Apple is entering the recipe market, challenging existing apps with its new Apple News+ Food feature. Launched on Friday, it offers Apple News+ subscribers a dedicated space to discover, save, and cook recipes from numerous News+ publishing partners.
Set to launch in April with iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4, it will initially be available in the U.S., U.K., Canada, and Australia.
Instead of aggregating recipes from the wider web, Apple News+ Food focuses solely on recipes from Apple News+ publishers.
Apple aims to launch with over 30 publishers, including names like Allrecipes, Bon Appétit, Food & Wine, Good Food, Serious Eats, and others. The service will offer access to tens of thousands of recipes.
This provides Apple’s publishing partners an opportunity to showcase their content to a wider audience, especially as Google’s ability to drive direct traffic to their websites diminishes.
iPhone and iPad users can access the Food section in the Apple News app’s Today feed, where they’ll find a featured recipe chosen by Apple’s editorial team, food-related articles, a recipe compilation, and links to the Food+ recipe catalogue and saved recipes.
Apple notes that selected food stories and recipes will also be available to non-subscribers.
You can either select the “More food” link located in the Food section of the app’s Today tab, or you can select the “Food” link from the Following tab.
Within the Food+ section, users will find the featured recipe, alongside recommended articles tailored to their preferences. This personalisation is refined as users interact more with the application.
Users can also save recipes for future use. The Apple News+ Food’s recipe catalogue allows users to filter searches by categories such as “dinner”, “easy”, “vegetarian”, and “under 30 minutes.” Filters are also available to refine searches within saved recipes.
Essential details, including ingredients, steps, cooking times, and serving sizes, are presented clearly. User-friendly features include the ability to tap an ingredient to view the required amount and tapping the cooking time to automatically start a timer. A dedicated cooking mode displays the recipe in full screen with larger text and keeps the screen active.
However, Apple News+ Food lacks the ability to add personal recipes or import/export recipes to other apps, and users cannot directly save recipes from social media platforms.
With this launch, Apple expands its presence in the mobile app ecosystem, where it competes with third-party developers. Unlike independent developers, Apple can introduce new applications without direct revenue pressure.
Publishers aren’t additionally compensated for their recipes. The feature extends Apple’s existing partnerships, where Apple generates revenue through ad sales within publishers’ articles, retaining 30% of the sales. Access requires an Apple News+ subscription, which grants access to over 400 magazines, newspapers and digital publishers.