Apple News Plus To Reportedly Have This Spotify-Defeating Feature

It was reported earlier that the Cupertino tech giant is planning to introduce audio support to Apple News. Interestingly, it appears like things are shaping up with a recent discovery in the recently launched iOS 13.5.5 beta. The latest iOS build reportedly contains details confirming that Apple is preparing to offer audio support for some news

The newest set of details about the audio support on Apple News Plus comes from 9to5Mac. The site claims to have discovered the new audio feature on the company’s news app that features podcast style recording of long-form articles. There were rumors online claiming that the Cupertino tech giant was working on the said audio support earlier this year, but the latest discovery from 9to5Mac gives us the first look of the audio project on Apple’s News app.

The latest iOS 13.5.5 beta introduces a new audio tab to the Apple News Plus app, where the audio versions of the stories are stored. At the time of this writing, the tab is not fully functional, and no actual recordings could be played. However, 9to5MAc reported that its version contains articles with audio versions from various sites like People, Variety, Wired, New York Magazine and The Wall Street Journal.

The Cupertino tech giant may be currently working on the licensing details of the audio support of Apple News Plus. It is worth mentioning that this is not the first time that the industry heard stories about this audio feature. Digiday reported a similar story in May 2020 about the audio support. It also claimed that Apple has been working with publishers to join in the Apple News Plus in creating audio versions of their articles.

The iOS 13.5.5 beta is currently available to developers. Registered developers can visit developer.apple.com/download using the device where they want to run the latest iOS build. To activate it, download the beta profile open Settings, General, then Profile and enable it. Those who would like to run the latest iOS 13.5.5 build but are not registered developers can visit beta.apple.com and run the beta on their desired iOS device.

Sign up and follow the instructions on how to download the beta profile. The iOS public beta is usually available within the day of the launch of the developer beta. Apple has not yet released any statements related to the audio support or audio versions of Apple News Plus. While the new set of details is convincing and comes from a reliable source, it is safer to take this information with a pinch of salt.