Apple purchasing app for magazines

Apple is buying Texture, a digital magazine subscription app from prominent publishers — a sign that the company is deepening its interest in becoming a major distributor of news.

Texture — formerly known as Next Issue Media — aims to be a virtual newsstand that gives readers access to 200 magazines, including the Atlantic, Bon Appetit, Martha Stewart Living, and Vanity Fair, for $9.99 a month.

The infusion of cash, technology and, most importantly, a powerful potential distribution channel for content could help put Texture in the hands of many more readers.

For Apple, the purchase of Texture is also an opportunity to highlight the company’s role as a trusted news distributor at a time when the American public is worried about the credibility of information from technology giants.

Apple’s approach to pressing questions of news reliability and the role of human curation differs from rivals Google, Facebook and Amazon. While Facebook and YouTube rely almost exclusively on software tools to decide what news people will see — Facebook fired its news curators in 2016 — Apple has a human editorial team for Apple News, the company’s news aggregator app that comes pre-installed in smartphones. Human editorial teams also work for the company’s podcasts app and Apple Music.

In a statement, Apple emphasized its focus on trustworthy news sources — a subtle dig at Silicon Valley rivals that have helped to spread false news and disinformation.

With high-profile industry backers and a collection of the nation’s most popular titles, the Texture app was an attempt to help the struggling magazine business gain footing in the smartphone era.

Publishers Conde Nast, Hearst Magazines and Meredith said the acquisition will help further their mission.

An Apple spokeswoman said that the tech giant didn’t have immediate plans to integrate Texture’s content into Apple News and that the deal had not yet closed. The company would not disclose the purchase price.