(ThyBlackMan.com) Apple News Plus is now available on iPhone and iPad for those who have installed the iOS 12.2 update on their Apple devices. If you are just another person that likes to read magazines and check out some news you find useful then you’ll love this new service, but if you are a bit more than that and have tried the service on your device, then there is a fairly good chance that you have noticed some of the biggest Apple News Plus problems. If you’re still on the fence, or just waiting for Apple News+ reviews, you are going to read something really important in this article.
During the star-studded event at Steve Jobs theatre in March, Apple announced its premium news service called Apple News Plus. It is a part of Apple’s existing Apple News app and sits as an option for readers who are more interested in reading premium content from publishers like The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, National Geography, etc.
Last year Apple acquired a magazine service called Texture. Apple’s new premium news service is good, but there are 5 major problems which Apple ignored. These problems have turned off many potential subscribers. Surprisingly, these problems are easy to solve if Apple really wants.
The user interface
Apple News Plus UI is simple but it’s quite confusing at times. It is not as per Apple’s design standards. When you jump into the Apple News+ section, there’s no easy way to search magazines as the search box is buried under the sidebar icon. Apple could have just added a search box at the top because most of the smartphone users are now familiar and feel comfortable with that kind of design which we often see on websites and apps.
When you select and read a magazine, it gets automatically added to your Apple News app’s “My magazines” section regardless of whether you subscribed or not. As of now, there’s no way you can edit or delete this list. Apple has more than 250 magazines on its platform and some of them are the ones you’ve probably never heard about. So, let’s say you’re checking out a new magazine but are not ready to subscribe to it or follow it, it will still be added to your my magazine section. This is confusing and instead of calling it “My Magazines,” Apple should have given a different name to that section, for example, “Recent” or something like that.
Lack of a standard format
You will be disappointed to see that there’s a lack of a standard publishing style on Apple News Plus. Some magazines are well-optimized for cross-device compatibility and look good no matter if you’re reading them on an iPad or an iPhone. Sadly, most of the magazines do not follow the style guide and they look like poorly designed PDF files. There are many articles that appear either with too much white space on the sides or they simply appear as a single page with very small fonts.
Apple News Plus on the iPad still looks good because of the screen size. Text on the pages which are not optimized well is still readable, but on an iPhone, it’s a painful experience as you have to zoom in to see what’s written. This almost kills the joy of reading magazines.
There are still pointless restrictions
When you open a magazine on Apple News Plus, the app section features only a limited number of posts or news stories on screen. For specific content or to read anything other than the general interest topics, you have to rely on the search bar. A lot of this is a turn off for users because even when you have access to the content from publishers like The Wall Street Journal and The Los Angeles Times, you are stuck with the default highlighted stories until you manually put key phrases in the search box.
Apple News Plus problems don’t end here. Another reason why early birds have steered away from Apple News+ is those pointless restrictions set by Apple. The app doesn’t allow you to delete the magazines you have downloaded. Magazines will automatically get deleted from your device after 30 days, but you have no control over the core files and you can’t delete them. Apple has made it clear that the files can only be deleted in two conditions – the 30-day time period is over or your device has limited storage space.
With the idea of bringing news and magazines in one place, Apple News Plus is a cost-effective service. The service is available for free for a month as a part of the trial offer, and later users will pay $9.99 per month. The Apple News Plus problems highlighted in this article are easy to solve. All Apple needs to do is to make some improvements in its style guide for publishers and the rest of the problems can be solved by making some basic changes in the Apple News app.
Staff Writer; Corey Shaw
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