
Apple News No Longer Supports RSS - newscracker
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2019/12/26/apple-news-no-longer-supports-rss/
======
simonw
The weirdest thing about this is that Apple News still hijacks links to
Atom/RSS feeds - so if you click on one of those links in Mobile Safari you'll
be bounced to the News app, which will then display an error.

Here's a video I recorded of this behaviour:
[https://twitter.com/simonw/status/1210622908143415297](https://twitter.com/simonw/status/1210622908143415297)

I think I'd rather they displayed a dump of ugly XML in the browser, just so I
could copy and paste the URL into a feed reading app (I quite like Reeder for
iOS and OSX these days).

~~~
erikpukinskis
Apple's hijacking of links, addresses, etc, is possibly their top abuse of
power.

The other possible top abuse is the way they block you in your group messages
if you switch from iPhone to Android.

~~~
saagarjha
I'm not even sure their engineers understand how annoying it is. They've
implemented links in such a horrible way, and it's gotten worse with time (for
example, there is a feature where if you open a link and have the right
associated app installed, it will open the link in the app. There used to be a
way to force the link to open in Safari in case you didn't want to open the
app; it'd show up in the top right. The feature is gone now and it's hidden in
a very strange place that is unintuitive to find and difficult to perform–you
need to long press on the link and open it from there, but this invariably
happens after you've opened the link, it opens the app, and you go back to
Safari to now open it there.)

~~~
asiachick
this sounds like a privacy issue and should be filed as a bug. if I can't open
a link in a private tab in Safari (or ideally the browser of my choice) then I
can not protect my privacy. The launched app will get to record my activity or
via the non private browser tab the site will track me.

file a bug / feedback that this is not in line with Apple's privacy first
stance

~~~
tedunangst
If you're in private mode, it asks before opening in the app.

As ever, check first, then complain.

~~~
asiachick
Apple News has a private mode?

------
newscracker
Apple News was already flakey and unreliable in the sources (websites) it
would allow to be added. With its highly limited geographical availability
(years after launching) and its problematic focus on News+, I switched back to
a plain RSS Reader to follow specific sites.

Apple News seems like a niche product with hardly any technical effort put
into it. In comparison, Google News, with its ads, generally looks like a more
comprehensive choice for news. Not to mention it’s also “free” (of course, it
never allowed, AFAIK, adding RSS feeds from any site).

~~~
iscrewyou
Which RSS reader do you use?

~~~
pmoriarty
I use a terminal RSS reader called newsboat[1][2], which is an actively
developed fork of newsbeuter.

It's pretty feature rich, fast, keyboard-oriented (supporting vi movement
keys), and works great in the terminal.

Another great thing about it is that it runs completely on my own machine, so
I don't have to give away information about my reading preferences to any
third party, as would be the case for any hosted RSS service.

I love RSS because it gives me lean, fast, ad-free, bloat-free information. I
hope it never dies.

[1] - [https://newsboat.org/](https://newsboat.org/)

[2] -
[https://github.com/newsboat/newsboat](https://github.com/newsboat/newsboat)

~~~
kgwxd
I love newsbeuter, it's how I get all latest news about the death of RSS :)

~~~
fredthomsen
Feels like there has been a bit of a resurgence lately, not that I have any
hard data to back that up. The major players ie google and now apple have
dumped it, but most blogs and news sites still have rss feeds.

~~~
heavyset_go
When I follow a site via RSS, I go out of my way to reach out to the owner and
let them know I am enjoying their content via RSS.

If I site I want to follow doesn't have RSS, I reach out and let the owner
know I can't follow their site via RSS. A few people implemented RSS on their
blogs because of it :)

~~~
newscracker
Thank you. That makes a lot of sense!

------
tschellenbach
In case anyone wants to help:
[https://github.com/GetStream/Winds](https://github.com/GetStream/Winds)

RSS support is going to keep on going downhill unless someone builds a more
mainstream RSS experience. Most of the commercial options are focused on power
users. So you have this negative cycle of sites dropping support, readers
focusing on power users, regular users not using RSS -> continue the cycle.

------
jauke
The title doesn’t accurately reflect what’s going on here. Apple News hasn’t
supported users adding their own feeds for a number of years.

This article is about how publishers get their feeds into Apple News. Apple
now requires publishers to provide a custom feed format rather than an RSS
feed.

~~~
joegahona
That's exactly how I read it.

I cannot recall ever seeing Apple promoting non-ANF format, and publishers who
used RSS instead of ANF were not permitted to get analytics on their
product... so I guess it was just a matter of time.

------
LeoPanthera
Honestly I didn't even know that you could add RSS feeds to Apple News.

But I already stopped using it, because no matter how often I thumbed-up real
news, and thumbed-down clickbait and ads, the "front page" was always a
frustrating mix of mostly clickbait and ads.

I currently use the Google News app on my iPhone for "real" headline news, but
I'm not super happy about it.

~~~
reaperducer
IME, the thumbs don't do anything. The only way to have a real affect on your
news feed is to block channels.

For example, I follow the Chicago Sun-Times. And every day Apple News shows me
the Sun-Times horoscope. And every day I give it a thumb's down. Every.
Single. Day.

400+ thumbs later, it still shows up every day.

~~~
catalogia
What a waste. It would be trivial (and effective!) to simply implement a
bayesian "spam" filter that operates on the text of headlines to promote or
demote headlines according to user rankings. This could be done completely on-
device with utterly negligible power draw.

~~~
londons_explore
This is exactly how it works.

Yet 400 boolean data points is nowhere near enough data for any kind of
learning system to get anywhere. And without the cloud to aggregate data from
millions of other users, it'll never become great.

~~~
catalogia
From personal experience with a HN headline scraping IRC bot I wrote a few
years ago, 400 labelled headlines is more than sufficient to get pretty good
results. The threshold of usefulness should be closer to a few dozen rankings.

------
cpach
If you want RSS on Macos, take a look at Netnewswire:
[https://ranchero.com/netnewswire/](https://ranchero.com/netnewswire/)

~~~
bencollier49
I'm surprised they've not banned that because it replicates the functionality
of one of their apps, or something.

~~~
koheripbal
Why would providing similar behavior to an OS app warrant a ban? Many many
apps on various OSes supplement default OS apps.

~~~
Wowfunhappy
This was in fact a policy very early in the iOS app store's history. Not for a
long time though.

~~~
benologist
It's still in effect and the most recent example would be banning software
monitoring usage after Apple replicated the functionality themselves.

[https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/27/tech/apple-screen-time-
ap...](https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/27/tech/apple-screen-time-app-store-
banned-report/index.html)

~~~
pseudalopex
Apple replicated the functionality so they could crack down on third parties
abusing enterprise device management.

~~~
benologist
Apple actually recanted and removed the special rule they had added to make
those apps violate the TOS. Their review process didn't enforce that rule _for
years_ until after Apple started competing, then the apps were suddenly
"abusive" but it was actually platform abuse all along.

> The company estimated that Apple’s move cost it around $3 million, a
> spokeswoman told the Times.

[https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/04/with-antitrust-
investigati...](https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/04/with-antitrust-
investigations-looming-apple-reverses-course-on-bans-of-parental-control-
apps/)

~~~
pseudalopex
What did Apple recant?

The rules weren't special. The new exception allowing parental control apps to
use MDM is.

The intended use of MDM was always clear. Apple admitted abuse wasn't on their
radar until 2017. Cracking down right away would have left users without a
replacement.

Do you have any examples that are still in effect?

~~~
benologist
I'm having trouble finding the 2017 version of the guidelines where they added
the rule but they specifically targeted competing parental control apps and
mention that update and the subsequently-contrived violations here:

[https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/04/the-facts-about-
paren...](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/04/the-facts-about-parental-
control-apps/)

> We started exploring this use of MDM by non-enterprise developers back in
> early 2017 and updated our guidelines based on that work in mid-2017.

Then they did nothing about it for two years until Screen Time was ready:

> When we found out about these guideline violations, we communicated these
> violations to the app developers, giving them 30 days to submit an updated
> app to avoid availability interruption in the App Store.

The backlash they faced led them to recant and update their guidelines
allowing the very same parental controls and using the very same MDM
technology instead of the APIs they built for Screen Time:

> and in limited cases, companies using MDM for parental control services.

[https://developer.apple.com/app-
store/review/guidelines/](https://developer.apple.com/app-
store/review/guidelines/) (5.5)

[https://www.macrumors.com/2019/06/04/apple-lets-parental-
app...](https://www.macrumors.com/2019/06/04/apple-lets-parental-apps-use-mdm-
strict-privacy/)

~~~
pseudalopex
Some of the companies quoted their rejection emails. They all referred to
rules that other kinds of apps were rejected for too. None of them referred to
special rules for parental control apps.

Screen Time was introduced in 2018.

Recanting means renouncing a belief. Changing a policy because of backlash
doesn't mean they think the old policy was wrong.

------
danso
Not to minimize the concern over further erosion of RSS support, but I was
surprised Apple News supported it at all. I follow a lot of media people on
Twitter — a group who arguably is as still vocal (if not more) about Google
Reader’s demise as tech people — and I can’t recall any of them mentioning
using Apple News as an RSS reader (and just did a Twitter history search for
“Apple news rss” to confirm my offhand guess). Was the functionality to add
RSS buried or otherwise hindered?

That said, I already long ago followed the author’s advice to
“uninstall/remove Apple News”. The app experience was so terrible (at the
time, at least) that I hated being sent to it when clicking tweeted links that
were shared from Apple News.

~~~
tedunangst
I may be mistaken, but I didn't think the news app ever supported arbitrary
user specified feeds.

------
purplezooey
I wish companies would pay some attention to RSS. It's viewed as somehow less
than important than social media. But it's the only solution of its kind.

~~~
tadzik_
It's empowering the users while providing minimal control for the content
provider – no wonder for-profit companies avoid it like a plague.

------
kmfrk
I remember trying to set up a site for Apple News three years ago, and as I
updated my profile, RSS support disappeared. Apparently, it was a feature and
not a bug.

I abandoned Apple News pretty quickly as it became clear that it requires a
dedicated person maintaining Apple News support.

------
jbigelow76
I'm not surprised to hear this considering what an out-of-gate unquestionable
home run Apple News has been.I mean, it's been such monster success that Apple
knows even its dumpster fire of a UX and god awful search functionality aren't
enough to keep away the literal dozens of users it has. With no where else to
turn for news the Apple faithful will just have to accept that Apple's
decision to not support RSS really is the best decision for everyone one
involved. I for one welcome this brave new RSS-less future!

~~~
jauke
85 million monthly active users according to Apple.

~~~
joegahona
I wonder if they’re defining “active users” as not only people who open the
Apple News app, but also people who happen to see Apple News headlines in that
Today View screen (the screen left of the home screen). I’m still using an SE
so can’t be sure of this, but I’d bet all new iPhones still default to Apple
News piping into that view: [https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/view-news-
stories-in-...](https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/view-news-stories-in-
today-view-iph1e466ebee/ios)

------
koustubhs
I just went through the comments discussing general frustration with the
behaviour of Apple products. I think it is time to escape the walled garden of
Apple Inc. by using, maintaining, creating or paying for the programs from the
tree of FLOSS. Your opinion will be heard, and open standards adhered to as
far as FLOSS is concerned. For those of you complain about lack of good
hardware, there are some amazing hardware solutions like system76 for hardware
that is made for GNU/Linux.

~~~
BinaryIdiot
No phones, though. It's pretty much impossible (especially for the non-
technical person) to use anything but iOS or Android and actually be able to
do stuff other than calling people.

~~~
mantap
Sounds good to me. I only use my phone for web browsing, chatting and taking
pictures, plus a few easily replaceable commodity apps. The hardest thing to
replace would be whatsapp since they really have us RestOfTheWorlders locked
in good.

The reason I stick to iOS is because Android is insufficiently focused on
security and privacy, but if an OpenBSD of phones came along I'd happily use
it.

------
matt_the_bass
Funny this came up today. I was just trying to generate an RSS query from
archive.org so that I could load a set of search results as a podcast on my
phone.

Every time I tried the archive.org advanced search RSS results, my iPhone kept
redirecting to News app. Super annoying.

I ended up just figuring out the syntax manually and typing it into a text
editor before copy/pasting to Podcasts.

------
notadoc
Apple News is yet another walled garden, it's not too surprising they'd remove
the ability to customize your content experience beyond what they specifically
approve, is it?

Personally I still miss Google Reader and consider the demise of that service
as one of the biggest losses to the open web.

~~~
Andrew_nenakhov
Feedly does all Google Reader did, and then something more. I don't miss
Reader at all

------
kingludite
I test RSS/Atom readers/aggregators with an OPML with at least 2000 entries in
it. Most look pretty bad after that... they kinda _all_ looked pretty
b...baaad. (My own was never ready for normal use) My bias has it that Apple
news doesn't sound good enough to try.

It would be so cool if someone wrote a really good FOSS RSS Aggregator -
honestly. It would make my day every day. I would also like a really good news
group reader, a really good IRC client, a better mail client and a really good
text/code editor. (etc) Shards of awesome are spread out over 10 000
applications.

------
mariopt
It's curious this has only been spotted on HN now, I had to investigate a RSS
bug in November and found this myself.

This is apple "inviting" big magazines/newspapers into iOS or else.

------
spacemonkey92
When I first created this app "7Web"([https://7web.co](https://7web.co))
couple of years back many suggested why don't I just use RSS feeds.

Personally I'm not a big fan of RSS feeds mainly because I miss the
familiarity and UX of the original website where I spend half the time
browsing through Desktop and rest on mobile/iPad.

I thought its just me but many of my users still use this app everyday.

------
Nas808
That's a shame because I've been using it as a news aggregator while dodging
all their offers to subscribe to News+ articles like the WSJ, etc.

------
jauke
The comments on the quoted OSX Daily article suggest that News hasn’t
supported RSS since at least 2017, so not sure why this is news now.

------
bathtub365
Has there been any confirmation that this isn’t just a bug? It wasn’t clear
from the post.

~~~
Gaelan
That was my reaction too. I'd expect that if it was intentional, they would
have gotten rid of the URL handler.

~~~
bathtub365
Exactly, when Apple deprecates something they at least either communicate it
properly or handle it elegantly (in my experience at least).

------
ylluminate
Apple News was dead before it started. A lot of actually worthwhile news sites
and aggregators that we want/need don't even support RSS themselves anymore
for various legal reasons.

~~~
hazelnut
> various legal reasons

Care to elaborate on this or share a link?

------
tbolt
Apple makes many great products. Apple News is not one of them.

------
itsaride
Even it’s own links no longer work :
[https://www.apple.com/rss/](https://www.apple.com/rss/)

~~~
ken
Looks fine to me.

------
ivoras
That's sad, not that RSS was really viable since Google killed Reader, but
nevertheless, one more sad blow to the idea of a decentralised web.

------
modmans2nd
Flipboard is better than any news app I’ve used

~~~
skyyler
I've never used it.

Why do you like Flipboard? Why do you dislike other news apps?

How much does it cost? If it's free, how do they monetise?

~~~
modmans2nd
It’s free. You set up your likes and can mute news sources the. You can add
RSS feeds you want to read as well.

It lets you have the most control over your news feed than anyone else.

------
navs
I've yet to actually use Apple News. I don't understand why the News is not
available in New Zealand to this day.

------
Abishek_Muthian
Now, this is why I'm worried about Apple's supposed Internet; it could just
become Intranet.

------
skinnyasianboi
RSS feeds for the win. It keeps my feed clean and chronologically ordered.

------
moralestapia
Embrace, extend, extinguish. It's the 90s all over again.

~~~
fennecfoxen
Yes, and Apple is the new Microsoft.

(Microsoft, of course, is still the original Microsoft.)

~~~
stevehawk
You'd be hard pressed to convince me that Google is not the new Microsoft.
Apple is very much the walled garden nightmare but as far as embrace, extend,
extinguish, goes it seems like Google dominates that pretty hard.

~~~
kirykl
Google loves to acquire, stagnate, then extinguish.

------
superfist
Not entirely related, but I want to mention that we have almost 2020 and
Safari still doesn't support service workers push notifications (Push API).
Shame on you Apple.

~~~
npo9
Maybe I’m old school, but I don’t want push notifications from my web browser.

~~~
rblatz
I wish they completely disabled service workers. I don’t want some dumb news
site running code in the background because I visited the site once.

~~~
Dylan16807
Just when you're not visiting the site, right?

------
lawrenceyan
Ahh, the smell of monopoly in the air. Perhaps it's time to take a look at
breaking up Apple? /s

------
swiley
Mobile phone "platforms" are just thinly veiled attacks on users.

------
xtat
What is apple news?

~~~
grzm
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_News](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_News)

[https://www.apple.com/apple-news/](https://www.apple.com/apple-news/)

------
api
Just install a real RSS reader. There are many for every platform.

------
leonixyz
Why should they support it further if it cannot be used to track users?

------
Yuioup
Seriously people, Apple is a has-been. It's getting really sad now.

~~~
zippergz
If you think RSS support has any bearing whatsoever on a company's success, I
don't know what to tell you.....

~~~
Yuioup
Apple taking away features willy nilly in order to look cool is getting really
sad.

------
mastrsushi
More people spend time worrying about the decline of RSS than the amount of
people actually using RSS.

~~~
jankiehodgpodge
I don't know. I use Podcasts every day.

~~~
randomdata
That was my first thought as well. Apple's Podcast software still seems to be
fully supported.

