Update: The issue appears to have been fixed.
While you’ll have to wait for a not-yet-announced date to pay a not-yet-announced price for several of the subscription services that Apple announced yesterday, Apple News+ actually launched pretty quickly … and then started crashing.
At least, that was my experience this morning after I updated my iPad to iOS 12.2, then reinstalled and opened the News app. The app started loading, then kicked me out a few seconds later. Then it did it again, and again, and again.
It’s not clear how widespread the issue is, but my colleague Matt Burns had a similar experience on his iPhone 8, and a number of other users seem to be tweeting about their own crashes on iPads, iPhones and Macs.
Wow, Apple News is instant crash this AM for a bunch of us.@AppleNews
If I cancel my sub will it start working again? pic.twitter.com/mLAWgsMzyb— Ty Graham (TyGraham@pnw.zone) (@tygraham) March 26, 2019
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There are, however, reports that you can circumvent the issue by immediately selecting the News+ tab and letting it load.
In fact, I managed to do that myself, so that I could sign-up for the new $9.99 subscription (which includes TechCrunch’s own Extra Crunch). I appear to have subscribed successfully — only to have the app start crashing on me again.
Not the most auspicious start for a paid product, and one that’s already spurring debate about whether or not it can help the news industry.
https://twitter.com/stroughtonsmith/status/1110539171779743744
