The CEO and co-founder of Flipboard has some harsh words for Apple’s rival Apple News aggregation app.
Speaking at the Code Media conference, Mike McCue said that Apple News is “a product … living in the past,” and is lacking behind Flipboard in some very important ways.
Specifically, McCue singled out Apple News’ lack of social sharing capability and the lack of curation, instead relying on algorithms to single out the stories that are selected.
He also took subtle aim at the fact that Apple News makes readers view articles in-app, rather than redirecting users’ to a publisher’s own website as Flipboard does. “We’re not trying to create a closed ecosystem … and that’s a big deal for publishers,” he said. Apple News, he opined, represents yet “another format that publishers have to adopt.”
Despite this, McCue acknowledged that Apple represents, “a partner and a competitor at the same time.”
Flipboard vs. Apple News
Apple introduced its Flipboard-style Apple News app in 2015 as a replacement for its Newsstand app for iOS.
Since then, Flipboard has continually evolved in its attempts to stay ahead of what Apple is doing with its news aggregation service. A major 2017 update included the introduction of Smart Magazines, a feature that lets you put the best stories from your favorite sources in one place. Given that Flipboard now features an astonishing 34,000 different topics and more than 30 million magazines, it’s a way to make the content a bit more manageable to users.
Flipboard is reportedly used by around 100 million users, compared to Apple News’ 70 million. You can download Flipboard for free here.
Do you use either service? If so, which do you rate more highly? Let us know in the comments below.
Source: Recode
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
7 responses to “Flipboard CEO (verbally) flips off Apple News”
Great work guys. Onto Flipboard, I honestly don’t remember when I stopped using flipboard, it was that long ago. They have not evolved too (your article was very kind to them). Their team hardly listened for years when I kept pointing out that the ‘see more of’ or ‘see less of’ function simply didn’t work and was met with dismissive waves. There was less integration with publishers and more focus on ‘magazines’ that other users made. I can put our sites rss feed on flipboard if I want. They have no involvement with what is posted as it’s simply a feed; duplicated most time. It’s now 2018, what has changed or updated with Flipboard? Nothing really. Remember the early buzz about flipboard? There should be less complaining and more focus on evolving Flipboard to stay ahead.
Stopped using Flipboard when Apple News launched, and never looked back once. Deleted Flipboard from my devices a few years ago too. However, while Apple News is better in my opinion based on my usage, it still has room for improvement.
Totally agree. I didn’t want to mention Apple news as I didn’t want to come over as a fanboy who is bashing Flipboard, but Apple news is far better, and you can see the weight that Apple has put behind it…things can only improve, I hope.
Still using Flipboard as Apple still hasn’t made Apple News available here in Canada.
That’s shocking.
As time permits, I use Flipboard. My daily goto is AppleNews because personally, I don’t appreciate being thrust around the internet. I mean look at it, this day of concern regarding internet privacy allows me to feel better about reading news that is compiled through Apples news reader rather than being forced to visit sites who invariably are going to ask me if I want a membership and plant cookies all over my computer.
Exactly. But the Flipboard guy thinks we’re crazy and should enjoy being frequently traversing the net…wait, so what’s the point of Flipboard? Is it a bookmarking app?