It’s Time to Fix Apple News+
Let me start by saying I am a big fan of Apple News+. It provides access to an incredible amount of paywalled content from some of the best publishers on the planet for my entire family for a very reasonable price. When those publishers take advantage of the formatting capabilities of the Apple News app, the content can be visually stunning.
I do feel like Apple has had too much tunnel vision when it comes to the product, though. What about subscribers that may not have their Mac, iPhone, or iPad with them for whatever reason? What about subscribers that click on a link to a publisher from Messages, a social media app, or a feed reader? Each of these user journeys seems too obvious to have been missed by the Apple News+ product team.
On the Mac, iPhone, and iPad, Apple could easily solve these user journeys by redirecting users to the Apple News app when a user clicks on a link from a supported website. The Apple News Format includes the metadata to do this assuming the publisher includes the canonicalURL. Another option would be to create a micro frontend of the Apple News app that is called from within Safari.
Regardless of approach, the current user journey must be improved. Opening a link in Safari to a publisher to which you know you have access in Apple News+ only to be denied access to the article is an incredibly disappointing experience.
Let’s get this fixed, Apple!