Apple unveiled a new TV streaming service along with the Apple Card credit card and a news subscription service.
Apple News is expanding into Canada with the Apple News app and a premium subscription model.
The company led off an event on Monday with an announcement that its free news app will now come in a paid-subscription version, called Apple News+, which curates a range of news articles and will include 300 magazines including National Geographic, People, Popular Science, Billboard and the New Yorker. Apple said the Canadian version will cost $12.99 a month within Apple News.
It’s available immediately in the U.S. and Canada in English and French. The paid service is coming to Australia and Europe (starting with the U.K.) later this year.
Canadian users already access the free Apple News service via the News widget on their iPhones and iPads. Going forward for users with up-to-date devices, the News widget will open into the Apple News app rather than loading web pages.
The Apple News app aggregates premier news content from a variety of sources, including Global News, for iOS and Mac OS users. The free news experience within the app on iPhone, iPad and Mac includes access to Top Stories, Trending Stories and a personalized feed of articles. It’s free to read Global News content and to add the channel to your list of favourite news sources. Customers must update to iOS 12.2 or macOS 10.14.4.
“Global News is thrilled to be a part of Apple News,” said Troy Reeb, executive vice-president of Broadcast Networks for Corus Entertainment. “Many Canadians already engage with our content on Apple devices and we are looking forward to what this enhanced experience will bring.”
Chief executive Tim Cook introduced Monday’s event at the glass-enclosed Steve Jobs Theater at Apple‘s Cupertino, Calif., headquarters, saying the event would focus on the technology company’s services, not its hardware. He said Apple‘s strength was “the seamless integration of hardware, software and services.”
During Monday’s event, Apple also lifted the curtain on a television and movie streaming service, introduced updates to its payment system, and launched a games arcade.
By highlighting services that run on its 1.4-billion consumer devices, rather than the devices themselves, Apple‘s strategy change is a momentous shift in emphasis under Cook, who succeeded the late Steve Jobs in 2011.
“It’s show time” is how Apple billed the launch, leading analysts to believe it would be its first splashy event not featuring new gadgets or hardware.
