Apple News Review Wait Times

Question

Created Oct ’19

Replies 21

Boosts 0

Views 6.1k

Participants 17

Is anyone else having issues with wait times for publishing on Apple News? Our account has been in the "Under Review" status for well over two months and all I get is the following response from Apple:

"Thank you for contacting us.

The review for your channel is currently in progress and requires additional time.

As soon as the review is complete, you will receive an email notification.

Thank you for your continued patience as we work to complete your channel review as quickly as possible."

I could understand if it took a few weeks but I submitted our channel for review at the beginning of August and no one seems to be able to inform us what the hold up is or if there are any problems with the content we've submitted.

If anyone has advice on how to resolve this I would greatly appreciate it and look forward to hearing a response soon!

Thanks,

Logan

Boost

Answer 1

drhundertwasser OP

Oct ’19

I've been waiting 5 weeks.

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Answer 2

lbrade OP

Oct ’19

Yeah, the turnaround time on these approvals are unacceptable. I'm still under review two weeks after posting this... However, I did reach out to Apple support to get a follow up and this is what they came back with:

"

Hello Logan,

My name is Lucretia and I’m a Senior Advisor taking over the case from Ruby.

We understand you are looking forward to your news channel being available on Apple News. We did check and it appears it is still in review.

Our news channels go through extensive review to ensure it meets all of our quality guidelines in an effort to provide the best content we can to our readers.

We sincerely apologize for the delay. I will gladly take any feedback regarding this procedure via email reply at this time and forward it to the appropriate Apple team, if you would like. Apple’s guidelines and procedures change frequently due to feedback from publishers like yourself.

"

I sent a response to this on the 14th but I still haven't gotten a reply in almost 10 days. Still looking for some form of support or feedback from Apple.

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Answer 3

drhundertwasser OP

Nov ’19

I've been waiting more than 2 months (9 weeks to be exact).

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Answer 4

SARELLA91 OP

Jan ’20

Checking in on the status of this thread - has your submission been reviewed? I have also been waiting for 2 months. Also, nice to know that trying to contact customer service does nothing to speed the process.

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Answer 5

carwashorg OP

Jan ’20

Similar issues. Is anyone able to actually become a publisher? We've been waiting for more than 5 months at this stage.

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Answer 6

lbrade OP

Feb ’20

Apologies for the slow response!

Nope still "Under Review" for over 8 months. How does anyone become a publisher at this rate? All they have to do is check 3 articles and make sure the images will work on the Apple News Publisher app... To respond to @SARELLA91, yeah all I get is canned responses that don't actually tell me anything about the status other than "wait patiently".

I sent another email today so we'll see where it goes but, at this rate, I don't even try to post newer stories anymore. It's not worth the effort if my company's account is never actually going to be reviewed.

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Answer 7

cwcomms OP

May ’20

I have been waiting since early October and have written in 3x now with only a scripted response back. Eight months to review three articles and it's still not done?! For a company that encourages creativity and original content creation, this is completely off-putting. At a minimum they could have the respect to acknowledge the query with a personal response. What a joke.

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Answer 8

Uswitch_Nick OP

May ’20

I'm pleased to hear that it isn't just me. I submitted my application in October and there's still no update.

I've set up Apple News channels before and it took a couple of weeks, max. This is crazy.

Is it just the case that they're not approving any new channels, what with this whole Apple News+?

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Answer 9

DrewJoiner OP

May ’20

How long did it take you to set up your other channels?

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Answer 10

mdewolf OP

May ’20

Same here ... 10 months now, and no progress. Awful!

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Answer 11

lbrade OP

Jun ’20

Yep, still waiting... My company and I have been waiting for almost a year to get approved now. I'm not sure what it'll take to get the approvals moving but I've tried contacting multiple lines of business and even relied on paid support to try and get an answer. They still respond back that I have to be "patient".

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Answer 12

lbrade OP

Jun ’20

Here we go again... What I wrote to them:

"We've been in the "under review" status for Apple News publisher for over a year. Who do I need to contact to move this process forward?"

Their response:

"Hello Logan,

Thank you for contacting us.

The review for your channel is currently in progress and requires additional time.

As soon as the review is complete, you will receive an email notification.

Thank you for your continued patience as we work to complete your channel review as quickly as possible.

For your reference, the case number for this correspondence is .

Best regards,

Vera
Apple Inc.
"

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Answer 13

sb316 OP

Jul ’20

We have been waiting for over a year now. I'm convinced they've stopped accepting new publishers to the program.

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Answer 14

mmoyer OP

Aug ’20

Same...we've been waiting for 8 months now. We were approved before very quickly, but we had to change our name and RSS and now we get the same canned form answer.

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Answer 15

writer OP

Nov ’20

I've been waiting for 9 months (since February 2020). I called today but can't get through to the correct support department.

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Answer 16

AlexGTech OP

Nov ’20

Seriously Apple, what is this? either take the service away or provide the service that works. 10 MONTHS and counting for me and looking at this thread I am just one of many unhappy users.

You sell innovation in your products but the behaviour here is one of a very archaic organisation. If you want we can help you build a robot to automate this process? 😂

UNBELIEVABLE

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Answer 17

papostolicas OP

Dec ’20

Same issue here, it's been 7 months. Even after following up multiple times we haven't had a response.

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Answer 18

driverbuddy OP

Mar ’21

So after 9 months of submission we got an email from Apple saying the following:

Channel: *
Website: *
Dear ***,
Thank you for your application. We appreciate your patience as we implement a new policy to help accelerate our review process.The next step is to answer the questions in News Publisher. Once completed, please submit your application for review.
Regards,
The Apple News Team

Then 3 months later we got the following message:

Channel: *
Website: *
Dear ***,
Thank you for your interest in joining Apple News, but we are no longer accepting personal or organizational blogs.
Regards,
The Apple News Team

So we waited a year just to be told that they're not accepting personal or organizational blogs, even though we're neither, don't think we can be bothered to go through the SLOW process again

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Answer 19

SIRKtv OP

Feb ’22

Hi Logan, long shot here as I see you had this issue two years ago. I was wondering if your application for publishing on Apple News was ever completed (approved/denied)? If so, how long did the review process take?

I am having the same issue and would like to know if I am wasting my time.

Thanks! Hannah

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Answer 20

joetrusty OP

Mar ’22

Having the same issue, applied months ago and have not gotten a response either. Submitted content from our feed and can see it in news publisher however, it all says "under review" and never changes. My site is Google News approved and figured it would be a good fit for Apple News but that's easier said than done. Just getting the feed set up was like mission impossible so it really doesn't surprise me this part is like waiting at the DMV. I'm wondering if this product is still maintained or if they only approve certain publishers and outright ignore everyone else that doesn't meet a certain standard. Either way would be nice to hear something from them instead of periodically checking iCloud news publisher to see 20 more articles in the queue and nothing has changed.

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Answer 21

PeterTUN OP

Apr ’22

It appears that Apple New just doesn't care about small publishers. First, they force small publishers to spend the money/time on development just to get the process set up to be considered. Then you sit and wait for Godot... If you don't have the internal tech capacity you have to pay one of their approved vendors just to get set up. And then you wait with no interaction from them for months or longer. Small publishers struggle as it is and Apple should not be adding to their burden.

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