Apple Releases Its Proprietary Apple News Format
Apple today opened up its Apple News Format to all publishers, giving independent publishers and individuals tools to offer rich media content within the Apple News app for iOS 9, as noted by Vanity Fair.
Creating an Apple News Format (hereafter, ANF) version of a site’s feed is not as straightforward as I had anticipated. Adding an RSS feed is as simple as plopping the link into News Publisher on
icloud.com, filling in some contact information, and adding a logo. But ANF requires an API key which can be obtained from Apple and a complete conversion of a site’s feed from RSS to ANF, followed by manual approval. And that’s all before the first article will appear in Apple News. After that, it’s a matter of publishing in a way that pushes out to Apple’s servers for conversion to ANF while maintaining compatibility with your site’s existing CMS.Why would anyone go through this? Well, the Apple News app doesn’t provide RSS analytics, and there are some additional monetization options exclusive to ANF. Additionally, ANF supports membership roles for writers and editors.
It’s curious that Apple News remains unavailable in most of the world.
