Author: Lucy

The iPhone maker is responding to the popularity of audio books and digital services for reading aloud.

iTunes Spoken Editions is about to become the latest service launched by Apple. The service is designed to read news and magazine articles out loud, and will likely include mobile ads, too.

To start, it looks as though Time, Wired, Mic, Playboy and Forbs will be the first participating publishers.

The iTunes Spoken Editions platform will launch in early October. It will have many components that bring to mind the Audible Channels and Amazon Alexa, among others. This will make it possible for Apple users to listen to certain mainstream news publications without having to read the articles. Therefore, they will be able to hear the articles while they go about their day, whether they are completing various chores or commuting.

It is for this same reason that audio books have taken off in popularity over the last few years. People are often choosing podcasts and audio books over magazine articles and printed books. When it comes to the news, they don’t often read more than the title as well as the first paragraph and possibly the last one.

The iTunes Spoken Editions will be read by a digital speech generator and not by actual human readers.

The news articles and other audio items won’t be read by narrators or journalists. Instead, Apple will be using a text-to –speech engine that is not unlike Alexa.

It is also likely that Apple won’t miss the opportunity to be able to include advertising into this new audio service. Just as SpokenLayer includes ads in its service, this new platform will likely do the same thing. Its goal is typically to help to make up for the rapidly declining revenue from the reduced print subscriptions and the falling readership.

Apple has yet to officially release the full details of its iTunes Spoken Editions platform. That said, it wouldn’t be impossible to believe that it would be able to achieve integration with other services as well. Some have speculated that this could potentially include Apple News and possibly even Apple TV.

Video has become a central part of our mobile device use.

After all, smartphones and tablets make it very convenient to watch any of the millions of videos that are readily available online. In fact, the consumption of video over smartphones is growing faster than that over PC and tablets.

In the United States alone, there are about 41 million people who are watching video specifically on their smartphones.  Though we might assume that the smartphone screen would be too small to be able to enjoy video, it certainly hasn’t stopped us.  The fact is that these devices are simply too handy to ignore.  We have them on us all the time so when we want to see a video, they’re the obvious choice.

After all, most video views aren’t exactly planned.  They’re spontaneous and occur as a result of having stumbled across them during other smartphone uses. This helps to explain why a mobile charger gadget has become such an important gadget as video is notorious for draining battery power. This is especially true when a specific brand or celebrity is involved in a video.

That said, viewers don’t just idly watch and then shut off their devices.  They often use video to learn about different brands and products.  Moreover, they will frequently make shopping decisions based on what they’ve seen.  In fact, according to some studies, 73 percent of consumers have an increased likelihood of making a purchase after having watched a video.

A recent survey showed that 58 percent of consumers find brands more trustworthy when they produce video.  Consumers also find videos to be very helpful.  Ninety six percent feel that videos make it easier to make decisions about what they want to buy.  Another 71 percent of consumers felt that they felt more positively about a company, service or brand after having seen a corporate video from them.

For marketers, brands and companies, this is a very important piece of knowledge, but at the same time, it’s important for us to acknowledge as consumers, too.  After all, videos have become quite an important part of our overall shopping experience.