Apple is rolling out new tools for its imaginatively named Apple News news app to local newspapers, independent publishers and even bloggers, expanding the amount of content you'll be able to read on your iPhone, according to media reports on Tuesday.
The News app, which is baked into the iOS software that powers iPhones and iPads, aggregates news sources into one feed and builds personalized recommendations based on what you read. Apple has partnered with more than 100 media companies since launching the app in September, including The New York Times, Conde Nast and (full disclosure) CNET.
Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The expansion is part of Apple's battle with rivals, including Facebook and Google, to capture more of your mobile attention by delivering content quickly. Next month, Facebook is opening Instant Articles, which accelerates the loading of news stories posted to the social network, to all publishers.
Google has a similar project called AMP, which stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages. The company says AMP pages load four times faster and take up less wireless data than a regular article page.
Apple is also promising to make it easier for publishers to see how articles are performing in the News app, according to the reports. In October, CEO Tim Cook said around 40 million people were using Apple News. However, the company later admitted it didn't know exactly how many people were reading articles on the app.
Apple had been underestimating the number of readers due to a software bug, Apple executive Eddy Cue told the The Wall Street Journa