Oprah Winfrey best summed up the advantages of having your content feature prominently on iPhones when speaking at an Apple event in March 2019. “They’re in a billion pockets, y’all – a billion pockets,” she said, while promoting the launch of services including Apple News+ and Apple TV+.

It might therefore seem like a no-brainer for publishers to want their content to be made available on Apple News – which claims to be read by 125m people a month – or its paid-for sister app, Apple News+.

But this does not seem to be the case. Both the New York Times and the Washington Post turned down the opportunity to become Apple News+ partners when the paid-for app launched in 2019. And the former this year ditched Apple News altogether.