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

[leebase]

Originally Posted by OtinG

According to this MacRumors article, iOS 12.3 and tvOS 12.3 betas introduce Apple's new TV app.

Yep. Had to upgrade to get the News+. I'm in the trial phase. It's nice, but I don't think I'll continue on to pay for it. There is just too much free news and I don't have the time (or don't use the time) to read magazines.

I think it's a great deal if you like 3 or 4 of the magazines and the WSJ/LA Times

[OtinG]

Originally Posted by peaceridge

I have the Mini 5 and love it. So much so that I'm not liking the Pro 11" as much. I don't like the face sign on and downloading apps seems to take more steps than the button on the mini.

I like the Face ID feature on my iPhone XR but the phone is much smaller to hold and thus easier to get into the routine of touching the screen while pointing the front camera at my face to wake it. My iPad Pro 9.7" doesn't have the Face ID feature, and I'm glad it doesn't as I think it would be more difficult to wake from landscape mode which is how I almost always use it. Face ID has taken a while for me to get use to it. Another difference is when you use it for password authorizations it doesn't require you to place your thumb/finger on the Home button, but you do have to have the front camera pointed toward your face. For password authorization Face ID seems faster and smoother than using the Home button with fingerprint ID.

[kyteflyer]

Originally Posted by OtinG

I like the Face ID feature on my iPhone XR but the phone is much smaller to hold and thus easier to get into the routine of touching the screen while pointing the front camera at my face to wake it. My iPad Pro 9.7" doesn't have the Face ID feature, and I'm glad it doesn't as I think it would be more difficult to wake from landscape mode which is how I almost always use it. Face ID has taken a while for me to get use to it. Another difference is when you use it for password authorizations it doesn't require you to place your thumb/finger on the Home button, but you do have to have the front camera pointed toward your face. For password authorization Face ID seems faster and smoother than using the Home button with fingerprint ID.

I like the fingerprint... but I didnt think that the Xr had a Home button? I thought it was all screen like the other Xxs

[OtinG]

Originally Posted by kyteflyer

I like the fingerprint... but I didnt think that the Xr had a Home button? I thought it was all screen like the other Xxs

That’s correct, the iPhone XR does not have a physical Home button but the iPad Pro 9.7” does. That is why I have to use Face ID on the XR and have to use the fingerprint feature via the Home button on the Pro 9.7”. You can add a virtual Home button to the iPhone XR screen, but that looks weird and is clunky to use.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by OtinG

That’s correct, the iPhone XR does not have a physical Home button but the iPad Pro 9.7” does. That is why I have to use Face ID on the XR and have to use the fingerprint feature via the Home button on the Pro 9.7”. You can add a virtual Home button to the iPhone XR screen, but that looks weird and is clunky to use.

And of course virtual Home button does not read your fingerprint!

[OtinG]

Originally Posted by tomsem

And of course virtual Home button does not read your fingerprint!

No it doesn't read fingerprints. What the virtual Home button does is stay on top of the apps and displayed screens and looks ridiculous and gets in the way. You can position it to taste, but that really didn't help. I tested it out just to see what it was like, but hated it. It took a while to get used to the no Home button operation, but I rather like it now on my XR.

[OtinG]

Don't forget to cancel your News+ trial subscription before it expires, unless you want to keep it. I don't think I even checked it out more than a day or two. I simply don't want or need it, so I cancelled mine today.


......

[tomsem]

For me News+ is totally worth it. Currently I subscribe to the Atlantic and Scientific American. I won’t be renewing them. That is probably half of annual cost of News+. I think selection is slightly better than Texture, which was about the same price (I think I was paying $8/mo for that - some special rate I discovered). I appreciate being able to read some of WSJ and LAT without running into a paywall.

Nearly all of the magazines I’m interested in use ANF (Apple News Format) rather than PDF. Resizable text, scrolling, which I like. For those, there are useful keyboard navigation shortcuts, which is really nice for reading on iPad on the desktop. Easy to zoom photos full screen and then back to reading mode. And Speak Screen almost works - reads a few screens but stalls out (surely something that will get fixed). Hopefully more will switch over from the clunkier PDF.

[OtinG]

To each their own of course, but for me I gave up on magazines years ago, long before they were digitized. I got tired of getting a handful of articles, not all of which I even cared to read, surrounded by advertisements that quite frankly took up way more space than the articles. Magazines for me equal at least 70% junk and wasted space, and at best 30% interesting articles. However, I find that most of the good articles eventually get posted in stand-alone format sooner or later, and those are generally free to read. If I had $9.99 + $0.80 tax = $10.79/mo to spend on yet another monthly service, then maybe News+ would be okay. But I find that money is sparse these days (I'm retired) and there are quite a few other monthly services that are much higher up on my wish list. Most of the articles I read are of a scientific or historical nature and written by scholars, and there are so many websites wherein I can read those for free.

The last digital magazine subscription I had was for This Old House magazine and was only $10/year--that is a whole year for $10! That seemed like a great deal since I love that show and I've been watching for nearly 40 years now. However, the magazine was nearly all advertisements and the articles were fairly short. I wound up not even downloading or looking at the last several months before the subscription expired, and needless to say never renewed it. I still love the show, but the magazine, well not so much...

[leebase]

I simply don’t have the time to read the magazines. I’ve done the free trial and really like it

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by leebase

I simply don’t have the time to read the magazines. I’ve done the free trial and really like it

I subscribe to several specialty magazines. A couple are pure PDF's that I download from the magazine web site(which I prefer) and three are viz Zinio, which appear to be PDF's. Two of the three in Zinio are offered with News+, Backpacker and Outdoor Photograph, the other, Archeology, isn't.

I really don't see a reason to move to News+ right now. I have 9 years of back issues downloaded onto my iPad, so it would take Zinio going out of business for me to switch.

As far as time goes, well, it depends on your interests. Magazines are pretty good to read when you are at lunch, or waiting in line.

[OtinG]

According to this MacRumors article, many of the smaller publishing houses that signed on with Apple to provide News+ material are really upset with Apple's lack of help. Apple promised to give them help and templates so they could easily convert their magazines to the News+ format, but Apple has failed to fulfill that promise. Apparently Apple has set up a "big boys" group of preferred publishers and is bending over backwards to help those few, but are basically ignoring the little guys. Some are saying that the templates Apple provided them were developed through outsourcing and are way too buggie to use. Many are saying they have to spend as much time editing the new format versions for News+ as they did to created the darn magazines in the first place. So if true, it sounds like Apple is doing another half-assed job and using crappy programmers to create their templates. So business as usual. The last round of Mac OS X and iOS were too buggie--makes me wonder how much of those were outsourced too.

At any rate, I'm not interested in any news or magazine service, especially this one.

[hollowpoint]

Like all big software companies that have gotten into the 'news' business, the news providers they use or default to are overwhelmingly of a single political perspective. Not interested. I use the free iOS Feedly app, which makes it easier to choose and arrange my sources from anywhere, and works on all other platforms I have as well.

[OtinG]

I don't even use an app per se. I just use a folder named "News" in my Safari browser's bookmarks in which I entered the bookmarks to the news websites I tend to visit. I really don't care for any of the news sites these days as they are filled with advertisements, and everything but facts sometimes, but I use a few that are less terrible than the others. Since my Safari bookmarks are shared between my devices, I have them readily available on all my devices. I certainly don't see a need to pay any company for something I can easily manage on my own.

But having said that, we must admit that News+ has very little to do with news. The vast majority of current offerings in News+ are magazine related, and those magazines are not always news oriented. Most likely are not news related in the sense of what is going on today. I think Apple screwed up by naming this service News+ as that really doesn't seem to be the best descriptor for a magazine service that has a tiny bit of news included. Perhaps Apple was trying to use the idea of the old time newsstands that sold newspapers and magazines from kiosks situated along busy sidewalks and streets. But that era really doesn't fit well with the contemporary digital media and how people view that media.

[hollowpoint]

Originally Posted by OtinG

I certainly don't see a need to pay any company for something I can easily manage on my own.

Couldn't have said it better. And I am wary of anybody who packages stuff they define as 'news' on my behalf. I'd rather select my own mix of news sources, thank you very much. In a similar vein, Microsoft has now helpfully added a "Newsguard" feature into its mobile browsers to protect us all from content that doesn't match their center-left neocon slant. That'll really work.

Originally Posted by OtinG

But having said that, we must admit that News+ has very little to do with news. The vast majority of current offerings in News+ are magazine related,

It seems like most magazines are really declining in readership, I dunno, does anybody get magazines anymore? When I occasionally want to read one, like the Economist or Field and Stream, I'm fortunate to be able to log into a library and use the RBDigital app on iOS and read it for free.