When watching the WWDC2015 Keynote, I’ve noticed that the Newsstand icon wasn’t on any of the screenshots. Hmm… interesting. Shortly after that Apple announced “News”, it was pretty clear Newsstand was getting a “replacement”. iOS9 is still in beta, so I guess anything can happen, but I think it’s time to declare the new world order…

#1 Newsstand is still a Category on the AppStore

Not much changed here, even the covers are still around.

Newsstand - AppStore

#2 Newsstand “shelves UI” and the icon are gone – replaced with a generic app group

Just like any other group, it contains apps and icons. Covers are gone. I guess magazine covers still make sense on the AppStore, if the app uses them internally.

Newsstand - app group

#3 Newsstand apps are finally free to leave the group and exist anywhere on your home screen

Newsstand - freedom

What’s up with News?

News is interesting, because it promotes a completely new format for displaying news content. Interestingly, by taking away the focus from apps, which is a quite unusual move. I’ve got used to Apple being all about Apps. The introduction of “seamless linking” might help our case – following article links inside news would allow you to navigate straight to your app.

So far, it seams that News is much closer to what Flipboard is rather than what Newsstand used to be. I don’t see how News would be a better choice for “magazines” (just to clarify – I mean the “magazine” format – regular bundle of content behind a cover), but maybe the “magazine” format is not right for mobile? Do we all have ADHD and can only handle flicking through streams nowadays?

Personally, I still believe in “magazines”, I still think people should try to run magazines on the AppStore. News might turn out to be a great solution for news portals, but I find it very hard to call “News” a replacement for “Newsstand”, because it’s such a huge shift – maybe an “alternate approach”? Apple hasn’t killed magazines just yet.

I’m eager to see how this plays out.