Apple Beefs Up Podcast and News Offerings With Third-Party Subscriptions and Crossword Puzzles

Alex Weprin
·2 min read

Watch out New York Times: Apple wants a piece of the puzzle pie.

The tech giant has quietly rolled out a puzzles section of the Apple News app, featuring a daily crossword puzzle, as well as a daily mini-puzzle.

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In a sign of how seriously Apple is looking at puzzles, the company’s crossword puzzles are being created and edited with the help of the Puzzle Society, which has lined up well-known crossword creators to develop the offering.

“We’re taking a modern approach to the game that will make it more welcoming to newcomers,” wrote Apple’s puzzles editoe Ross Trudeau in an editor’s note Wednesday. “First, we want to challenge the attitude that you have to know obscure things to solve crosswords. With apologies to medieval-verse enthusiasts, we won’t be asking solvers to conjure answer words like Edda or eterne.”

Puzzles have become a priority for The New York Times, which has found that user engagement and stickiness is helped buy having them within its bundle, and the intellectual nature of the puzzles makes them a natural fit within a news offering.

It is not yet clear whether Apple will add other puzzles beyond its crosswords (the Times recently launched a new puzzle called “Connections,” to some success), but if its crosswords catch on, it seems reasonable to think that others will follow.

The addition of Puzzles to the news app is all part of a suite of enhancements to its services business, which includes Apple News, Apple Music, Apple TV+ and its podcasts app, among other offerings.

That includes more engagement between Apple services. Also included in its latest updates are updates to the Apple podcasts app that more closely aligns it with Apple News, Apple Music and other services. That includes bringing shows from Apple Music’s radio stations to the podcast app, as well as Apple News podcasts like Apple News Today. News is also launching a new podcast, called Apple News+ Narrated, which sees professional voice actors reading stories from Apple’s publishing partners.

“We’re excited to introduce Apple News+ Narrated for our subscribers,” said Lauren Kern, Apple News’s editor in chief. “Now subscribers can enjoy narrated articles representing some of the best journalism from News+ publishers on Apple Podcasts as well as in Apple News.”

And Apple, acutely aware that publishers have been leaning into their own subscription podcast offerings, is now connecting third-party subscriptions to the podcast app. So if a user is a Calm or Washington Post subscriber, they can connect their subscription to the podcast app, and listen to those subscription-only podcasts within it.

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