Apple News no longer supports user-added RSS feeds

Apple News for iOS and macOS has stopped supporting new RSS and ATOM feeds. The change means only curated news approved by Apple can be read within its News app.

Developer Michael Tsai reports that tapping on an RSS link on an iOS device will launch Apple News like before, but now it now throws an error and the feed doesn’t load. Previously users could view news from any website within Apple News using its RSS or ATOM link.

Apple hasn’t said anything about the change but it appears RSS support disappeared at least a month ago. If you have already added RSS feeds to Apple News they should continue to work (for now).

It’s not unlike Apple — The company dictates what’s allowed onto most of its platforms, and in that sense, this isn’t very surprising. Apple last year removed podcasts from conspiracy theorist Alex Jones from the Podcasts app and iTunes store for violating its rules against hate speech. It could be argued that by allowing a site like Jones’ Infowars to show up in the News app, even if someone manually adds it, the presentation alongside mainstream publications could lend it an appearance of legitimacy or approval.

Apple may be taking a stand against harmful content that Facebook and others have largely been unwilling to do.

Will RSS believers ever find a home? — Still, the change might be upsetting for those of us who long used Google Reader only to have it taken from us. Apple did not exactly warn anybody that it was going to remove RSS support — and now anyone who was using it is going to have to go elsewhere. I would recommend Pocket — it’s been around for years and is now owned by Mozilla.