Interfacing with Apple News

Written by Duane Storey on Dec 10th, 2018

We just completed a really interested project here that involved connecting a WordPress website to Apple News.  While there are various plugins that help with that, what made this particular case challenging was that the website used the Advanced Custom Fields plugin, and as such had no real WordPress-specific content in the database.

The content on the original WordPress website

What we ended up doing to solve this issue was to create a completely custom plugin to convert the Advanced Custom Fields data into a format that the Apple News Plugin could properly interpret.   

The client also had specific requirements as well, such as ensuring all the photo credits properly appeared in the images, and also including collaboration credits on stories that were done in conjunction with other agencies.

There were a few small issues we encountered, mainly with massaging some of the content into a format that the Apple News plugin could handle.  But in the end we were really pleased with the result, especially since it brings a whole new avenue of readership to the online magazine.

The content after being automatically migrated to Apple News

We really enjoy challenging projects like this that bridge WordPress with other technologies.  This client will now have all of their posts automatically cross-published on Apple News going forward, and they are extremely happy with the result.

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