Connected quotes about Apple News

There’s no shortage of opinions about Apple’s services-related event this week! I’ve listened to a few podcast episodes, and of course I had my own thoughts on this week’s Core Intuition and a separate blog post about News+.

My favorite discussion about News+ so far has been the latest episode of Connected. They talk about the good things Apple brings to this, but also the downsides.

Federico:

I was asked by someone on Twitter, do you plan on putting Club MacStories on Apple News+? The answer is a huge no.

Myke:

Literally every single person who subscribes to Club MacStories would cancel because they’re all users of Apple products!

Federico:

There’s always a cost to adopting a new platform. There’s a technological cost, and there’s an actual cost. And for me, it’s not worth it to rewrite my — what we do for Club MacStories for Apple News format — but it’s also not worth it to lose the money that I’m making from the service that I control.

Federico’s point here gets to the key issue with these aggregation platforms, whether it’s News+, Facebook, or the App Store. When you give up control over distribution, you also give up control over revenue. With publishing on the open web, there’s always an alternative: your own domain name and your own subscribers. (For the App Store, there’s no choice.)

Back to the episode…

Stephen:

I still don’t love how closed off News is. Like on the Mac, you just can’t get a URL to open it in a browser. You just can’t do it. You’ve got to send a text message to yourself or something. And on iOS, or really anywhere, sending content to things like Instapaper is very hit or miss. […] Apple News doesn’t play well with the web, and that’s very frustrating to me as a believer in the open web.

Myke:

We’re all worried about Spotify walling off podcasts. Well, Apple’s trying to do that to news. […] It’s probably good for consumers, but is it good for the industry? We don’t know yet.

Great episode. You should listen to the whole thing, because as I said there are some points in favor of Apple News as well, and the other announcements. But the segment I’m quoting from above was particularly good.

Conversation on Micro.blog

Manton Reece @manton