clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Apple to Launch New Flipboard-Like App, While Newsstand Goes Away

Newsstand tended to bury publisher's content, so Apple's coming out with a new app that it hopes will drive more subscriptions.

Recode.net
Peter Kafka covers media and technology, and their intersection, at Vox. Many of his stories can be found in his Kafka on Media newsletter, and he also hosts the Recode Media podcast.

Apple plans to announce a free, Flipboard-like product that will show consumers samplings of content from big media partners including ESPN, the New York Times, Conde Nast and Hearst, sources say.

At the same time, Apple is going to do away with Newsstand, the app that stored and distributed newspapers and magazines, which some partners complained tended to bury its content. Individual publishers will sell apps within the app store like any other developer. This follows on the steps of familiar efforts from Facebook and Snapchat, as well as Flipboard, to publish content directly on their own apps.

Publishers will keep 100 percent of the advertising they sell within the Flipboard-like app while Apple will help sell unsold inventory and take a cut at rates that one publisher described as “very favorable.” Apple will continue to take a 30 percent cut of revenue from subscriptions sold through the publisher’s own apps.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.