Apple appears to be moving ahead with plans to provide Apple News+ users with an option to listen to audio stories of some news stories, according to details found in the iOS 13.5.5 beta.
An Apple News+ audio icon in the beta
An icon depicting an Apple News+ Audio feature is present in the beta, along with some related imagery.
Apple is planning to offer a recap of the day's top stories, based on this wording found in the update: "Listen to a quick recap of today's top stories."
An icon that might indicate when a news story is available with an audio version
A rumor earlier this month from Digiday first pointed toward Apple's work on audio versions of its news stories.
Over the course of the last several months, Apple has been asking publishers participating in Apple News+ for permission to create audio versions of their stories.
An icon displayed when an audio news recording ends
Apple plans to handle production costs and compensate publishers for the audio news recordings in the same way Apple News+ payouts work. 50 percent of subscriber revenues go to publishers based on how much time subscribers spend with publishers' content in a 30-day stretch.
It's not clear when exactly Apple plans to roll out support for audio versions of news stories, but given that some of the assets for the feature are in iOS 13.5.5, it's a feature that could be coming soon.
Friday December 12, 2025 10:56 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Macworld's Filipe Espósito today revealed a handful of features that Apple is allegedly planning for iOS 26.4, iOS 27, and even iOS 28.
The report said the features are referenced within the code for a leaked internal build of iOS 26 that is not meant to be seen by the public. However, it appears that Espósito and/or his sources managed to gain access to it, providing us with a sneak peek...
Monday December 15, 2025 2:05 pm PST by Juli Clover
Last week, details about unreleased Apple devices and future iOS features were shared by Macworld. This week, we learned where the information came from, plus we have more findings from the leak.
As it turns out, an Apple prototype device running an early build of iOS 26 was sold, and the person who bought it shared the software. The OS has a version number of 23A5234w, and the first...
Monday December 15, 2025 3:05 pm PST by Juli Clover
Software from an iPhone prototype running an early build of iOS 26 leaked last week, giving us a glimpse at future Apple devices and iOS features. We recapped device codenames in our prior article, and now we have a list of some of the most notable feature flags that were found in the software code.
In some cases, it's obvious what the feature flags are referring to, while some are more...
The first foldable iPhone will feature a series of design and hardware firsts for Apple, according to details shared by the Weibo leaker known as Digital Chat Station.
According to a new post, via machine translation, Apple is developing what the leaker describes as a "wide foldable" device, a term used to refer to a horizontally oriented, book-style foldable with a large internal display....
Friday December 12, 2025 10:10 am PST by Juli Clover
Apple today released iOS 26.2, the second major update to the iOS 26 operating system that came out in September, iOS 26.2 comes a little over a month after iOS 26.1 launched. iOS 26.2 is compatible with the iPhone 11 series and later, as well as the second-generation iPhone SE.
The new software can be downloaded on eligible iPhones over-the-air by going to Settings >...
Monday December 15, 2025 4:23 pm PST by Juli Clover
Apple is testing iOS 26.3, the next version of iOS 26 that will launch around January. Since iOS 26.3's testing is happening over the holidays, it is a smaller update with fewer features than we've seen in prior betas.
We've rounded up what's new so far, and we'll add to our list with subsequent betas if we come across any other features.
Transfer to Android
Apple is making it simpler...
Thursday December 11, 2025 8:49 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple seeded the second iOS 26.2 Release Candidate to developers earlier this week, meaning the update will be released to the general public very soon.
Apple confirmed iOS 26.2 would be released in December, but it did not provide a specific date. We expect the update to be released by early next week.
iOS 26.2 includes a handful of new features and changes on the iPhone, such as a new...
Monday December 15, 2025 7:41 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple released the AirPods Max on December 15, 2020, meaning the over-ear headphones launched five years ago today. While the AirPods Max were updated with a USB-C port and new color options last year, followed by support for lossless audio and ultra-low latency audio this year, the headphones lack some of the features that have been introduced for newer generations of the regular AirPods and the ...
IMO, Apple's Music, News, and TV apps suffer from bloat and lack of customizability. It feels like an endless stream of randomly categorized contents.
It's made worse by the fact that contents that require additional payment (e.g., subscription to either Apple or 3rd party) are sprinkled throughout the page.
Where's the coherent minimalist design language Apple is known for? NYTimes is far cleaner and more aesthetically pleasing.
I don't want audio contents to be another randomly inserted contents onto already crowded News interface.
I would pay $10 a month for Apple News+ IF it removed all ads (why pay to keep seeing ads?) and it was actually giving you original content (currently the exclusive Apple News+ content is content you can get for free on that news source’s website... it’s not part of that new source’s paid content).
Access to subscription publications is the point of News+. I'm not sure where you live but here in Canada, we're getting The Toronto Star ($15/mo) and the Wallstreet Journal ($10/mo) in addition to dozens and dozens of magazines that you don't have access to without their own independent subscriptions. The News+ subscription pays for itself many times over.
I can wholeheartedly support this if it's to help the visually impaired or blind for whole stories but is the likely interface (Siri) up to linking at all together? Even if it's just a curated audio version of the news headlines in soundbite form its a step ahead but Apple must keep the investment going and make it compelling.
This is great, for a number of reasons, but the cost of the subscription needs to come down. It simply is not worth $10 a month.
As someone that pays the monthly price I agree. I hope for a bundle one day that will wrap several services into one price. Music for the family, storage, News, AppleTV+ once the free wears off. One payment would be nice and maybe Acrade too which I am not currently willing to pay for. Not a bad looking service, just don't play games that much personally.
