Apple’s Acquisition of ‘Texture’ Will Give Apple News a Massive Boost

On Monday morning, live from the annual South by Southwest (SXSW) conference and media festival in Austin, Texas, Apple’s Senior VP of Internet software and services, Eddy Cue, announced that his company has inked a deal to acquire the popular digital magazine subscription service, Texture.

While the financial and logistical terms of the agreement have not been revealed yet, Apple confirmed the news via a press release published to its official website, in which it acknowledged that terms are still in the process of being worked out.

“We’re excited Texture will join Apple, along with an impressive catalog of magazines from many of the world’s leading publishers,” said Cue, who revealed the news alongside Apple’s press release, adding that “We are committed to quality journalism from trusted sources and allowing magazines to keep producing beautifully designed and engaging stories for users.”

What Is Texture?

Founded back in 2010, Texture offers iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users a subscription-based service at $9.99 per month, which gives them unlimited access to over 200 digital magazines — including new issues, as well as a searchable archive containing thousands of past issues — with the option to download any of them for easy offline reading.

Among the available titles include a wide-range of supermarket check-out stand favorites including..

• People
• Vogue
• Rolling Stone
• GQ
• Sports Illustrated
• Wired
• Maxim
• Men’s Health
• Bloomberg Businessweek
• ESPN The Magazine
• National Geographic
• Entertainment Weekly and hundreds of others.

Echoing Cue’s sentiments on Monday was John Loughlin, Chief Executive of NEXT Issue Media — the publishing corporation who owns both Texture in addition to a laundry list of other publishing houses and media companies.

“I’m thrilled that Next Issue Media, and its award-winning Texture app, are being acquired by Apple,” Loughlin said of the news, adding that “The Texture team and its current owners, Condé Nast, Hearst, Meredith, Rogers Media, and KKR, could not be more pleased or excited with this development. We could not imagine a better home or future for the service.”

The Future of Apple + Texture

Confirming that it had “hundreds of thousands” of monthly subscribers as recently as 2016, Texture will certainly bring a new dynamic to Apple’s constantly growing services business — which one analyst valued at a whopping $260 billion, in itself.

Cupertino’s acquisition of the firm will more than likely not only bolster its digital services revenue, but also, potentially, heal its (somewhat fractured) relationships with some of the industry’s biggest publishers.

Currently, iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch users can download Texture from the Apple App Store and take advantage of a free 7-day trial offer. And Apple confirmed, moreover, that the service will remain live for other OS platforms including Android, Amazon’s Kindle, and Windows 10.

Meanwhile, Cue confirmed that once the acquisition is complete, Texture will be integrated into the broader Apple News app, which is clearly among the iPhone-maker’s most burgeoning services considering that it continues to implement lasting changes to make it better and better.

Learn how to view an Apple News article in Safari for Mac, here. And don’t forget to follow iDrop News on the Apple News app.