Alongside the release of iOS 9.2 today, Apple is making some improvements to its recently launched News app that it hopes will improve the service for both readers and publishers.
One of the changes is listed in Apple’s release notes for the iOS update: “A new Top Stores section in News so you can stay up to date with the most important news of the day.”
The new Top Stories section will be available in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia (everywhere News is), but will presumably include a different selection of stories for users in each country. Recode has a bit more information on the new feature and notes that in addition to the curation based on a user’s preferences, Apple News editors will now “assemble a handful of stories it thinks all of its users would want to see. You know — like a newspaper.”
Back in June ahead of the launch of Apple News with iOS 9, we noted that Apple was hiring human editors to curate content for the News service, and it sounds like today’s update will put them to use.
And while Apple has allowed publishers to keep ad revenue for ads they sell on their own or 70% of iAd revenue that Apple sells on behalf of publishers, Recode reports that it’s now integrating ComScore technology to track traffic and make sure publishers “get advertiser credit for the views their content generates.” Having those stats will be helpful to publishers attempting to sell ads for content on the service and will also give them insight into how their content is performing in the app.
You can check out the full release notes for the iOS 9.2 update here.
