News platforms on the Internet have been growing rapidly as big companies seek to keep users in their apps, providing them with stories that load quickly and are visually compelling.
When Apple entered the crowded market with the launch of their dedicated News app, nobody was quite sure how iOS users, and publishers, would react. Online metrics company comScore predicted that approximately a billion hours per month have been spent reading mobile news sites by the end of 2015, a number that is more than double what it was just two years ago.
However, when it comes to Apple’s News service, a recently uncovered glitch means that the company has been underreporting traffic to news stories, as well as the platform’s total number of regular readers. Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice-president of internet software and services, said that 40 million people have used the app since its launch last Fall. Many of the world’s biggest news outlets are publishing content on Apple News – Bloomberg and The New York Times, for example – and most describe their relationships with Apple in a positive light.
Apple News isn’t the first attempt from Apple to allow publishers to showcase their content on iOS, but at 40 million users, it might be their most successful to date. While many magazines and periodicals attempted to publish using Apple’s Newsstand, its popularity never took off and the portal was closed this past fall.
Apple has been responsive to feedback about News and is addressing the glitches related to recording traffic. Add this issue to the fact that the app is only available in the U.S., U.K., and Australia, and it’s clear there is still a lot of potential for the platform to reach a more significant audience.
[source]Wall Street Journal[/source]
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