Today, Apple announced that Apple News Plus, its premium news subscription service, is now available in the UK for £9.99 a month and in Australia for $14.99 a month. It’s the first expansion of the service since its March launch; previously, it had only been available in the US and Canada.
The service seems to be exactly the same as it is in the US and Canada; while Apple does highlight major British publications such as The Times, FourFourTwo, and Empire and notable Australian publications such as The Australian, The Daily Telegraph, and Australian Geographic in its press materials, US and Canadian subscribers can already access those too.
It’s a notable expansion for the service
Still, it’s a notable expansion for the service, which has had something of a rocky start. The service largely offers magazines — which makes sense, given that Apple News Plus was born from Apple’s acquisition of Texture, a magazine-focused subscription service, but doesn’t necessarily line up with expectations of “news” — and my colleague Nick Statt found the app difficult to navigate, with some articles poorly optimized for the iPhone’s screen.
Apple hasn’t announced where else the service might expand to, but we expect it will hit other countries at some point in the future. Some of Apple’s other services should be more widely available — Apple Arcade is already in more than 150 countries, and Apple TV Plus will be available in 100 at launch.