Apple's "It's Show Time" media event discussion thread

[Jessica Lares]

Not all magazines are formatted for Apple News right now. The ones that are have the ability to change font size. The New Yorker in particular has audio of their fiction pieces, but I've not seen anything else in the ones I've briefly gone through so far otherwise. They've managed to keep the ad spreads in, which I guess helped in the deal. If I remember correctly, Amazon managed to do away with those in the original Kindle formatted magazines (not sure if that's the case now).

For those wondering about archives, if you search for a magazine in Apple News, their main portal will have a backlog of recent issues. Most of them right now are just scans of the pages with the OCR'd text like in the above screenshots, but that'll change as time goes.

The first thing I thought when I heard about the Apple Card was that so many people have their credit reports frozen (including me) because of the Equifax breach. It's going to lead to problems for those that forgot all about it, and then other people will just not want to unfreeze a report just for that reason.

The other announcements didn't interest me either (nor do I think this News subscription will go well for them in the long run). More interested in the updated iPad mini from last week.

[John F]

I might use the card service. 2% back on everything sounds pretty good to me.

[OtinG]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

A bunch of the screen shots I'm seeing show an Aa menu to change font size. Perhaps that's only for certain magazines?

I only looked at the Smithsonian magazine earlier and it was one of the scanned ones, so no adjustable text size, no flowing text, basically looked like a scan turned into a PDF. I just now looked the National Geographic magazine and it looks pretty good and was formatted for News+, but it had huge page margins. Not much formatting option though, only text size. I'm not sure why Apple didn’t use Books for the viewing platform, that would have been much better.

Originally Posted by Jessica Lares

Not all magazines are formatted for Apple News right now. The ones that are have the ability to change font size. The New Yorker in particular has audio of their fiction pieces, but I've not seen anything else in the ones I've briefly gone through so far otherwise. They've managed to keep the ad spreads in, which I guess helped in the deal. If I remember correctly, Amazon managed to do away with those in the original Kindle formatted magazines (not sure if that's the case now).

For those wondering about archives, if you search for a magazine in Apple News, their main portal will have a backlog of recent issues. Most of them right now are just scans of the pages with the OCR'd text like in the above screenshots, but that'll change as time goes.

The first thing I thought when I heard about the Apple Card was that so many people have their credit reports frozen (including me) because of the Equifax breach. It's going to lead to problems for those that forgot all about it, and then other people will just not want to unfreeze a report just for that reason.

The other announcements didn't interest me either (nor do I think this News subscription will go well for them in the long run). More interested in the updated iPad mini from last week.

I have my credit reports frozen because my account was one of the data breached ones. It took weeks to get all three frozen, and it costs money to get them unfrozen. It makes it tough to switch utility companies, cable companies, and apply for any credit since they cannot run your credit report, so many companies will want a deposit. My credit score is high, but it would take too long and cost too much to temporarily unfreeze the reports then refreeze them. The government should require the credit boroughs to make the process quick and cheap, but they don’t, and it is a huge hassle. I had just bought my house and a car about two years before the breach, and already had enough credit cards, so it is easier to leave the credit reports frozen, but occasionally it becomes a hassle when I try to switch utility plans or something similar.

[kyteflyer]

I don't know why they did not revamp the old "newsstand" which had all this already

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by kyteflyer

Singularly unimpressed. I didnt even watch the entire event, just sped through. Missed the pricing announcement... $9.99 US for stuff we now get for free? I do not think so. And in any case, not outside the US yet. That $9.99 will translate to >$12AUD and be damned if I will pay for a service which is spoonfed to me by someone else who decided what I need to see. Whenever I see/hear "curated" I shudder. Even trying to find stuff in the app store these days is a nightmare because its "curated". GAHHHHHHHH. APPLE!! FFS get back to your roots.

I will continue to use separate apps for my TV viewing, Australia will likely never get FTA TV channels in the TV app anyway, and I like Netflix and Amazon Prime just the way they are. I dont need some third party stuffing up my watchlists.

They aren't actually charging you for stuff you already get free. They are charging you for the new additions. For news it's access to three papers plus a bunch of magazines.

Much of the services is oriented towards the US. It's not like the tv elsewhere is exactly like the tv market in the US. I'm kind of surprised that Apple is trying to release some of the services world wide. I can see why you don't see the TV app as being worthwhile.

I rather like the curated approach. It works well in the Music service. Of course, the news app is more left coast oriented, so it's not going to appeal to a lot of people, me included.

To a great extent, the main issue that Apple has with the TV app is the resistance from the cable companies and various content providers. The original concept for Apple TV was that it would replace you cable box and you could access any program via Apple TV. But every content provider wants the whole pie.

In the US, the video market has changed dramatically over the last 20 years, yet most of the contracts and regulations in the market are oriented to the old local channels/cable model. For example, a streaming app where I can see all the games of my favorite sports teams would be great and I would be willing to pay for a subscription for that. I'm not as willing to pay when a percentage of the games are blacked out because of contracts or because the games are split between various channels.

We went through all this before with the music industry. It took a long time for the market to settle down and for the various music labels to accept that no they couldn't have the whole pie. I expect the video market to eventually get there.

I like the basic concept of the TV app. It works well for me since my streaming services all support it. I doubt I will subscribe to the Apple channel service. Most of my TV viewing is either sports or movies. There are still issues due to outdated business models and contracts, but we will get there.

[OtinG]

This morning the News app is crashing constantly. Not sure why, but I cannot even use it without it suddenly closing. It never did that in the past. I do know Apple’s programmers are getting quite a bad reputation in the past few years for screwing things up. Maybe they rushed the News+ addition to the News app.

[OtinG]

Originally Posted by kyteflyer

I don't know why they did not revamp the old "newsstand" which had all this already

I totally forgot about the old News Stand app. Yes that would have made much more sense. Combining magazines with news really makes no sense as most magazines are not news oriented. Only a few of them are. The News app is clunky. If Apple really is going to push services more than hardware then they did a lousy job since News+ sux so bad interface-wise and they haven’t even finished the Arcade and Apple TV services. This whole services thing seems to be ill thought out and terribly implemented. They area laughing stock on the internet right now, and it serves them right! Financial experts are saying there is nothing innovative in the Apple Card service and Amazon and others beat them to the punch long ago.

[OtinG]

Apparently I’m not alone in the crashing of the News app under iOS 12.2. According to two articles by Newsweek and 9ToFiveMac it is fairly widespread.

9ToFiveMac reports:

The launch of Apple News+ is not going as smoothly as Apple had probably hoped. Many iPhone and iPad users are finding that the Apple News app is crashing repeatedly after updating to iOS 12.2. There are crashes

According to sources, Apple is aware of the issue and is rapidly working on a fix. It’s not clear if the company will need to rush out a new iOS 12.2.1 software update or if the problem can be addressed server-side.

Wow, major fail Mr. Cook!

[OtinG]

Well it turned out to be a server side adjustment for the fix for the News app. So it is working again, for now. I guess Apple either doesn't believe in testing or they haven't figured out how to do it.

Here are some screenshots of the National Geographic magazine taken from my iPad Pro 9.7" this morning. Really large margins, but at least it is readable. The screenshots I posted from the Smithsonian magazine were barely readable on my iPad. I am not going to install iOS 12.2 on my iPhone 7 because my new iPhone XR arrives today and the 7 will be sold on eBay, so I see no need to waste my time installing the latest updates on it. I will install them on the iPhone XR after I get it set up, but that might be a while. I wonder what magazines like Smithsonian look like on iPhones? Probably too tiny to read.

If someone has iOS 12.2 on an iPhone and the free trial of News+, please post screenshots of the Smithsonian and National Geographic magazines. Thanks.

.........

[Debi]

I was SO excited about the Apple TV announcements that I immediately turned on my Apple TV, went to settings and made sure automatic updates was turned off.

I still haven't forgiven them for taking audiobook playlists away in itunes so I'll just wait and see what the reviews are before decide to take a chance on messing things up.

[The Old Man]

Has anyone tried to buy a magazine from ZINIO since yesterday? I get an error message saying the purchase can’t be completed, contact Apple support. Tried with Two different magazines on both my iPad and iPhone.

[kyteflyer]

Originally Posted by The Old Man

Has anyone tried to buy a magazine from ZINIO since yesterday? I get an error message saying the purchase can’t be completed, contact Apple support. Tried with Two different magazines on both my iPad and iPhone.

Oh, was Zinio still working in the US? Stopped for me about 3 years ago.

[The Old Man]

Originally Posted by kyteflyer

Oh, was Zinio still working in the US? Stopped for me about 3 years ago.

Yes, bought a single issue about two weeks ago. All past issues I have purchased are still available for download.

[kyteflyer]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

...
To a great extent, the main issue that Apple has with the TV app is the resistance from the cable companies and various content providers. The original concept for Apple TV was that it would replace you cable box and you could access any program via Apple TV. But every content provider wants the whole pie...

And so, it seems, does Apple. Otherwise why even bother. I heard (and I cannot say that its true or even remember where I read it) that Netflix rejected being included because Apple wanted a 30% cut. There needs to be a benefit both ways. If I was a provider, I would not take it on either, if thats true.

And you're right, most services are actually aimed at the US market and likely wont come to Australia or other countries outside the US.

The only thing thats going to show here is TV+ and I will ignore it, because the content is US-centric. We can't subscribe to some of your available services (like HBO, CBS AllAccess etc) because of geography and the stranglehold that Fox (Foxtel) has on providers like HBO and Showtime. CBS has bought our local Channel 10 and we now have 10Play which is a pretty crappy offering. We can't get access to the whole of CBS Allaccess because again, there are geo-restrictions.

[The Old Man]

Update: No problem buying a ZINIO mag on my android device and 69 cents cheaper than Apple. It does show on the iPad.