News+ is disappointing

[AZhappyjack]

I have been a subscriber to Texture for a couple of years, and love it. When I read that Apple had bought them and was working to roll their service into News, I was pretty excited.

Well, that was short-lived. The magazine interface in News+ is not nearly as functional as it is in Texture. In Texture, most of the content is hyperlinked - meaning I can click/tap on items in the table of content and jump directly to that article... and there's quite a bit of content within the articles that is also hyperlinked to things like supporting articles, tables, etc.

But much of the magazine content in News+ appears to simply be images of the actual magazine pages... so no hyperlinking to articles from the TOC, etc. What a massive disappointment. The magazine offerings in News+ seems to be better than Texture, but the reading experience in Texture is hands-down much better.

I will be cancelling News+ once the free trial ends.

 

[Dario69]

I have been a subscriber to Texture for a couple of years, and love it. When I read that Apple had bought them and was working to roll their service into News, I was pretty excited.

Well, that was short-lived. The magazine interface in News+ is not nearly as functional as it is in Texture. In Texture, most of the content is hyperlinked - meaning I can click/tap on items in the table of content and jump directly to that article... and there's quite a bit of content within the articles that is also hyperlinked to things like supporting articles, tables, etc.

But much of the magazine content in News+ appears to simply be images of the actual magazine pages... so no hyperlinking to articles from the TOC, etc. What a massive disappointment. The magazine offerings in News+ seems to be better than Texture, but the reading experience in Texture is hands-down much better.

I will be cancelling News+ once the free trial ends.

MacStories website has a list of magazines that support what you describe. They call it the Apple News format but it sounds more like the Texture format carried forward. They show half of the available magazines supporting the Texture of Apple News format.

Question, so are you finding magazines that once supported the Texture format but now display in the PDF like format without the hyperlinks? Just curious to see what actually carried forward from the publishers. The list is still growing but half of this list is still pretty impressive, if your magazines of choice falls into this slicker format.

I never used Texture but it sounded like a great product. Coming from the Zinio and RBDigital world I am digging this myself but if I came from the Texture world I might have mixed feelings.

Thanks.

 

[AZhappyjack]

MacStories website has a list of magazines that support what you describe. They call it the Apple News format but it sounds more like the Texture format carried forward. They show half of the available magazines supporting the Texture of Apple News format.

Question, so are you finding magazines that once supported the Texture format but now display in the PDF like format without the hyperlinks? Just curious to see what actually carried forward from the publishers. The list is still growing but half of this list is still pretty impressive, if your magazines of choice falls into this slicker format.

I never used Texture but it sounded like a great product. Coming from the Zinio and RBDigital world I am digging this myself but if I came from the Texture world I might have mixed feelings.

Thanks.

I have not checked every magazine, but so far, none of the News+ version of the mags also in Texture have reverted away from the hyperlinks to the page images... but again, I have not verified that on all of the magazines yet. The News+ service offers more magazines, and there a re a few that are in Texture but not News+.

For $10/month, I wold gladly move my subscription from Texture to News+ IF all of the mags were hyperlinked... now I have to weigh which is more valuable to me - more magazines or a better experience. I am leaning toward the experience...

 

[AlumaMac]

I have not checked every magazine, but so far, none of the News+ version of the mags also in Texture have reverted away from the hyperlinks to the page images... but again, I have not verified that on all of the magazines yet. The News+ service offers more magazines, and there a re a few that are in Texture but not News+.

For $10/month, I wold gladly move my subscription from Texture to News+ IF all of the mags were hyperlinked... now I have to weigh which is more valuable to me - more magazines or a better experience. I am leaning toward the experience...

Looks like Apple made the decision for you with the Texture shutdown announcement...

 

[AZhappyjack]

Son of a $#&%@(!, THAT's gonna leave a mark...

texture-to-shut-down-may-28

 

[Rogifan]

I have been a subscriber to Texture for a couple of years, and love it. When I read that Apple had bought them and was working to roll their service into News, I was pretty excited.

Well, that was short-lived. The magazine interface in News+ is not nearly as functional as it is in Texture. In Texture, most of the content is hyperlinked - meaning I can click/tap on items in the table of content and jump directly to that article... and there's quite a bit of content within the articles that is also hyperlinked to things like supporting articles, tables, etc.

But much of the magazine content in News+ appears to simply be images of the actual magazine pages... so no hyperlinking to articles from the TOC, etc. What a massive disappointment. The magazine offerings in News+ seems to be better than Texture, but the reading experience in Texture is hands-down much better.

I will be cancelling News+ once the free trial ends.

I’ve never used Texture but was complaining about the very same thing. Often times the cover story or best articles are near the back of the magazine. I don’t want to have to swipe through pages and pages to get to a featured story. I want a link that takes me right to it. And I’d like to see magazine content surfaced in categories. I have categories for certain actors/musicians/sports stars. If they’re featured in a magazine article I want that to be surfaced to me when I tap on that category. The magazines might be against it but if the service surfaces an article I wouldn’t otherwise see and I like it I might be more inclined to go back to that magazine to read other articles.

 

[Mad Mac Maniac]

I’d be curious to try News+ myself, but I’m thinking I may hold off for a few months (maybe even till iOS 13) to see if there are any format/layout improvements in the coming months.

 

[snowboarder]

I will be cancelling News+ once the free trial ends.

Same here.
The app is terrible. Both iOS and Mac. Impossible to find anything.
Impossible to bookmark or make a selection of my favorite mags. LA Times very limited.
Not listed, need to find an article first and then go to the main page. Same about WSJ.
Most smaller mags are just PDFs without any logical way of going through.
Pictures - not possible to zoom in (yeah, seriously).
Crazy how bad this thing is.
The only great thing - I can sample a lot of mags I don't know quickly in one place.

 

[Peepo]

No pinch to zoom is a deal breaker for me. I was seriously thinking of subscribing, but I have a real hard time navigating through it all. I like having full control of page with my fingers and scroll around fast, zoom in/out with my fingers... seems Apple has lost its way and forgot what Steve Jobs so proudly showed-off with the introduction of iPhone.

 

[culb0743]

Is anyone else noticing that after the "News+" update, the News app for Mac now triggers the discrete graphics on a MacBook Pro?

 

[Rogifan]

I know it’s Apple’s platform and they can do whatever they want but getting an ad for Apple News+ after every news section makes me not want to use the app. I have this feeling it’s only going to get worse now that Cook is obsessed with growing services revenues. Pretty soon there won’t be any part of iOS that isn’t advertising one of Apple’s services.

 

[KRG]

It seems like all the latest issues are in the new hyperlinked format...at least most of the ones I've read. A lot of the backlogged old issues are not. I anticipate this will get a lot better quickly as more and more mags adopt the News+ format.