jimthing
March 29
Interesting. Yes, print editions have always had versions for various practical and localised editorial reasons, as you say. But digital editions that are missing large chunks of the main release are potentially significantly inferior enough to be unappealing and unpalatable to readers.
If it were a freestanding package I would agree, but Apple is putting together a package of hundreds of magazines for $9.99 a month, which is a whole lot cheaper than a year’s subscription to the WSJ. I suspect they will end up with even more partners than those they just announced. While I am not happy that the Apple News+ edition of the WSJ won’t include business coverage and the NYer coverage will be limited, if I stumble across a lifestyle article or profile about something or someone I’m interested in, I’ll read it. Though the chances aren’t great in the near term, I suspect that because publications can count clicks on an issue in circulation audits, and Facebook, Google and Amazon are likely to continue to devour ad sales dollars, they might need more total audience numbers and reconsider.
So I’m still not convinced this going to sell well long term, to users of the AN+ service, in the digital age.
I strongly suspect the reason Apple hasn’t announced pricing on anything else other than News+ is that in addition to not having enough video and game content ready to roll, they are probably working out pricing packages as well.
Maybe it’s necessary for papers to have mini-editions on AN+ economically, but on this opening announcement, with Apple heavily touting it as having the WSJ (and others) fully onboard –clearly omitting the fact that it’s only a selection of the full publications– is a little misleading. And when a portion of AN+ subscribers realise they’re ‘missing lots of bits’, we’ll have to see how well the subscription service survives.
I suspect there will be pricing options for bundled packages. If I were Tim Cook, I’d also be thinking about throwing some extra iCloud storage into the mix.
TBH, I thought the AN+ announcement was a bit empty, which at the time I attributed to being because there wasn’t much to explain: sign-up, get this stuff to read, the end.
I strongly suspect this announcement was more to influence the entertainment and publishing powers that be, rather than consumers or developers. Like Josh mentioned in his TV+ article, Show Time was more a video upfront presentation than a typical Apple product unveiling. This one seems to me to be about getting more content providers and talent on board, which is why they trotted out some top marquee names that don’t work cheap. Disney and Amazon recently made some super expensive acquisitions that have begun to affect their balance sheets, Netflix upended the video and film businesses by paying very big bucks and giving creative freedom to top talent, but although they are they are the big one to beat in the streaming market, their profits to date have been small. Apple is sitting on hundreds of billions in cash, which most probably is why Stephen Spielberg, Ophra, etc., signed on with them. “No bucks, no Buck Rogers.”
But now I can see how they deliberately focused on the ‘how to’ technical info (“we’re doing beautiful non-PDF layouts, especially made to work on iPhone right up to Mac” type of thing), not the ‘why to’ editorial angle (no mention of what the content actually is, outside of the headline brand naming publications).
So far, very few of the News+ participants have announced limited content. But the “one billion devices” that Oprah kept talking about is a tremendous competitive advantage. Look at how quickly it worked with Apple Music.