Apple News Plus: 7 tips to use the new subscription service to Apple's magazines

Apple News Plus, the new premium news service the company announced during a star-studded event on Monday, gives you unlimited access to the iPhone, iPad and Mac more than 300 magazines and newspapers, and packed with features designed to help you discover the stories that interest you.

The premium subscription service is available in the United States on iOS 12 and MacOS Mojave for $ 9.99 a month, with a free trial of one month so you can check. And the good news is that up to six family members can share an Apple News Plus subscription via iCloud Family Sharing, with each member having control over their favorites and personalized recommendations.

This subscription gives you unlimited access to hundreds of publications – including Time, Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, Sports Illustrated, National Geographic, Wired, Skimm, Vulture, The Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal – all at the same time. Inside the Apple Application News.

In addition to the United States, News Plus is available in Canada and offers more than 30 Canadian English and French language magazines as well as The Toronto Star. The premium service will be deployed in Australia, the UK and Europe later this year, Apple said. ($ 9.99 converted to about £ 7.50 or AUD14.)

I downloaded the new service and it was easy to configure it on an iPhone and a Mac. It's also easy to locate what you're looking for, either by browsing the catalog or by scrolling through thematic tabs, which span everything from trade to gardening to the top of the application.

The $ 10 all-inclusive monthly rate is certainly attractive if, like me, you subscribe to several publications. I pay for digital versions of several newspapers, I get a daily physical journal and subscribe to three or four more weekly magazines. He adds: The monthly access to the Washington Post costs $ 3.99 with an Amazon Prime account. A basic digital subscription to the New York Times costs for example $ 15 a month and access to the New Yorker Digital Edition costs $ 8.33 a month.

And it is not just about saving money. It is convenient to be able to manage all of my subscriptions in one place instead of linking all my subscriptions from the publications websites to the News app.

Here's how to start and use Apple News Plus.

1. How to install Apple News Plus

News More Apple is available on the iOS update 12.2. Here's how to download the update and set up a premium subscription to News Plus on your iOS device.

1. To get it on your iPhone ($ 1,000 at Amazon) and iPad ($ 250 at Amazon)Click Start, Settings, then Software Update and press Download and Install. The update is large and, depending on the speed of your connection, may take a long time. It did it for me.
2. On your Home screen, tap the News icon.
3. If you have not set up News yet, press in the setup screens, indicating whether you want to allow News to access your location to customize your news exchange.
4. Tap the News Plus button at the bottom of the News window.
5. News Plus offers a 30-day trial to check the service. So, press the red Start button to begin.
6. Press the red button Try free in the next window.
7. The application may ask you to log in using your Apple ID. If you need to sign in, tap Settings and enter your Apple ID and password. Then go back to the News app.
8. Press the blue confirmation button to indicate that you want to start your trial subscription.
9. Enter your Apple ID if you are prompted to log in and start your trial.

The configuration on MacOS Mojave is similar. Download Macos Mojave 10.14.4 at first. Again, it's big so book a little time. Once the update is open, open the News app, click News plus in the sidebar and follow the instructions. You may need to log in at some point using your Apple ID.

2. How to browse the catalog of publications

A subscription to News Plus gives you unlimited access to all plan magazines and newspapers. You can browse the catalog to view the entire collection, then press a magazine cover to display its table of contents, if the magazine contains one – but not all. Publishers can also create an animated magazine cover, which gives them an attractive look similar to Live Photos. I love the look of animated covers, but I only saw a couple from National Geographic and The Cut while I was browsing the collection.

To access the application, tap the Browse Catalog tab to view all current publications. Magazines are sorted alphabetically, starting with ABC Soaps in Depth. News Plus divides the catalog in two by placing publications from A to M on one tab and pages from N to Z on another.

3. How to read a magazine

Tap a magazine cover to start reading. For magazines without a table of contents, browse the pages by pressing the Next arrow in the lower right corner of the page.

For those who have a table of contents, scroll down to view the table of contents, and navigate to a story by touching it.

The main window also displays the current magazine you are reading in the My Magazines area. The last magazine you opened appears here, but I have not found an obvious way to queue in front of more than one magazine.

When a magazine is open, you can press the Share button in the upper right corner to share the magazine with another News Plus subscriber. You can also go back to the beginning of the magazine by tapping the magazine thumbnail in the lower left corner. Tap the back arrow in the upper left corner to return to the main page.

4. How to find a magazine by subject

At the top, you can scroll through the tabs to locate a topic that interests you. Listed in alphabetical order, the tabs range from Business & Finance to Women's Lifestyle. Tap a tab to see the collection of magazines that Apple has collected in the collection.

5. How to find the selected content

On the main page, scroll down to see the magazines and articles highlighted by Apple. The selections I saw while browsing included a Rolling Stone article on Game of Thrones, travel tips and a selection of news on business, entertainment and science.

6. How to download a magazine

If you want to read the magazine offline, tap the download button under the cover of the number to save the magazine to your phone. Once the magazine is downloaded, you will not see the download icon.

7. How to find newspapers

You can search for logs in the Browse Catalog tabs at the top, but you will not find them here. Instead, to locate the Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times, scroll down My Magazines and other highlighted content until you find articles in The Journal. Do a little more scrolling and you will arrive at the highlights of the Times. To see what newspapers have in News Plus that day, open an article, and then tap the newspaper name at the top of the screen to view the available articles.

Originally published at 12:01 PT, March 26th.
Updates, 16:13 and 20:53 PT: Adds the details of installation and configuration; March 27: Adds details about the use.