Contact Apple News Support

Before we get to the headline of the review, let’s talk about some other highlights of the app. First, as an Apple One Premier subscriber you get the privilege to be served the same ads in the news feed and in the articles themselves as those who do not pay for the service. Not to mention, several content providers still require direct subscriptions to their service. Second, customization options don’t exist beyond “block this content” style options. You would think your thumbs up and down votes influenced what shows up in your feed, but it doesn’t. I still see the same thumbed down articles for days. Further, sections I don’t want to see still show up in my feed. Additionally, there is no option to show I’ve already read an article before. This could further assist in content customization, but it isn’t even available. Third, I find news doesn’t sync between my devices, especially thumbs up/down. So, let’s talk about that headline. Even when left in the background - and this is with background refresh off - this app completely drains my battery. It accounts for 52% of my battery usage and I have an average screen time usage of an hour and 38 minutes over the past 10 days. For. All. My. Apps. Finally, for a company that touts their tight integration between hardware and software as well as their seamless experience across devices; I find Apple completely missed the mark here.

I have the paid version of apple news. One of the options is to block publishers you don’t like to read and “like” publishers you do. You would think the point of this is to customize your news feed with articles you would be interested in reading. However it does almost the opposite. It seems apple is intent on pushing their stories regardless of my preferences or directly against my blatant request to block specific channels. Why provide the feature if you are simply going to avoid it. As a company that holds itself as the protector of privacy and rights, this is a sad and obvious example that actions speak louder then words. Case in point, to see how ingrained this was to the algorithm that chooses stories on my main board. I blocked the channel “the Washington post” I also disliked every story they posted for the past 2 weeks. I likewise did the opposite for the daily wire. Liking the channel itself and asking for “request more” on every story they published again for two weeks. What was the result? I still get headline new feed stories with “this article you’ve blocked, would you like to ready it” from the Washington post and still nothing from the daily wire. I get it, maybe you have a clear biased against specific news outlets, but don’t hide behind creating hallow user rights and fake choice options for your readers.

I love my iPhone, iPad, an MAC book-so I had high hopes when I received a free upgrade to Apple + News after upgrading my devices. Sadly I have been very disappointed. While Apple has been innovative with other apps, this one is a very disappointing—and obviously no one cares as the reviews have consistently been poor and yet there is no improvement. For a company of this caliber, this shouldn’t be this hard to fix! 1. The app is sluggish, doesn’t load easily or completely; ads load fast but story content falters frequently with constant spinning/searching for content that is so frustrating 2. When I block content I don’t want, it shows up anyway—so why did you bother to ask me? 3. The content doesn’t really reflect news—it’s more opinion focused—and I find that irritating. I’m an adult and I can certainly make up my own mind—I don’t need to be pushed toward ANY direction with an algorithm just because somebody thought it would be helpful—I don’t want this kind of help as it is NOT helpful 4. I pay for the content so why am I constantly being teased with additional content that requires additional payment? Seriously? I hate clickbate—same with all of the celebrity items—news flash—celebrities are not news!!