
Apple WWDC15: Tim Cook announces a new 'News' app
"Best mobile reading experience ever"
Among the reams of new offering announcements from Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, yesterday, which included the Apple Beats and the new iOS 9 update, came the less buzzy but nonetheless exciting – News app announcement.
The new app is set to replace the somewhat underwhelming Newsstand app that, in its current incarnation, is designed to mimic published titles. The new app does away with this concept and embraces a digital newsfeed model in what Apple vice president, Susan Prescott, calls the "best mobile reading experience ever."
At launch the app already has 20 leading publishers onboard, including Condé Nast, Hearst Magazines, The Economist, The New York Times and Time Inc. News reflects what digital news consumers today expect. With the new app, user's feeds will become personalised to see news stories from the publishers they like. But the app will also learn users' preferences and show them other stories based on what they read (in a similar way to how Apple Beats will make music suggestions based on recently listened to tracks). "News is smart," Prescott said. "The more I read the better it gets at showing me stories I'm interested in."