Bloomberg reports Apple is set to relaunch its March acquisition, Texture, as a paid news and magazine subscription service within the Apple News app. The new offerings will likely be packaged as a part of the Apple News app. The move could take place as soon as spring 2019.
The tech giant is preparing to relaunch Texture, an app it agreed to buy in March that offers unlimited access to about 200 magazines. The company plans to make it a premium product within Apple News, which curates articles and comes preinstalled on iPhones, according to people familiar with the matter. A new version could be unveiled as soon as this coming spring, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans aren’t public.
Apple is trying woo newspapers like the Wall Street Journal and New York Times to join Texture and plans to refine its design, which currently creates an image of what magazines look like in print, the people said. The new approach is expected to look more like typical online news articles. Apple, based in Cupertino, California, declined to comment.
Subscribers would pay a monthly subscription fee to gain access to the news and magazine library. However, Apple is said to be having issues convincing magazine publishers to go along with the idea. Publishers are concerned the revenues they would receive in such a deal wouldn’t match what they could bring in if they went solo. They are also concerned about ceding customer control to Apple.
Texture reportedly had around 200,000 subscribers when Apple acquired them in March. At that time, Texture subscribers paid about $10 per month. The company was paying publishers according to how much time a reader spent with their content. It hasn’t been confirmed whether Apple would take a similar approach to revenue sharing when it relaunches the service.
