Dive Brief:
- Apple software upgrade, iOS 9, is set for Sept. 16 and with that upgrade users will find a new Flipboard-style app, Apple News.
- The new app will only appear in the U.S. for now, much to the chagrin of U.K. publishers.
- Publishers can get revenue from participating by sharing ad revenue for ads Apple sells, or keeping all the ad revenue for ads they sell themselves.
Dive Insight:
Apple’s latest software upgrade, iOS 9, is set for next week on Sept. 16 and users who upgrade to the latest version will also find a new app to check out – Apple News, a Flipboard-style app that offers full versions of its publisher partner content. The new app will only be available in the U.S. for the time being, a move that came as a surprise to U.K. publishers, and might not be available in that market for several months. Last week, Re/code reported Apple had been actively adding publishers to the News roster and that more than 50 are currently on board.
Apple News offers its publisher partners two ways to make money from the app. They can sell ads on their content themselves and keep all the revenue, or let Apple sell ads and share the revenue keeping 70% to Apple’s 30%. Further, Digiday points out that publishers will likely see a traffic boost as articles read on Apple news will count toward it.
Scott Havens, a senior vp of digital at Time Inc., told Digiday, “There’s a benefit to having more stuff in there. With [Facebook] Instant articles, it can be a little more of a zero sum game with traffic referrals clicking in to Facebook and not coming to your owned-and-operated platform. Whereas Apple News, at this point, is a different destination experience that we hope is incremental.”
This week Apple also held its annual developer event showcasing the latest versions of its iPhone, Apple TV and Apple Watch, but notably didn’t address the new ad blocking for the mobile Safari browser in the soon-to-launch iOS 9.
