As Apple is prepping to launch subscriptions in the News app, one developer took and shared a few screenshots showing the upcoming subscription service in the News app for Mac.
These were taken by developer Steve Troughton-Smith from yesterday’s forth beta of macOS 10.14.4 beta, revealing a few previously unknown tidbits about the service. For starters, the service may feature its own sections or tabs like Following, For You, History, Magazines, My Magazines, Saved and Subscription.
We also know that digital magazines will be divided into 15 categories: Automotive, Business & Finance, Crafts & Hobby, Entertainment, Fashion & Style, Food & Cooking, Health & Fitness, Home & Gardening, Kids & Parenting, Men’s lifestyle, News & Politics, Science & Technology, Sports & Recreation, Travel and Women’s Lifestyle.
Next, macOS will notify subscribers when new digital issues of their favorite magazines are available. The same notification service was discovered earlier on iPhone and iPad by way of prior iOS 12.2 betas. It seems publication issues can be stored offline. Most of the code is said to be written in Apple’s modern Swift programming language, according to Troughton-Smith.
Despite the fact that the service will be called Apple News Magazines, it will host both digital magazines and newspapers. Texture, the digital magazine app Apple purchased in 2018 to serve as a basis for the service, provided access to 200+ popular magazines in the form of scanned pages or PDF files.
It’s unclear if these magazines (traditionally PDF-based on iPad) would get reformatted for interactivity and the iOS form factor or if the service might launch with PDFs and add proper formatting down the road.
We also don’t know if this will be an all-you-can-eat service.
For some context, the Texture app used to charge a flat monthly fee of ten bucks in exchange for unlimited access to digital magazines like People, The New Yorker, Time, National Geographic, Shape, Newsweek and more. Apple’s service may repackage and offer the same content as Texture, at the same or a slightly higher/lower price. Another possibility: Apple could let us pick and choose the magazines we want to subscribe to.
Apple today confirmed it will be holding a press event on March 25, with invite graphics suggesting a strong focus on an upcoming TV subscription service and, quite possibly, magazine subscription offerings in the News app. We also expect other announcements like next-generation AirPods along with an updated budget iPad and a fifth-generation iPad mini.
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