Apple Newsstand is a discontinued built-in

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application for the

iPad The iPad is a brand of tablet computers developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple that run the company's mobile operating systems iOS and later iPadOS. The IPad (1st generation), first-generation iPad was introduced on January 27, 2010. ...

iPhone The iPhone is a line of smartphones developed and marketed by Apple that run iOS, the company's own mobile operating system. The first-generation iPhone was announced by then–Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007, at ...

and

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. It was dedicated to downloading and displaying digital versions of

newspaper A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as poli ...

s and

magazine A magazine is a periodical literature, periodical publication, print or digital, produced on a regular schedule, that contains any of a variety of subject-oriented textual and visual content (media), content forms. Magazines are generally fin ...

s. It was replaced by

Apple News Apple News is a news aggregator app developed by Apple Inc., for its iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, and macOS operating systems. The iOS version was launched with the release of iOS 9. It is the successor to the Newsstand app included in previous versi ...

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Features

Apple Newsstand on iOS 6 on an iPhone 3GS

Newsstand was a visual shelf accessible directly on the iOS home screen, similar in style to iBooks. It emulated a

newsagent's shop A newsagent's shop or simply newsagent's or paper shop (British English), newsagency (Australian English) or newsstand ( American and Canadian English) is a business that sells newspapers, magazines, cigarettes, snacks and often items of loca ...

, with virtual shelves that held and presented each newspaper and magazine that had been downloaded. The Newsstand icon updated with images of the latest front covers, and displayed a notification indicator for new editions. There was a button in the lower right corner that linked to the Newsstand category within the

App Store An app store, also called an app marketplace or app catalog, is a type of digital distribution platform for computer software called applications, often in a mobile context. Apps provide a specific set of functions which, by definition, do not i ...

. After a newspaper or magazine was downloaded from the App Store, an in-app subscription to the periodical could be purchased with an iTunes account, and the most recent edition of the publication would be automatically downloaded and delivered in the background. Some of the largest and most popular printed newspaper and magazine names had published digital content specifically designed for mobile devices and

tablet computer A tablet computer, commonly shortened to tablet, is a mobile device, typically with a mobile operating system and touchscreen display processing circuitry, and a rechargeable battery in a single, thin and flat package. Tablets, being computers ...

s, and often included interactive content that was unavailable in printed form. After the release of Newsstand, newspaper and magazine brands had the option to move their existing separate iOS apps to be inside Newsstand. Previously, many brands had released their own separate iOS apps, and this gave them an option to either nest their existing apps completely within Newsstand only, or to optionally release a new version of their iOS app for Newsstand. This also enabled the app to be a part of the official Newsstand category within the iOS App Store, and to take advantage of various other features of Newsstand. One of the first apps to integrate with Newsstand when it was released was

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

, who moved their previously external iOS app to be inside Newsstand. Newsstand was available on iOS devices since

5, and worked with

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for syncing and re-downloading magazines and newspapers. Newsstand compatibility was determined by the Boolean value "UINewsstandApp" in an app's info. plist file, which could be unauthorizedly edited on jailbroken devices.

App vs. Folder

While Apple referred to Apple Newsstand as an app, it was actually a unique kind of folder, with individual apps of newspapers and magazines inside. Until iOS 7, it was impossible to place Newsstand inside another folder on any iOS devices, but that functionality was later enabled. Apple expressed the intention to replace the file system with easier forms of knowing where documents are; iCloud is one example. In the iOS file system all documents remain within applications. There had been some confusion about this from users who did not know it was already a folder, and thus found they could not easily add Newsstand into other folders they created on their devices, until many subsequently found a very specific folder creation method to bypass this deliberate limitation. However, as the operating system disallowed this, doing so could cause possible minor technical failures on the devices concerned and SpringBoard would crash. Apple addressed this with the release of iOS 5.1, which removes this bypass method, so Newsstand was then completely unable to be nested inside other folders. Many comments on Apple's own forums and many other technology websites showed that users of iOS devices wished that the Newsstand icon could be hidden or removed completely if they never intended to use it. As of

iOS 7 iOS 7 is the seventh major release of the iOS mobile operating system developed by Apple Inc., being the successor to iOS 6. It was announced at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference on June 10, 2013, and was released on September 18 ...

, Newsstand could be placed into a folder. However, for the purposes of full-screen gestures, accessibility functions and app switching, it was still treated as a folder on the Springboard. Prior to iOS 7, the folder appeared in the app switcher, despite being a folder instead of an app. However, the Newsstand folder was removed from the app switcher in iOS 7. In iOS 9, the Newsstand app was removed. It was replaced by

News News is information about current events. This may be provided through many different Media (communication), media: word of mouth, printing, Mail, postal systems, broadcasting, Telecommunications, electronic communication, or through the te ...

in regions where it was launched.

References

{{iOS IOS software

Features

App vs. Folder

See also

References