Originally published at: https://tidbits.com/2018/07/30/please-follow-tidbits-in-apple-news/
It’s possible to read TidBITS in Apple News, but until about 10 days ago, almost no one did. After Adam Engst had a call with Apple’s Publisher Relations team, traffic has increased, but we need your help to get Apple News to recommend TidBITS to new readers.
I followed your instructions. I had followed Tidbits and the heart was red. However I never received any notifications from Tidbits. I did receive others - all on my iPad
I clicked the heart twice, off and on again. Let’s see if I get notifications
Done!!
Ian T
Thanks!
Yeah, I’ve seen a lot of anomalous behavior from Apple News while watching our channel, with articles I knew were there not appearing at all, nothing from TidBITS appearing in my For You feed, and more. I hope that increasing the visibility of our channel to the Apple News algorithm will eliminate some of these problems. (Plus, I now have a contact in Apple News Operations who I can complain to if I can pin down a problem.)
I’ve looking up the News link to TidBITS and been clicking on and off for a while. From what I’ve read in the media trade press, lots of 
️ s do help publications gain exposure to new readers.
Oh how I’d love to follow TidBITS in Apple News. Sadly, there’s a Wall up between Canada and the US, presumably to keep immigrant news travelers from crossing the border. Which is to say that Apple News is not available here, despite years of providing feedback to Cupertino.
Except for the News widget. iOS devices in Canada get the widget. But there doesn’t seem to be a way to control what news feeds are displayed by the widget. If anyone knows how to tweak the widget, please post back. But there’s no need to suggest that Apple News can be obtained by changing the region to USA. Doing so has a lot of negative consequences, as I’ve found.
hi Adam,
I would love to use News but it is not yet available in Germany.
Maybe Mojave brings change for us.
I wish you success!
kind regards
Thomas_UWhen Apple News finally comes to Canada, I’m in!
I didn’t notice your previous request, but just did this.
A handy note for people like me who reside in Japan or other countries without Apple News. If you just set your location in iPhone settings to U.S. then the Apple News app appears - otherwise it doesn’t.
A further note for people in Japan - you have to temporarily set your location back to Japan if you want to register a Suica/View card with Apple Pay on your iPhone. You can then harmlessly change the location back to U.S. to take advantage of Apple News and still get on the trains with your iPhone and use it at convenience stores, charge your Suica, etc.
doug
I’m going to look forward to reading this on Mojave, like you’re suspecting. I don’t do much reading on my iPhone… so glad to know to ‘follow’ this to help on app until then.
Sounds like Canada wants to block US (or at least Apple) news from migrating there! 
I don’t read ANY news on my iDevices and only look up specific subjects on my iMac. Local real newspaper and local/national TV newscasts are my primary source.
1 Like
Jeez, CBC articles appear fairly regularly in my Apple News feed. They provide a good perspective on US/Canadian relations, and articles on health and science. I didn’t realize the News app was not available in Canada; I had assumed it would be a North American thing.
My guess is that not enough Canadian publishers agreed to sign up to make a robust news service so far. Apple is heavily curated by humans, though algorithms do play some part. I know they have substantial teams in the US, UK and Australia, and teams such as this don’t come cheap. They’d need a substantial number of publishers who are willing to dedicate staff that will submit articles that will attract a big enough audience. Think about the big messes Facebook and Twitter are in because they have not been doing much, if any, curating.
Enough Canadian publishers might not yet be willing to split subscription or advertising revenue, Apple does get a cut of some advertising revenue as well as for subscriptions sold via the app. The number, placement and content of the placements are also strictly policed by Apple, and they are super strict about not sharing data. Apple is implementing new formats:
A few months ago Apple bought the Texture magazine app, which was partly owned by Rogers, and there are quite a few titles available from other Canadian publishers.
I have a feeling it won’t be long before there is some kind of combo with News, Texture and probably Music, and not far down the road, a TV component. I think more international editions will follow. However, I do suspect this service will be paid.
As many others have noted here, Apple News is not available in New Zealand so we’ll have to continue reading Tidbits by email.
Just tried, in the UK. TidBITS shows up, but selecting it gives “No stories”. Am I missing something.
Jeremy
First off, sorry for everyone outside the US, UK, and Australia, as I noted in the article. I still have no idea why Apple News isn’t more widely available.
Try pulling down hard on the screen in the TidBITS channel to force it to update—you should see a spinner after pulling down. You might also check to see if Background App Refresh is enabled in Settings > News.
This is one of those anomalous things I’ve seen.
Another try from the UK and stories are appearing - so far so good
Done - even though I don’t use the app.
I’d done that, to no effect; but I’ve done it again, and it’s worked. Who ever said computers were deterministic?
Jeremy
Done in the US!