Apple news app is off to a rocky start

A significant glitch has been found that reveals that no one-not Apple nor publishers-know how many people are reading stories in the new Apple News app, according to a statement by Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services, to the Wall Street Journal.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean that Apple News – redesigned previous year to partner with big media outlets such as The New York Times, Vice, and Time Inc. – is off to a stellar start. The tech giant retains 30% ad revenues from ad spaces sold to publishers; from the ads they sell themselves, the publishers receive 100% revenues.

Though the glitch is frustrating-as is its now elusive fix-its existence no doubt comes as some relief to both Apple and publishers.

“We’re in the process of fixing that now, but our numbers are lower than reality”, [Cue] said.

While Cue was quick to add that it was better to undercount than overcount traffic, the inaccurate numbers given to publishers is likely to have affected their ability to sell advertising and manage their resources accordingly.

Meanwhile, Bob Cohn of The Atlantic said that the size of audience Apple News can actually attract was “still an open question”.

The Washington Post’s mobile product director Julie Beizer says that the publication is satisfied with the traffic it has seen via Apple News.

Apple’s News app has hit an embarrassing stumbling block – the company goofed in the coding and, it turns out, isn’t quite sure exactly how many people are viewing news content within the app.

It is a surprising oversight, since accurate usage statistics represent the primary consideration for publishers making a major new investment into an established market-base such as Apple or Facebook – or Snapchat’s Discover.

Cue added that Apple was working towards the launch of a self-service ad-buying platform for iAd that it expects to launch in the next two months.

Of course, the fact that Apple News is still only available in three countries – the US, UK, and Australia – must surely be limiting the news app’s potential at this point. Apple allows publishers to keep 100 per cent of revenue when they sell their own ads into the app; they keep 70 per cent of ad revenue if Apple sells ads on their behalf.