It seems that the Apple company does not know the real number of people who are using one of its newest features, as Apple News app underestimated its popularity. The news app was launched in September last year and has since partnered with over one hundred publishing companies. However, Apple does not know the number of people who are reading the news via its application, and neither do media companies.
More precisely, Apple has underestimated the popularity of its application and has thus passed incorrect information to the publishing partners, including The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, the New York Times, Time Inc., the Washington Post, Vice Media and Business Insider. As the company has stated, it is always better to undercount traffic rather than overcount it. Is this a disaster? Not really, but knowing the numbers helps publishers manage their resources, as well as sell advertising accordingly. This does not affect them financially because they do not pay Apple in order to post to Apple News. How does this work? Publishers have to sell personal ads into the application. However, they can keep a percentage of 70% of revenues in case Apple sells the ads in their place.
Internet Services and Software senior vice president, Eddy Cue, has stated that Apple has overlooked the error because it paid more attention to other aspects. He did not explain why or when the issue will be corrected, but he informed us that the company is working on fixing the error.
On the bright side, Apple is pleased with the performance of its new application, and it has received positive reviews from most publishers. Several publishing partners have expressed their concern regarding the measurement of the audience, but also the uncertainties revolving around the serving and selling of ads. Others like Business Insider have stated that they expected more users to read their content posted on Apple News. The Atlantic is worried about the ability of both publishers and public to extract revenues for ads. Apple is trying to solve all the remaining problems, but the company remains positive with both the traffic of the app and the relationship with the publishing partners.
Apple News is now available in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. It runs on iOS9 devices which are equipped with the most recent version of the Apple operating system. According to Eddy Cue, there are about 40 million people using the app at the moment. The fact that Apple News app underestimated its popularity can be considered both a good and a bad sign: good because more people than expected are using it and bad because Apple seems unable to track them, and large companies cannot make such errors.
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Michael Turner
