The New York Times

It was discovered by Larry Salibra and others that Apple has been disabling its Apple News Service in China. Perhaps most troubling is how Apple is doing this:

They’re censoring news content that I downloaded and stored on my device purchased in the USA, before I even enter China just because my phone happens to connect to a Chinese signal floating over the border. On device censorship is much different than having your server blocked by the Great Firewall or not enabling a feature for customers with certain country iTunes account. That Apple has little choice doesn’t make it any less creepy or outrageous.

The New York Times reports that Apple confirmed, off the record, that it is indeed turning off Apple News in Mainland China.

Apple has disabled its news app in China, according to a person with direct knowledge of the situation, the most recent sign of how difficult it can be for foreign companies to manage the strict rules governing media and online expression there. Customers who already downloaded the app by registering their phones in the United States can still see content in it when they travel overseas — but they have found that it does not work in China. Those in China who look at the top of the Apple News feed, which would normally display a list of selected articles based on a user’s preferred media, instead see an error message: “Can’t refresh right now. News isn’t supported in your current region.”

China is Apple’s most promising market but unfortunately it is controlled by a government that wields total control over information and the media. Simply removing the news App might be better than upsetting Beijing.  Google famously ran afoul of the Chinese government in 2010 after sustaining a state-sponsored hacking attack on its Windows computers and was effectively kicked out of the country. Only in the past few months have attempts been made to mend the bridges.  Apple certainly doesn’t want to hurt its cash cow over censorship. From a PR perspective, it probably doesn’t want to hand the reigns over to Beijing either.

I don’t expect this to change soon. 
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The iPhone 6s and 6s Plus are launching in just four days time and right on schedule the embargo on reviews have been lifted. Apple is touting the new phones as major updates over the 6 and 6 Plus, with 12-megapixel camera and 4K video recording, ‘3D Touch’ pressure-sensitive display to enable quick actions across the OS, Live Photos and more. We’ve already seen an early hands on with the iPhone 6s thanks to an early delivery but now the official tech reviews are live.

So what’s the verdict? We’ve rounded up the highlights below from those lucky enough to get the phones early …

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Re/code has an interesting look at the three different approaches major news organizations are taking to their Apple Watch apps.

The New York Times will dispatch one-sentence stories that answer the question, “Hey, did you hear?” in a conversational tone. The Washington Post will pick one story — say, an article about the end of tipping — and storyboard it like a movie or TV show, using a combination of graphics, images and text to adapt it for the 38 mm (or 42 mm) screen. CNN will let people personalize their news feeds by picking from among a dozen topics and choosing how they’d like to be notified (a tap on the wrist or no?).

News organizations weren’t particularly quick to adapt to the Internet, trying to stick to their existing business models in the face of rapidly-changing consumer behaviour, but this time the major players believe they are ready …

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