Apple recently acquired Next Issue Media’s digital magazine service Texture, and today we are hearing reports that the company is planning to launch a News subscription service that will integrate the magazine app Texture into Apple News.
Texture currently lets users subscribe to more than 200 magazines for $9.99 a month. Apple will now integrate Texture technology and the remaining employees into its Apple News team for its premium news subscription. An upgraded Apple News app with the subscription offering is expected to launch within the next year. Apple will share a part of the subscription revenue with the magazine publishers that are part of the program.
Though Apple has Newsstand that combines several magazines and newspapers, the publications were only provided on an individual subscription basis. With simplified subscription service covering multiple publications, Apple could bring in new News use cases and generate new revenue something similar to Apple Music. Currently, Apple sells subscriptions for iCloud storage and Apple Music. Since the discussion just started, we don’t really have an exact timeline as to when the subscription will be introduced, but we are sure it will be sometime next year.