a total of over 5 billion articles read. This places News firmly as the #1 news app in the world.

In 2019, Apple released News+, a subscription model for exclusive access to 300+ publications. As an avid reader of various publications, the various paywalls that publishers have set up are extremely annoying. Having a central subscription where you have exclusive access to several publications is incredibly enticing for users. It’s a huge deal for readers: for 8000/month worth of content.

The only major player that has not entered Apple News is the New York Times. To quote Mark Thompson, CEO of NYT:

We tend to be quite leery about the idea of almost habituating people to find our journalism somewhere else. We’re also generically worried about our journalism being scrambled in a kind of Magimix (blender) with everyone else’s journalism.

Thompson is right. Apple is slowly revolutionizing the business model of publications that have held a huge leverage on consumers for several centuries. This buffet-style business model is refreshing and has given Apple a significant edge in its services.

Another extremely interesting aspect of Apple News is content curation: it’s done by humans, not algorithms. Since humans are much better at detecting fake news, Apple has not fallen prey to the accusations that plague Facebook and Google. In other words, Apple News is more trustworthy.

User Needs

Let’s look at some of the personas that like to read print and online publications:

  • Enthusiasts: these are individuals who are geeks about certain topics. They love to get in-depth analysis of their topic of choice. From politics to athletics, these individuals are willing to pay for top-quality content
  • The Browser: this person just likes to stay updated with the news are are not as interested in in-depth analysis. They usually have a favourite news/publication site and like to browse through articles
  • Social Media User: this person gets their information from Facebook posts and Twitter feeds
  • Print junkies: These people love print publications and are the only ones sustaining such publications. They regularly consume paper newspapers and magazines

Among these four user groups, it’s the browser and the enthusiast that would be most enticed by Apple News. I specifically want to focus in on enthusiasts. These people would be willing to try News+ and are the prime target for new features.

Among the enthusiasts, these are the user needs:

  • Original, incisive content
  • Opinion articles backed by data
  • Soundbites for quick reading on certain topics
  • Ability to share content with others

As an avid news reader myself and a new user of Apple News, here are some pain points that I think are shared among many users:

  • Loading times: it takes forever to load articles, at least 5-6 seconds
  • Sifting through interesting articles: I like to read the most incisive and interesting content. Usually, I would take a look at the ‘hot’ or most visited articles, but that is currently not available
  • Search functionality: Currently, Apple News only shows the top article result of searches and suggested Channels. I would have liked a list of articles that address the same topic from different publications
  • Offline: Many people like to read newspapers because it is offline. I don’t believe Apple News has implemented something like this.

Recommendations

Based off our discussions on Apple’s strategy, user needs and painpoints, I have listed a few recommendations.

  1. Rebuild search: I imagine search as a pop-up modal with three tabs: channels, stories, topics. That way, users have the option to easily switch between the three when they are searching up a particular issue.
  2. Recommendations: Due to massive user information, Apple can easily recommend articles that other users have found useful. This would address the painpoint of sifting through interesting articles.
  3. Tags: Each story could have a particular tag for ‘Popular’ or ‘Controversial’ as designated by Apple’s human checkers. Users could then sort based on tags and look into which stories are not only interesting but widely-read
  4. Cut the middleman: Apple has introduced an unnecessary middleman in this whole process - the publication. Instead, Apple should look into paying writers directly and acting as the editor. It should target famous journalists and writers, not the publication itself. If Apple structures its business model correctly and pays writers more than publications do on an annual basis, this would completely upend the publishing establishment. Not only would this liberate writers, but this would be a boon for Apple’s coffers. If the company also pursued exclusive rights contracts, Apple could attract many more users to the platform
  5. Offline reading: Saving articles would be really useful for the busy commuter. I imagine a small ‘download’ button at the top of each article. Apple could also put a limit on the number of downloads to force people to push themselves into News+

I hope you enjoyed my recommendations and analysis on Apple News. This is an extremely exciting for media. Apps like News are showing us what the future of media holds.

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