14 December 2018 | Apple News is a Joke

The comparison to Apple Music in this post is faulty because Apple actually *likes* music and has made it an important component going all the way back the original iPod. News? Not so much.

Apple is a dilettante when it comes to news. It’s just not that invested in sticking with it, but rather prefers to make great noises every six months or so to give the appearance of treating news like it does music. The original Newsstand was a decent approach that failed because Apple didn’t care about it too much and it withered on the vine. Then we were all supposed to be wowed by Apple News which is just a big RSS feed whose primary selling point was “how beautiful it looked.” I cannot think of a more vacuous approach to news than that. And if you have an Apple News channel, you still need to use a browser to upload stories. There is no native app on macOS or iOS. Hell, you can’t even *schedule* a story being posted. If Apple is so serious about news, why such limitations?

News outlets are right to be wary. Tech companies and news have proven to be oil and water, as you have a generation of young know-nothings who sneer at journalism and print media but insist they have the answer to save both (a topic that is now over a decade old with no end in sight.) And it seems to be eluding people (particularly techie boyz) that journalism is not only hard, but takes resources and goes far beyond mere political punditry.

Otherwise, I’m fairly indifferent to Apple News.