Did Apple’s News+ announcement seem familiar? Ask Scott Forstall [Video]

Chance Miller | Mar 27 2019 - 2:46 pm PT

It’s no secret that Apple News+ isn’t Apple’s first foray into digital magazines. In 2011, the company debuted Newsstand, which pre-dates this week’s announcements.

A new comparison video, however, shows the striking similarities between the Newsstand announcement in 2011 and the Apple News+ announcement in 2019.

Scott Forstall, who was an Apple senior vice president at the time, introduced Newsstand in 2011. Forstall pitched Newsstand as the future of digital news, with publishers maintaining their own apps that were offered through the Newsstand store.

Meanwhile, on Monday at Steve Jobs Theater, Apple’s VP of Applications Roger Rosner took the stage to introduce Apple News+ after an introduction from Tim Cook. Apple News+ is a $9.99 per month subscription service that integrates 300 magazines, as well as traditional news organizations such as The Wall Street Journal and LA Times.

The similarities between Forstall’s pitch for Newsstand and Rosner’s pitch for Apple News+ are strikingly similar. Both express their love for magazines and newspapers, both reference identical example magazines, and more.

Eventually, Apple removed Newsstand from iOS altogether, replacing it with the Apple News app in iOS 9. Now, Apple News+ is integrated directly into the News app. It’s essentially as if we’ve come full circle.

There are inherent differences between Newsstand and Apple News+. The two function a lot differently, with Apple News+ integrating a mixture of PDF magazines and magazines optimized for the Apple News format through a single subscription. Newsstand, however, didn’t offer a universal subscription.

The keynote presentations for each of them are humorously similar, though. Watch the comparison video below.