Apple News+ has probably not taken off in the way that Apple originally hoped, and some publishers may not be happy with a feature discovered iniOS 14andmacOS 11 Big Sur.
According to a report fromMacRumors, based on a video published on Twitter by Tony Haile, it turns out that Apple has made it so that Apple News+ will automatically redirect readers to the service, rather than to a publisher’s website, if the “feature” is turned on. The potential bad news here is that the feature is turned on by default, so users will need to go turn it off on their own if they don’t want to be automatically redirected to the Apple News app.
You can see the toggle in the image at the top of this article, and users can turn the setting off.
This is effectively drawing more readers to Apple News/Apple News+, and could reduce a publisher’s traffic in a noticeable way.
Here’s Haile’s tweet on the matter:
Woah, I wonder how many publishers in Apple News+ realize that the new iOS14 and MacOS Big Sur are by default intercepting traffic to their sites and sending it to the Apple News app instead.pic.twitter.com/k4PQG9mE7M
— Tony Haile (@arctictony)June 10, 2025
A couple of things…
However, it’s also not a secret thatsome publishers are unhappywith Apple News+, which we reported on back in June of last year. Apple News+ has reportedly led to very little revenue related to advertising.
Will it matter?
What do you think? Is Apple doing some shady stuff here by automatically redirecting traffic away from publisher’s websites, all so it can favor its own app? Or is this perfectly okay because it’s only an Apple News+ “feature”? Let us know what you think in the comments.
