How to Get Your Blog on Apple News

As a blogger, getting your content in front of as many people as possible is crucial to growing your reader base. One way to broaden your reach is to take advantage of Apple News as a publishing platform so that iOS users can easily discover your content. Fortunately, getting an established blog on Apple News takes nothing but an Apple ID and a little patience.

Two Ways to Publish

Apple News offers two different formats for displaying your content in the News app. If you have some extra time, you can publish your articles in Apple News Format, which allows you to create a custom visual theme and gives you access to more advanced features like analytics. There are third-party Apple News Format plugins available for popular content management systems such as WordPress and Drupal, and you can find the instructions for setting up Apple News Format in the News Publisher documentation.

However, if you’re in a hurry, you can simply add an RSS or Atom feed to your Apple News account. We’ll be covering that method in this post. If you’re using WordPress, you can take advantage of its built-in RSS and Atom feeds for this tutorial.

Publishing Using an RSS/Atom Feed

Adding a blog to Apple News with just an RSS or Atom feed can be accomplished in a few quick steps:

1. First, head to the Apple News sign-up portal. The sign-up process for a News Publisher account is handled through iCloud, so you’ll need an Apple ID for this step.
2. Next, enter your publisher information. Apple News requires a name, email address, and mailing address to proceed.
3. After setting up your personal News Publisher account, you’ll be able set up a “channel” for your blog. This is separated from the previous step, and requires you to provide a phone number.
4. Next, you can break off and set up Apple News Format, or you can skip directly to adding an RSS/Atom feed. You can even add multiple feeds if you have different streams of content.
5. Once you add your feed, Apple News will ask if you want to upload branding for your channel. Apple has clear guidelines for this optional branding in the News Publisher documentation, but you can skip this step too if you’re short on time.

Finally, your new News channel containing your blog’s feed will be submitted to Apple for review. The waiting period can vary, and it took about three weeks for Apple to approve the Atom feed for my blog. You’ll get an email from Apple if your submission is approved, and you should be able to find your channel in the News app immediately.