Apple iOS 9 - news reader and ad blocker

Positives for the user reading experience.

Possibly negatives for publishers if they choose to remain stuck in the past.

http://mediagazer.com/150916/p8#a150916p8

http://www.poynter.org/news/mediawire/373305/apples-news-which-launches-today-is-the-latest-in-a-trend-toward-distributed-content/

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/09/vf-apple-news-ios-9

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/09/you-can-now-read-new-york-on-apple-news.html

http://www.wired.com/2015/09/apple-finally-kills-newsstand-make-way-apple-news/

http://thenextweb.com/apple/2015/09/17/ios-9s-main-attraction-adblocking/

http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/17/9338963/welcome-to-hell-apple-vs-google-vs-facebook-and-the-slow-death-of-the-web

create crappy, bloated websites, and users revolt.

and don't blame innovation that originates at Google, Facebook, Apple, Snapchat, WhatsApp, Instagram, etc. and satisfies information consumers.

iOS 9 came out yesterday (in fits and starts) and with it, support for content blockers in iOS 9. There is already a little cottage industry of ad blockers available, and you should definitely try one or two — they will radically improve your mobile web experience, because they will... block huge chunks of the web from loading.

Yes, because the blame for a miserable mobile web experience does not belong to phones and browsers like a dimwitted Verge.com writer proclaimed back in the summer.

The blame for a dreadful web experience on any device belongs to the web site owners.

Tons of useless JavaScript, numerous large images, and dozens of trackers and other goop all conspire to bog down a user's web experience.

That's why I improve my web reading experience by disabling JavaScript and/or by using the NoScript and Ghostery browser plugins.

I could read the article by using the Readability browser plugin on Chrome.

Safari has a simple-reader option.

I could use the Links browser too.

I could use Curl or my own web script to access and clean up a web page.

Provided the content is not behind a paywall.

I would pay a significant annual subscription fee to the Toledo Blade if they served article pages to paying customers in a format similar to this:
http://testcode.soupmode.com/article/post8.html

[Apple] offers publishers salvation in the form of Apple News, inside of which Apple will happily display (unblockable!) ads, and even sell them on publishers' behalf for just a 30 percent cut.

Oh, and if you're not happy with Apple News, you can always turn to Facebook's Instant Articles, which will also track the shit out of you and serve unblockable ads inside of the Facebook app, but from Apple's perspective it's a win as long as the money's not going to Google.

Therefore, stick with plain old web browsers, such as Safari, Chrome, or Opera on the iPhone.

But that means slow-loading content from piggy websites.

Maybe people will use Apple News, Instant Articles, or Snapchat's media service because those apps will load content much faster and display it much better than the publishers' websites, and then the users won't mind the ads.

#media #design #rss #mobile #advertising