Apple is planning to launch its own premium subscription magazine service as part of the Apple News app, a new report claims.
Earlier this year, the company acquired magazine app Texture. Texture offers more than 200 magazines for a rolling price of $9.99 per month.
Since acquiring Texture, Apple has reportedly parted ways with 20 of Texture’s 100 employees. The remaining ones are now being integrated into the Apple News team. An app combining Apple News and Texture is expected to launch sometime in the next year.
As with developers in the App Store, or artists on Apple Music, the subscription service will work on a revenue split model. Apple will keep a certain percentage of the money brought in, while publishers will receive money as well. Exactly what that ratio will be has not yet been revealed.
The hope is that this service will join Apple Music (which was built on the similar acquisition of Beats) in helping bolster Apple’s Services division. Sales for this part of Apple’s business grew 23 percent to $30 billion in the 2017 financial year. Apple is targeting $50 billion per year by 2021.
Apple wants to get in on the publishing game
Although Apple News hasn’t exactly set the world on fire, Apple has long been interested in magazine publishing. When the iPad first launched in 2010, one of the apps Steve Jobs was most excited about was The Daily, a short-lived, iPad-exclusive newspaper that was the first subscription app Apple offered.
Can Apple replicate the success of Apple Music, which currently has around 40 million users? Would you be interested in signing up to an Apple magazine subscription service? Let us know in the comments below.
Source: Bloomberg
