Cupertino-based technology giant, Apple is currently working on a new feature for its news app that will enable subscription-based content. The new feature is seen as a major trendsetting towards online publishing as it will allow publishers to control their viewer through third party app.
The new feature is expected to help the publisher to gain more profit from their content is a game changing feature that will differentiate Apple from other news application available in the market including Facebook's Instant Article. The new feature will likely increase Apple partnership with more publishers considering there are millions of users using the app as reported by Reuters.
The paid content system will most likely work by allowing readers to only read a certain amount of articles over a period of time. However, it is still uncertain whether a new subscriber will have to pay through Apple or the publishers itself to view more content.
According to 9TO5 Mac, those are some matters that is still being discussed as Apple previously said that there might be a revenue split for the subscription. Besides that, publishers are also pushing Apple to provide a better viewer information as it will help them for advertisement purposes.
Katie Vanneck-Smith, chief customer officer for Dow Jones told The Guardian that they are hoping that Apple will improve the aspect soon. According to her, "Ensuring subscription mechanisms in our off-platform distribution partnerships is critical."
Apple has been under pressure lately for its news app because the technology company reported to has miscalculated its number of users. According to its spokesperson, the company has not been focusing on the function causing them to oversee the problem.
Based on the previous count, there are around 40 million people reading the Apple News and the figures could increase as Apple improves its visitors count. With more than 100 publishers currently in partnership with the company, Apple can expect an increase in its profit when the new feature has been implemented.
Currently, subscription-based publisher will only put a certain amount of articles on Apple News and a few more as an excerpt only. Readers who wish to read more on the article will then will be directed to the publisher's website to pay and login to continue reading.
Besides Apple, other technology giants also slowly entering into the news market including Microsoft that just launches its "News Pro" app. Google also came out with their own app known as Accelerated Mobile Pages that allow a user to search and get the article directly from publishers.
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