What if Apple’s Social Network is a Free Blog for Everyone?

Imagine a world where Apple, the tech giant renowned for its innovation, steps into the realm of social media and blogging with a game-changing twist? Picture this: Apple introduces an easy-to-use, free social network through its upcoming Journal app.

Hypothetically, Apple could potentially take a chunk out of the content management system (CMS) market AND the social media market, leaving platforms like WordPress to pick up their blocks and play in a different sandbox.

Maybe that’s drastic, but imagine if Apple gave every user the ability to make a blog post with the click of a button?

Content Creation Power of the iPhone

One thing Apple undeniably excels at is putting the most powerful content creation tool right into the palm of your hand: the iPhone.

Whether you’re snapping photos, shooting videos, or tapping out beautifully written social media posts, it’s all effortlessly done on your trusty iPhone. Imagine the convenience of seamlessly sending this content directly into the Journal app, ready for publication in an instant.

And what if you didn’t have to send anything? It just did it for you.

If you’re an iPhone user, you know all about the “For You” photo album where Apple’s AI scoops up a collection of photos, embeds a little background music, and you can share it as a video with friends. Want to fine tune it? Make it longer or shorter in just a few clicks.

A content creation studio, editor, and publishing platform right at your fingertips.

iCloud: Your Built-In Hosting Solution

Apple takes things a step further with iCloud, essentially your built-in hosting solution. This cloud-based platform lets you store your images, videos, and written content without the hassle of dealing with external web hosts.

Compare this to even this most affordable WordPress hosting provider, there’s a learning curve with WordPress that far exceeds that $50 annual bill. Now it’s included with your iCloud account, which becomes another notch in the Apple services belt.

The Delightful Apple Experience

Apple is renowned for delivering delightful native app experiences, and the Journal app will be no exception.

Matt Mullenweg already gave Apple a nod in this tweet.

I wonder if Apple launching a basic blogging platform would bring more serious bloggers to WordPress? Possibly.

But, imagine the magic of Apple’s AI virtually crafting your blog post for you. Just like their AI crafts photo and video memories, it would extend this experience to writing your post, as well. A seamless experience that not only simplifies content creation but also makes sharing your thoughts and memories on your blog more accessible than ever.

Imagine a stack of photos from heading to the locally brewery for the afternoon. Your Apple post would be:

• Title: Our Day at Brewery King! It knew the name because of your location settings.
• Opening paragraph: “We spent the afternoon trying their new IPA and fish tacos.” Based on your location settings, meta data inside photos, and Apple Card transactions, it can summarize the entire event while building context around it.
• Embed a photo gallery automatically. You were there, snapping photos, the AI already knew this!

As you drive away from the brewery, The Journal App asks: “Would you like to share your new post with friends & family?”

Congrats! You’re a blogger.

Defending the Open Web with RSS (We hope?)

In a world where closed social networks dominate, Apple can stand as a champion for the open web. How, you ask? By leveraging RSS feeds to access other Apple Journal users’ blogs. This move instantly earns Apple trust and admiration from users who value the principles of openness and accessibility, setting it apart from the likes of Twitter or Facebook.

Okay, this might be the most far-fetched idea in this hypothetical, but we can dream can’t we? Besides, they’ve been “maintaining” a massive RSS infrastructure for their podcasters for the last 20 years. And by massive, I mean, the absolute last thing on their list…but it’s still there!

I don’t think they’d go as far as WordPress federated blogs, but the whole concept of an “Apple blog network” would instantly win trust over users that don’t like feeding their content into the other platforms.

Apple Ads: A Win-Win

Now, let’s talk about the advertising Apple Search Ads potential they could harness with a blog network like this.

Couple that with a robust search component, and Apple would have a treasure trove of opportunities. Advertisers would flock to a platform with a highly engaged user base, and creators might even get a slice of the revenue pie.

Pulling a card from their podcast infrastructure, which already pays users for podcast subscriptions, it would be yet another option for creators. YouTube and Twitter and constantly getting dragged through the creator mud over revenue share, do we think Apple could do better?

Apple vs. WordPress

Would WordPress continue to reign supreme in the CMS market?

For beginners, the allure of an all-in-one app that does most of the work for them could be irresistible. The ease of use of having everything on your phone, done-for-you AI powered content creation, Apple’s delightful experience factor, and it’s included with iCloud?!

No more fiddling with plugins, themes, or hosting providers. With Apple’s Journal app, it’s all streamlined, efficient, and incredibly user-friendly. If Apple transformed its Journal app into a social network intertwined with a powerful blog platform is not just intriguing; it’s potentially groundbreaking.

But here’s the real question: Would entry-level users be willing to trade the open-source freedom of platforms like WordPress for Apple’s closed-source ecosystem? Would they even care?

Let me know what you think about it, let me know on Twitter.

Matt Medeiros

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Monday, 18 Sep 2023

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Reading time:

8 mins

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