Almost exactly five years ago to the day, Apple announced a set of new features for Apple News and Apple News+, including the US-only audio stories, with about 20 professionally narrated stories a week. Now, the future is expanding to a few new countries.
Three more countries get audio stories
As tipped to MacRumors, Apple News+ Audio is now available in Australia, Canada, and the U.K., and can be found the same way American users have enjoyed it since July 2020: via the Apple News and, depending on the story, the Podcast app.
If you’re not familiar with Apple News+ audio stories, here’s Apple’s original announcement:
“Beginning today, Apple News will produce about 20 audio stories a week across a wide range of interests. Narrated by professional voice actors, these are audio versions of some of the best feature reporting and long-form pieces published by Esquire, Essence, Fast Company, GQ, New York magazine, Sports Illustrated, TIME, Vanity Fair, Vogue, Wired, and more, and newspapers including the Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal. Audio stories are now available to Apple News+ subscribers in the US.”
With today’s rollout, the feature is now available in all four countries where Apple News and Apple News+ have been released. The obvious limited scope is probably due to distribution and contractual agreements with publishers, as well as the challenges of producing localized, organic content in multiple languages.
Still, Apple’s continued investment in the platform shows, with last year’s launch of the Food section, and the newly-released new Emoji Game. Here’s hoping that momentum eventually leads to a broader global rollout.
Apple News+ is available for $12.99 per month with a 1-month free trial, or included with the Apple One Premier bundle.
Do you subscirbe to Apple News+? Do you listen to audio stories? Let us know in the comments.
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