Following his interviews centered around the new Apple TV, Apple’s SVP of software and services Eddy Cue has now sat down with CNN’s Brian Stelter to discuss the News app the company launched alongside iOS 9. In the interview, Cue and Stelter discuss a variety of points surrounding News, including Apple’s main goal with the app, the expansion to additional countries, and revenue sharing.
Cue stated that the main reason Apple created a pre-installed app for reading news is because it’s something “everyone uses everyday.” Cue elaborated that Apple only pre-installs apps that it thinks users want and will use on a daily basis.
“We’ve only created the apps that we think everyone uses every day… We really wanted to create a single app that all customers could go to, to read all their news — no matter what they are interested in, no matter what topics, no matter what publications they want to follow — and get that experience that they’re used to with our products, where it looks beautiful, it’s really easy to read and yet it provides all the content available around the world.”
When asked about revenue sharing between Apple and publishers, Cue explained that publishers can choose to sell their own ads and keep 100 percent of the revenue, or have Apple sell them, in which case Apple will take a 30 percent cut. Cue said Apple benefits from News by “creating a great application on our devices,” implying that the goal is not monetary in Apple’s eyes.
Cue also explained that by launching its own News app, it allows journalists to do what they do best and not have to worry about developing a standalone app. Specifically, Cue noted that News allows small publishers to share their stories with the world.
“I absolutely believe in that. It was one of our main goals when we were building Apple News. We thought of things from, you know, even church newsletters to a stamp club… A lot of those organizations today still print and mail, which is even more expensive.”
Stelter then asked Cue about expanding News to more countries, specifically China. The Apple executive revealed that the company is working on a version of the app that it hopes to launch in China soon, explaining that Apple has a great relationship with China and isn’t facing any hurdles in its expansion.
Cue explained that Apple is not looking to employ journalists at all, but rather build technologies and a platform on which journalists can share their writing.
“It’s not in our plans at all. Again, we try to focus on what we do really well. We build technologies and we know how to do that really well. We think there are great journalists around the world and we want to empower those journalists to get their content right to the customer.”
The video version of the interview can be seen below. Cue ends the interview by stating that Apple appreciates “great journalism more than rumors,” while going on to state that journalism is very important and that Apple wouldn’t “trade it for anything in the world.”
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Let it be available in more countries!
Love Apple News!!!👍
I love the News app but it crashes constantly for me on my iPhone 6.
“Cue elaborated that Apple only pre-installs apps that it thinks users want and will use on a daily basis.”
And happily ignores when, in the real world, those users dare to think otherwise and really wish they could delete the Stocks, Weather, Podcasts etc. apps. Don’t start with that “they mustn’t be deleted, they are core system elements” argument – Apple could very well leave that core functionality (e.g. weather forecasts for Siri) in the system and still allow the user to delete the app icon from the homescreen, with an option to re-enable it in the Preferences.
“… explaining that Apple has a great relationship with China and isn’t facing any hurdles in its expansion.”
Really, no hurdles in China? Not even a tiny little bit of censorship? Or isn’t that considered a “hurdle” anymore. just a totally justified request by China’s government?
See, 9to5, Apple doesn’t like you, Eddy Cue said that they don’t appreciate rumors :P
I like apple but I don’t like cue… don’t know why. maybe because he’s so weird at the keynotes
When does the NEWS app come to Europe?
Especially Luxembourg! Apple iTunes Europe sits in Luxembourg, most of your billions are here, why don’t you support our country: NO News App, NO localised Siri, NO localised iPhone (except for the dates in calendar), NO 3D flyover, NO search in Maps related to any info, though navigation works well.
Forgot and NO Apple Pay, from this month on all cash terminals in Luxembourg are NFC capable as all new issued credit cards allows for contactless payment from now on.
Oh come on. The population of Luxembourg is around half million. Localization takes money, time or both. It is obvious that small markets are not being served first. The issues you mention are the fact in many countries around Europe and the world, some way larger than yours. When Malta, Cyprus and Iceland have all the services you could start complaining, AFAIK they don’t. :)
News app is available in UK, and will likely come to big European markets when they just have the time. Many languages, many local news organizations, it will take time, I guarantee Luxembourg is not on top of the list.
Where Apple holds its money is irrelevant in terms of their services, I’m sure your banking sector and tax man are very happy regardless.
@seurahepo
I know our population is very small, with about 50% of the population aren’t even Luxembourgers. But compared to other countries we do use more cellphones than any other country. 92,4 % of the inhabitants have at least 2 cell phones especially iPhones! Plus over 98% of the country is covered the cell phone access.
It’s true it is irrelevant where Apple holds its money, but by paying nearly no taxes 1,5-2% our gov did Apple (and many several thousand other companies WikiLeaks and LuxLeaks) big favours, so Apple could come up with more services. They did make billions of profit. Point.
So why no Apple Pay here? Well the banks here don’t want Apple as they don’t accept any other foreign electronic payement systems except their own. Which is why they are often months behind the standard. Best example is a luxembourgish certification stick for digital signatures of many kinds inclusive money transfers. Since OSX 10.11 it’s broken! Culprit JAVA. The company had more than 6 months to remidy the situation. It’s every year the same mess.
As for the data for other services like Maps etc. The data is there, other companies do use it since years (TomTom has a very good POI database for Europe) but apparently Apple wants to maximize its profit and paying less for any service.
Since years Microsoft has localised Windows and the complete Office Suite (inkl. the PRO version) to our language. And now anyone in the education field (teachers, students…) do get MS Office Pro incl. unlimited cloud storage for free on 5 devices. OK our gov propably did pay millions, but MS did this in the USA last year, this year in Europe and South America and next year it’s Asia’s turn. And every time everything is localized!
You’re right localization take time and money, but the profit they gain here with the low taxes and strange bank practises, should allow them to setup these services.
On Andoid devices it works! So I don’t want one of these.
In my country, iOS with every release feels more and more crippled. No spotlight suggestions based on your location, no news app, no public transport in maps app. I really want to know why are these features disabled:-/
I tried it…and it keeps showing me articles that are weeks old. Immediately lost interest.