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The Internet News Apple Technology

Apple News No Longer Supports RSS (mjtsai.com) 49

Mac developer Michael Tsai reports that Apple News no longer supports RSS. The news comes from user David A. Desrosiers, who writes: Apple News on iOS and macOS no longer supports adding RSS or ATOM feeds from anywhere. Full-stop, period. It will immediately fetch, then reject those feeds and fail to display them, silently without any message or error. I can see in my own server's log that they make the request using the correct app on iOS and macOS, but then ignore the feed completely; a validated, clean feed. They ONLY support their own, hand-picked, curated feeds now. You can visit a feed in Safari, and it will prompt you to open the feed in Apple News, then silently ignore that request, after fetching the full feed content from the remote site. Simon Willison, creator of Datasette and co-creator of Django, points out that Apple News still hijacks links to Atom/RSS feeds -- "so if you click on one of those links in Mobile Safari you'll be bounced to the News app, which will then display an error."
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Apple News No Longer Supports RSS

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  • by Seven Spirals ( 4924941 ) on Friday December 27, 2019 @06:24PM (#59563428)
    Witness the 3.5mm headphone jack they also summarily tried to execute. That was the final straw for me along with their in-bed-with-everyone-who-wants-to-screw-me privacy policy. Android is even worse on that score. I went back to a Blackberry Passport running BB10. Even security-through-obscurity looks better than getting back in bed with Apple or Google.
    • Witness the 3.5mm headphone jack they also summarily tried to execute

      They still include that on some new laptops. It's only gone from phones and tablets mostly... where almost everyone uses wireless headsets now.

      That was the final straw for me along with their in-bed-with-everyone-who-wants-to-screw-me privacy policy.

      What what??? Who on Earth are you taking about here? Apple shares nothing with anyone - not even themselves!! The Apple privacy policy and technical controls are the gold standard currently

      • Most everyone does not use wireless headsets. Feel free to invent some more lies.

      • What what??? Who on Earth are you taking about here? Apple shares nothing with anyone - not even themselves!! The Apple privacy policy and technical controls are the gold standard currently and really good if you are interested in real privacy.

        This sentiment has absolutely no basis in reality.

      • by thogard ( 43403 )

        I went back to a Blackberry Passport running BB10

        Wow the system that has everything monitored by Canada and the CIA. What a terrible and insane choice you made if you truly value privacy.

        For those of us that have the ability to detect leaks (i.e. watch the network and antenna output), can you explain your comment? With the permissions set right, my BB doesn't leak anything to anyone. Modern google phones apps are passing private info between themselves at a rate of 33 times a second on a modern phone.

        • For those of us that have the ability to detect leaks (i.e. watch the network and antenna output), can you explain your comment

          Right after you explain yours, since my iPhone also sits often running through a network proxy where I watch traffic (for debugging purposes) and I can see nothing gets sent to Apple. So if your anecdote about watching network traffic means anything, the iPhone is AT LEAST as secure as your Blackberry.

          Meanwhile we already know Blackberry servers are scanned by foreign governments o

          • Sorry your "proof" is no proof at all. But thanks for continuing to lie for apple
      • Wrong: I donâ(TM)t use wireless headsets because the batteries donâ(TM)t last long enough. They do make a good status symbol for people with more money than sense though.

      • Who is this "almost everyone"? I see a lot of people still using wired headsets with their phones, myself included. The audio output volume of BT is shit compared to a good wired headset. I need to turn my music up LOUD. I use Android VLC with it's volume boosting feature because the even the stock player app with wired headphone sometimes doesn't seem loud enough.
    • by jrumney ( 197329 ) on Friday December 27, 2019 @06:51PM (#59563478)

      Its not really about whether it is useful, it is about whether they can control and profit from it. We have turned a dark corner since the early days of the internet, when the vision was for users to be empowered and for the internet to be the great equalizer. Now it is all about concentrating wealth and power into the hands of a few elite, and dumbing down the masses.

      • Now it is all about concentrating wealth and power into the hands of a few elite, and dumbing down the masses.

        Don't be daft. People are more empowered than ever. Have a good idea? Make a startup and get busy. If people actually consider what you like to be useful then you may even get rich.

        The reality is people continue to use devices that don't have features which points towards the fact that they weren't actively being used or required anymore.

        Maybe Apple is right. If they are wrong then I suggest you start an RSS news client and get rich from all the people who are abandoning Apple as we speak (but I wouldn't be

      • by HiThere ( 15173 )

        Unfortunately, while that was the idea of the visionaries (or at least many of them), it wasn't one that the public adopted. It was too much work. So power accumulated in a few places, and wherever power accumulates, those driven by the desire for power seek an advantage.

        Things haven't really been "dumbed down", they've actually been made more complicated. A few decades ago high school kids could easily learn to program on low end equipment. That's not really true today. They can learn on equipment tha

    • Like LineageOS?
      Or whatever the F(x)tec uses.

    • Also decent ad-blocking plugins in Safari.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I have a feeling that the circle of people who use RSS and Apple News is exceedingly small, if only because the Apple News circle itself is probably way smaller than the number of RSS users...

    • I have a feeling that the circle of people who use RSS and Apple News is exceedingly small, if only because the Apple News circle itself is probably way smaller than the number of RSS users...

      The only problem with this Story is that it is completely untrue.

      I can open Slashdot's RSS Feed on both Mobile Safari (does not hijack the Link, BTW), and in the Apple News App in iOS (just Search for Slashdot under the "Following" View).

      So, I don't get why this meme is getting any "traction".

      Oh, yes I do: Apple Bad. Right? (Not looking at you, SuperKendall)...

  • of course they deprecated RSS as a built-in a while ago, but there are some add-ons that work...

    • this is exactly what i do. I use Firefox with livemarks and the extension works much better than the previous built-in one that depracted.
    • It's more difficult to quote you when you begin a comment in the subject.

      there are some add-ons that work

      Add-ons do not work in Firefox for iOS. From this support article [mozilla.org]:

      Add-ons for the desktop and Android version of Firefox are unavailable for Firefox for iOS.

      Apple has created a proprietary iOS extension system which is incompatible with Firefox add-ons and extensions for Android, Mac, Windows and Linux. Also, iOS extensions written for other iOS apps won't work on Firefox for iOS (for example extensions written for Safari won't automat

    • Just use a webwebbrowser on your webbrowser, like a normal person, grandpa!

      Here, let's get you started: https://bellard.org/jslinux/vm... [bellard.org]

  • by shubus ( 1382007 ) on Friday December 27, 2019 @06:46PM (#59563466)
    I continue to regularly use RSS feeds as they are extremely useful. So Apple can go take a hike on this. Needless to say I don't use Apple News. I want no part of their censored "curated" news service.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • by ncc74656 ( 45571 ) *

        Can you name your favorite, like... three RSS feeds

        I probably have a couple or three dozen sites set up in TTRSS...including Slashdot. I can read the headlines in TTRSS (with either its web interface or one of the available Android apps) and if something looks interesting, it'll send me here. It's how I ended up reading this article and replying to your post.

    • I continue to regularly use RSS feeds as they are extremely useful. So Apple can go take a hike on this. Needless to say I don't use Apple News. I want no part of their censored "curated" news service.

      It's a lie. Both Mobile Safari and iOS Apple News still open RSS feeds just fine.

  • by NoMoreACs ( 6161580 ) on Friday December 27, 2019 @06:51PM (#59563474)

    Has there been any statement from Apple regarding deprecating these Sources?

    If so, then I agree, it seems stupid and terribly marketing-driven.

    But if Apple hasnâ(TM)t confirmed that this is on full-dimensional-purpose-this-way, it could very well be a bug in a shared framework.

    • I'm in agreement with you - we should wait and see if Apple says anything, one way or the other.

      But Apple's occasional "we know what's good for you, better than you do" attitude does seem to invite people to assume these sorts of happenings are deliberate.

    • Could be a bug. Software is hard and apple is no good at it.
  • The "R" in "RSS" stands for "red": it's a communist technology!!!111!!1!
  • by NoMoreACs ( 6161580 ) on Friday December 27, 2019 @07:12PM (#59563510)

    This link:

    http://rss.slashdot.org/Slashd... [slashdot.org]

    Still opens in Mobile Safari on fully-updated iOS. No muss, no fuss. No launching of Apple News.

    BTW, a DDG search for this story seems to point to only one âoeSourceâ.

    Methinks this is a meme-in-the-making.

    • I was unhappy when Apple killed native RSS support in Safari years ago (I much preferred Safari's RSS reader to the native reader in Firefox). I still have dozens of feeds that I monitor through feedly.com on Safari (in fact, that's how I found this story).

      Whatever reasons Apple may have for moving away from RSS, it isn't a big deal to find a workaround.

  • Just Opened the News App on a fully-updated iOS, searched for âoeslashdotâ under the âoeFollowingâ View...

    et voila!

    Opened up the RSS feed in Apple News.

    No muss, no fuss.

  • Which will be some batshit insane copy, merely based on webJSON over webHTTP over webSockets, over HTTP over TCP/IP over sockets. With DNS over HTTP too, of course.
    Requiring only 10GB of RAM and webGL.
    How primitive!

    At least until it will be phased out be the much better webwebRSS, implemented in webwebbrowsers.
    cuz web browsers r 4 webboomers, ok? get wif teh times!

    Signed,

    WhatTheActualyFuckWG

  • an app for that...
    Hope the good censor accepts your hard work into their walled garden.
    That your hard work on the code is not found to be sinful..
  • by guruevi ( 827432 ) on Friday December 27, 2019 @09:11PM (#59563718)

    RSS went dead for me when the majority of news organizations started inserting ads into the feed causing unnecessary alerts and some even kept bubbling up the same stories by updating the dates on the articles.

    Between that, the majority of media no longer publishing proper stories and the fact that most RSS readers started inserting their own ads, the medium is pretty much dead.

    Nowadays, anything I actually need alerted to will be push or text message and less relevant stuff email. News stuff is so widely available and fast I don't even want to be notified about it.

    • by antdude ( 79039 )

      I still use it like with software updates and releases, other local news, etc.

    • I kind of use it. I mainly use it via "Live Bookmarks," which are basically folders on your bookmark toolbar that auto-populate with new stories from sources. Since it was useful and I liked it, Mozilla decided to kill the feature, but luckily there's an addon for that. There's a similar addon I use on Chrome when I'm forced to interact with it.
  • by jon3k ( 691256 ) on Friday December 27, 2019 @09:15PM (#59563728)
    I read my news via RSS. If your site doesn't support RSS then I won't read anything from your website. I have dozens of feeds so I'm really not concerned if a specific site decides not to support RSS.
    • Same here. I even use a dedicated RSS client (QuiteRSS) that keeps track of 100+ feeds, including YouTube channels. For a browser extension, FeedBro isn't half bad for consuming your list of RSS feeds.

      None of these feeds show any ads and the content of the pop-up is configurable. That is, on my computer.

      The RSS handling on my (Android) phone is done without QuiteRSS and is indeed a much less enjoyable experience. So much so that I simply ignore messages when I have no option to disable them.

      A phone is a sub

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • I have dozens of feeds so I'm really not concerned if a specific site decides not to support RSS.

          Same here. I even use a dedicated RSS client (QuiteRSS) that keeps track of 100+ feeds, including YouTube channels.

          Can you name your favorite, like... 3 RSS feeds?

          Dude, really? The whole point of RSS is that you can track hundreds of sites if you want to. It's not about finding one feed for everything.

  • Just more code in the browser.

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