How do I hide the new sidebar in the news app iOS 12

Please let me hide your “channels” sidebar. Also, why? Why not let me hide it? What’s the upside for Apple? The down side is I deeply resent Apple for this petty “little murder“ and I doubt I’m alone.

I find it hard to believe that this was intentional...Apple developers should be better than this. You force a layout that takes up 30% of the screen with features that are not always needed/used, making the meaningful section of the app smaller with no option for customization by the user, though you do provide the hide/unhide option when viewing in a different orientation? Seems like a bug to me, though I can’t imagine how that would be missed during testing. Apple, please fix this as soon as possbile.

Software bugs can be introduced during any phase of the software development cycle. In this case, even though the Apple designers may say the behavior is intended, they should rethink their stance and admit this was a design bug, and since the capability to hide the pane exists in portrait mode, it should be an easy fix to enable it in landscape mode. In the meantime I am using the Google news app and I actually like it better as it incorporates more local news.

The comparison to Mail is an apples to oranges comparison. The panes in the split view in Mail show messages and message content. A third pane, able to be shown and hidden at will, provides a better comparison: the Mailboxes pane. The comparison to Mail would be accurate only if the persistent split view pane showed article headlines and allowed the user to select one to read in the main pane. As it stands, the split view Channels pane is the Mail equivalent of a persistent Mailboxes pane, which would also be intolerable.

Apple Support Communities are NOT for open discussions, but for product technical support.

ASC is NOT a social media site for free and open discussions on any topic posted here.

ASC is for technical supoort questions and help in the form of answers of a technical support nature.

There are millions of Apple News users.

Apple isn't going to change something in the Apple News app that only a very small user base feels is not correct.

No one but approx. 500+ users, posting here in these official iPad support communities, is complaining about this channels side bar feature/issue that may, in fact, not be a bug.

It's going to take many thousands of users posting feedback/complaining for Apple to recognise that users may not want this channels sidebar to be constantly omnipresent when using the Apple News app in landscape orientation mode.

Until that happens, I do not believe this feature will change.

I am still using Apple News. This doesn't bother me accept that I would like the channels sidebar narrower.

That is the feedback I posted.

But, again, I use mostly a 12.9 inch screen iPad Pro, so this channels side bar being constantly present when I use the Apple News app in landscape orientation really doesn't phase me in the slightest.

It is what it is.

No one who posts about this here seems to want to let go of the fact that this may not get changed any time soon, if at all.

According to this article, Apple News user base is around 90 million users.

Not sure what the actual Apple News “reading” user base is on iPad, but even 1% of this amount is approx. 900,000 to 1 million users.

http://macdailynews.com/2018/10/25/who-not-what-picks-the-stories-for-apple-news /

Going to take a whole lot more numbers of user feedback/complaints to affect a change this perceived channel sidebar issue.

Correction,

Just re-read this article.

The regular reading Apple News base IS 90 million users.

So, for Apple to fix this so-called Apple News channels sidebar bug on the iPad, so-called by only a few hundred Apple News app users here, it is going to take a very large user feedback/complaint responses to get a change to the current horizontal channels sidebar feature from Apple.

I am afraid that a change to the iPad horizontal view news channels sidebar, in the iOS Apple News app version on iPad, maybe a long way coming, if at all.

Hi Michel

Thanks for the link to The New York Times article which according to the President is a “fake news” organisation! (Joking).

The perceived issue is one of App design and not a hardware issue related to the iPad in landscape mode. Many App designers have coded (or not) for features on the iPad in respect to orientation and associated features. One such eg was the Met Office Weather App which only displayed in portrait mode but was eventually fixed by the programmers following review feedback.

The point I have made a couple of times on this forum is that, unlike other Apps, including Apple’s Pages and Numbers, where issues can be raised alongside ranking against the individual Apps, News does not allow input on the App Store although the App is listed. I don’t think that reporting via the iPad reporting form is the ideal approach for this kind of issue as it is more related to hardware and general operating (iOS) issues.

Regards

Philip (UK)

Can't go back.

Apple has never had any procedures/provisions for downgrading to an earlier iOS version, ever.

Once you upgrade/update to a new iOS version, Apple only leaves a very short window for any downgrading attempts.

Once the window is gone, there is no going back.

Right now, a window exists for downgrading back to iOS 12.0.1 from iOS 12.1. That is it!

Apple will leave that window of downgrading for about a week.

The window to return back to iOS 11.4 is long gone.

Sorry.

berekann wrote:

Thanks for repeating the link for those who aren't aware. And, yes, i have already given feedback via the link.

Personally, i've installed the apps of some of the news sources that i prefer, like Politico and NPR; now i don't get distracted by some of the BuzzFeed and People news that aren't of any interest to me, except briefly, occasionally.

Once in a while i still check Apple News or Google News, but i prefer a more focused input.

Good.

I started using Flipboard awhile back. I do like Flipboard more than Apple News as it can really be tailored to thenkinds of news a users really likes and wants to really read.

Thanks for the suggestion - i'm trying it out, but it takes a learning curve to figure out how to read the articles, as it seems to flip through the stories before one can access them. But, quite a lot of options to personalize it, and lots of interesting articles.

I’ve no idea why theyve introduced another of these half baked mindless ideas.

Who gains? Certainly not us, the customer. Neither do Apple with a bit more silliness to add to its woes.

You can’t even delete the app. No wonder people are being forced elsewhere.

WAKE UP APPLE! Give the customers what they want not what you want to make them have.

It’s not to late but time’s running out.

It’s good to hear that a fix is present in the 12.1.1 beta - however, let’s not be too quick to celebrate. As Apple often and frequently demonstrate, until a fix or feature makes it into a general release version, nothing is guaranteed.

This point-release is a long time coming...

Agreed. Think Apple are getting worse at testing their software before release.

Why did they do this, what a terrible design. This was my favorite news app, now it’s unusable in landscape mode. Fix this.