Apple News+: first thoughts

Just catching up on this evening's Apple event, and the lunch of Apple News+ in particular. (My daughter's ballet show beats watching an Apple press event live…)

However, this video is an enjoyable paean to journalism at a time when the industry feels under siege…

At first glance, it does appear to be just Texture, which Apple acquired last year, fully integrated and upgraded into Apple's offer. As I wrote back then:

The other alternative is Apple's move into services. It already does music, is moving into TV. Journalism is the next logical step. Are we edging towards an “Apple News” subscription bundle, alongside your “Apple Music” one? It looks really likely.

It's clearly that, built on the Texture offer, with some new Apple feature upgrades, and some additional — news — publishers. The devil's in the details of those upgrades, though, so I need to spend a bit of time looking at them.

I'm seeing some negativity sloshing around about it — I think that's premature, but as John Gruber pointed out, we have been here before:

Are magazines still a thing? Didn’t Apple go down this same path with Newsstand back when the iPad first launched?

Yes, but this offer is very different. And it launches into a News app that is already well-used. Interesting times.