The Most Important Announcements From the Apple Show Time Event
In its latest keynote address, Apple announced four new services that will help it delve deeper into the world of news, entertainment and … banking? As analysts and reporters predicted, Apple has announced a paid magazine subscription and streaming service similar to Netflix. He also announced Xbox Game Pass-style game subscriptions and, coolly enough, his own credit card .
While each of these products represents a major mine of money and collective attention in their respective industries, Apple has introduced each of its new services as premium paid versions that Apple already provides. So, upgrading to the more expensive version of what you are already familiar with should be easy, right? At least Apple hopes so.
Apple News +
First, Apple announced a premium subscription to Apple News with a focus on magazines and prestigious publications. The new Apple News + service gives you access to over 300 publications for $ 9.99 per month. Most of them are magazines, including The New Yorker , Wired , Sports Illustrated , The Atlantic , Time and others. The subscription also provides access to some premium digital assets including The Skimm, Vulture, The Cut, and TechCrunch, as well as two national newspapers, The Wall Street Journal and The Los Angeles Times . Or at least some version of The Wall Street Journal .
Unlike Texture, an independent app that provides a similar service (which Apple acquired last year ), publishers will create special editions for Apple News with scalable layouts of individual articles for mobile and tablet. The navigation and formatting of these print publications will be geared towards online readers who are much more used to crawling content article by article rather than issue by issue.
Apple News + launches in the US and Canada today and will roll out in Europe this fall. If you sign up, you will receive a one month free trial. As with many of its subscriptions, Apple also allows family access to Apple News +, which allows up to six users in a family to share a single subscription.
Apple Card
In what should be the craziest news of the day, Apple has partnered with Goldman Sachs and Mastercard to create its own digital credit card. Designed to sync with Apple Wallet and Apple Pay, Apple Card’s main selling points are transparency and easy navigation: the menus you use to pay bills and track expenses are full of vibrant user interfaces and interesting infographics. Apple said that syncing the map using Apple Maps and transaction data makes the transaction history clearer and more concise. He also said he would use analytics to spot trends in your spending. And if you run into problems, you can get support for your Apple Card through Messages.
At its core, the Apple Card is a money-back card, but with a couple of new ideas and features to reward Apple. Users receive two percent cashback on all purchases paid daily and three percent on purchases in Apple Stores or spent on Apple services. Apple said it would offer higher interest rates or incentives to pay off card debt more often. Finally, there will be no late fees, over-limit fees, or international fees.
While the Apple Card is primarily designed to work in tandem with your phone, there will also be a physical card. It’s very sleek, as you’d expect from Apple. It also doesn’t have a credit card number: just your name and chip. Apple (obviously) wants you to use Apple Pay whenever possible – you only get one percent cashback when you use a physical card versus Apple Pay.
Is this a good credit card? This remains to be seen. Apple Card goes on sale this summer. In the meantime, financial writer Lifehacker Alicia has some thoughts on this.
Apple arcade
On the heels of Google’s new video game streaming platform, Stadia, comes Apple’s relatively conservative approach to gaming. Apple Arcade is a video game subscription service for iOS, Apple TV, and Mac that gives you access to over 100 games for a one-time fee, similar to Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass .
All games in Apple Arcade can be called “premium” mobile games. That is, they do not offer microtransactions or advertisements; you would spend a few dollars to download them from the App Store and play them forever. With the mobile market shifting primarily to subscriptions, Apple is looking to bring more innovative and, dare I say, interesting games back to iOS.
As with games you buy from the App Store, an Apple subscription allows you to download games and play them online or offline. (Apple almost certainly stressed this to get to the bottom of Google, whose service was criticized for requiring a fast internet connection.)
All games in Apple Arcade are “mobile exclusive”, meaning they will not be available on Android (at least I believe some of them will appear on PC and consoles). They will also not be available through other game subscription services.
Apple Arcade will launch in over 150 countries this fall. However, there is no information yet on how much this service will cost.
Apple TV +
Last but not least, Apple has officially announced its plans to fight Netflix with its own Apple TV + premium subscription offering. In preparation for the service’s fall launch, the Apple TV app is undergoing a major overhaul and huge expansion: you’ll find it on macOS this fall, as well as a wider range of devices such as smart TVs from Samsung, LG, Vizio and Sony. This even goes for the Roku and Amazon Fire TV streaming boxes, because the larger the potential audience, the more Apple can get from that nice monthly fee … whatever it is. (Apple hasn’t announced this key point.)
Apple spent most of its time on Apple TV + talking about some of the original apps coming to the platform. The company has put forward several big names, including a series of sci-fi anthologies from Steven Spielberg, a tale of a young girl aspiring to become a singer in New York, from the JJ Abrams and Sarah Bareilles children’s show. the creators of Sesame Street and three Oprah projects: two documentaries and a new show, Oprah’s Book Club. Gizmodo has a full list of shows that Apple announced in its Apple TV + explanation .