Apple recently launched its new News service, which comes to replace Newsstand and go head to head with the popular Flipboard app.
The company's Newsstand was never a huge hit with publishers or consumers, so Apple decided to change its approach and develop a Flipboard-like service. Apple News now comes as a magazine-style application that serves relevant articles based on a user's interests and preferences.
Users can choose the topics they're interested in, such as sports, finance, tech and more, and also select their favorite publications so they don't miss out on the latest news. Once users select their preferred topics and publications, Apple News will then serve up relevant content in a magazine-like layout, offering a full-screen experience complete with inline photos and videos.
In other words, it all sounds very similar to what Flipboard has to offer, and the two services are expected to go head to head. Shortly after News became official, Flipboard's CEO said that Apple's new service is something that Flipboard introduced half a decade ago. Let's have a closer look at the two services and see how they stack up against each other.
First of all, Flipboard offered an unprecedented and unparalleled experience when it launched back in 2010. The app serves as a news aggregator that allows users to follow various news categories such as tech, fashion and the likes, as well as follow publications, blogs and the likes.
From this point of view, Apple News is very similar to Flipboard. On the other hand, Apple News lacks the comprehensive social media experience Flipboard has to offer. More specifically, while users can link their Facebook or Twitter accounts to Flipboard to easily share or see what they're friends are reading, Apple News doesn't offer such functionality.
In terms of layout, the early photos and screenshots suggest that Apple News may look somewhat better than Flipboard. The design of Apple's News app is visually appealing, offering rich text and the type of image layout typically found in top-notch magazines, while also allowing publishers to have a say on the matter. The Apple News Format enables publishers to create editorial layouts, as well as custom typography, and animations will make the photos, videos and audio "spring to life" for a more immersive experience, as Apple itself touts.
When it comes to the curation process, the two services are slightly different. With Flipboard, user curation is front and center, as the user's choices and preferences are what matter most. On the other hand, the heavy social media integration acts as a curator itself, as it shows users content their friends have shared via Facebook or Twitter.
Apple News relies on user curation as well, serving content based on the users' selected preferences. Instead of the social media curation Flipboard adds to the experience, however, Apple News may have real journalists working as human editors, as some Apple job postings suggest.
These editors would help manage certain categories, curate coverage of big news events, create comprehensive newsletters and such, which could give Apple News an edge against Flipboard.
Bottom line, Apple News is shaping up as an exciting, quality service for iOS users, offering a stylist design and a solid curation process. Flipboard, on the other hand, is an established service that already enjoys a wide user base, and its heavy social media integration may work in its favor. It's still early to determine which of the two services will prove more successful, as the Apple News just made its debut, but some heated competition will nonetheless ensue. Apple News will launch in the fall with iOS 9 and be available as a free app.
