A few months ago, we commented here on Apple's alleged initial moves to relaunch Apple's TextureIt is the digital magazine platform purchased by Ma that acts as a kind of “Netflix of periodicals” that means you pay a fixed monthly fee and have access to a large catalog of all the latest issues of various magazines and newspapers in the world.
Texture continues to offer its service independently (ie, there is no mention of Apple on its pages or integration with the Apple ecosystem), but apparently that should change soon: Cupertino's plans are just to relaunch the platform as It's a service of its own, highly integrated with the News app and with lots of news. The problem? Publishers are not very excited about this idea.
Citing sources close to the subject, the Bloomberg recently published a story stating that Apple is trying to persuade publications like New York Times it's the Wall street journal not only to include your products in the new platform, but to adapt them to it. Texture currently displays a static version of magazine or newspaper pages on your smartphone or tablet (think of a PDF), but Ma's idea is to make content much more dynamic by bringing it closer to articles on the Internet.
Apple's plans also involve a change in the price structure of the service. Texture currently charges $ 10 / month, with an additional $ 5 if the user wants access to special publications such as New yorker. Ma wants to eliminate this “special plan” and charge only one subscription for $ 10 which encompasses all newspapers and magazines.
This of course amazes publishers: only the New York Timesfor example, it charges more than $ 10 per month for access to your online platform (after the introductory promotional months). No one knows exactly what the profit sharing of this new Apple service will be, but one sure thing will be a smaller gain than if each user makes a separate subscription. On the other hand, the number of people interested in Ma's platform may be exponentially higher after all, we are talking about a service built into tens of millions of devices around the world.
In a time of uncertainty for the publishing market (only in 2018, magazine advertising sales are expected to fall by 10%), an idea like Apple's can be both a lifeline and a swan song. Some ideas were thrown here and there: journalist Steven Brill, for example, cited the possibility of vehicles incorporating their paywalls within the platform which, in the opinion of this one who writes to you, would be a great stupidity. After all, are you already paying and would you have to pay even more to continue?
The fact that Ma is in the field: Company executives like Eddy Cue and former Cond Nast executive Liz Schimel are having frequent meetings with big names in the publishing industry to convince them that Apple's platform is a lifeline. for magazines and newspapers. They take Apple Music as an example, which has helped revitalize the music industry and has more than 50 million subscribers in less than four years.
If success is repeated in publications, we will have to wait and see.
via MacRumors
