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Glitch Caused Apple to Underestimate Apple News Traffic

Sunday January 10, 2016 11:29 pm PST by Juli Clover
Apple News IconPublishers who have been offering their content on Apple News have been receiving incorrect usage statistics from Apple due to an internal glitch that caused the company to miscalculate the number of people using the service, Eddy Cue told The Wall Street Journal in a statement this evening.

According to Cue, Apple has been underestimating the number of readers using the News app since it launched alongside iOS 9 in September. The problem went under the radar because Apple was busy working on improving other aspects of the service. Apple doesn't know how exactly many people are using the News app, but the company is working to fix the problem.
"We're in the process of fixing that now, but our numbers are lower than reality," [Cue] said. "We don't know what the right number is," but he added that it was better to undercount than overcount traffic.
In October, during Apple's fourth quarter earnings call, Apple CEO Tim Cook said Apple News had approximately 40 million users, but he did not specify whether that number represented people who use the Apple News app on a regular basis or if it was a number reflecting the number of people who accessed the app at one point or another. Cue echoed that number in his comments to The Wall Street Journal, but it is not clear if that is an accurate figure given Apple's current inability to calculate exact usage.

Despite not knowing how many people are using Apple News at the current time, Cue says that Apple News usage has "scaled very fast," and that the company is happy with the Apple News product's progress thus far. After launching in the United States in September, Apple News expanded to the U.K. and Australia in October with the launch of iOS 9.1.

As The Wall Street Journal points out, accurate readership numbers are important to publishers because the figures impact advertising. Publishers who share content on Apple News are able to keep 100 percent of proceeds from ads sold on their own, or 70 percent from ads sold through the Apple iAd service. According to Cue, iAd has been popular enough with publishers that Apple will be expanding the platform with a self-service ad-buying feature in the next two months.

Apple has partnered more than a hundred publications for Apple News, including The New York Times, CNN, ESPN, The Atlantic, The Daily Mail, Slate, and more. MacRumors is also on Apple News and can be subscribed to by clicking this link on an iOS device.

Tag: Apple News
[ 107 comments ]


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Klae17
36 months ago
This is what Tim meant by doubling down on secrets! No one will know how many users there are. Not even Apple!
Rating: 10 Votes
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TC03
36 months ago
Wow you mean Apple has a new service or product that has bugs and glitches? Impossible!
Rating: 9 Votes
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farewelwilliams
36 months ago
"We don't know what the right number is"

0
Rating: 9 Votes
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Jsameds
36 months ago

My problem with Apple's garbage "News" app, is that it forces itself on me in a horrific way.
I don't use this term lightly- but I feel like it's a form of visual rape.
I insulate myself from negative news because it's more than just "I don't care", it's that it really disturbs me & ruins my day. I don't want to read about ANY violence... not murders, not bombings, not crimes, etc. I choose NOT to allow that in my life.
I only read tech news. That's what makes me happy & that is my choice.
That has been working perfectly for many many years.
Actually, right up to when Apple started forcing this on me.
Even though I went through & tweaked my settings, unchecking "politics", entertainment", "sports", etc.. & ONLY leaving "Tech" checked; Apple IGNORES my preferences. Any time I swipe right I get sensationalist headlines "Actor died", "Suspect captured", "Market fell", etc.
I am NOT sue happy in the slightest, but I'll tell you what- if there's ever a class action about this, I'll jump.
I do NOT deserve to be force subjected to having this negativity shoved in my face, when I clearly have gone to great lengths in my life to avoid it.
Some people don't mind all that. I do. To me it's as bad, or worse than if they forced pornography to pop up unbidden, any time a user swiped right on their screen.
It is ridiculous, uncalled for, and an affront.
People should be able to control on their devices what they do NOT wish to view.


David Bowie has died, by the way.
Rating: 8 Votes
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The Doctor11
36 months ago
I love the news app for discovering news and I've been using it since the betas. Without the news app I was only getting news from here, 9to5Mac, and sometimes CNN.
Rating: 8 Votes
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Max(IT)
36 months ago
News still not available in Italy (and in most of the european nations). Is it so difficult to implements ?
Rating: 7 Votes
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FightTheFuture
36 months ago

Wow you mean Apple has a new service or product that has bugs and glitches? Impossible!

Yes, Apple seems to be the only computer company that has ever released software with bugs.
Rating: 6 Votes
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Mazenat
36 months ago
Wait, there is an Apple News app? :D:D

TBH I never use it.
Rating: 6 Votes
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MH01
36 months ago
Eddy, try google analytics, it's free ;)
Rating: 5 Votes
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gleepskip
36 months ago

I love the news app for discovering news and I've been using it since the betas. Without the news app I was only getting news from here, 9to5Mac, and sometimes CNN.


Have you tried Twitter, Reddit, Flipboard, Google News, Facebook, or The Onion?
Rating: 5 Votes

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