Apple is releasing some of the newest features on Apple News app in order to allow the publishers to make better news formats. The company has an Apple News Format, using which publishers create their news for publishing in Apple News. With the extra features added to it, the publishers can now create much more sophisticated posts for Apple News. According to the reports, the company is adding components which will allow the publisher to use mapping and placement options. With this feature, they can include pictorial displays of locations relevant to their posts.

Another feature which has been added to the Apple News Format is the cover image for the channels. Now, the publishers can create their personal artworks they want to show as their channel cover. This comes in the form of a thumbnail in the Favorites section of the Grid, along with inclusions in many different locations. Previously, this particular feature was available only to a handful of publishers posting on Apple News. For other channels, Apple News would have picked any of the thumbnails available on recent posts from mostly other channels, to feature as the cover for the channel. Now, the publishers will have the opportunity to show their own brands in any way they like by uploading their custom thumbnails.

Another feature is the new metadata property, which allows the publishers to easily back fill their channels using the posts they have present in the archive section. Previously, the posts were labelled in a way which showed that the posts were being provided live. Moreover, they also allow publishers to source images from any URL. This actually simplifies a lot for the publishers, most importantly, the publishers who integrated with CMS of third parties.