When Apple News debuted, I was intrigued to learn that virtually anybody can submit their own blogs for inclusion in the service. Why not allow Bitsplitting, the Red Sweater Blog, and Indie Stack to be part of this service? For reader who enjoy Apple News, it could serve as a kind of substitute RSS reader.

Apple did, in fact, accept my news sources, and for the past several years these articles have been available through the service.

I guess I’ve dropped the ball a bit as a blogger, though, because this week I received a terse email from Apple:

Dear Daniel Jalkut,

We noticed that you have not published to your Bitsplitting channel in three months or more. Your channel will be removed in one week.

Regards,
The Apple News Team

Regards, indeed. Apple will drop me in one week if I don’t publish something, or maybe even if I do; the wording is ambiguous. I’m a little annoyed at this, but I’m also a little annoyed at myself for not blogging more frequently, so I guess I’ll just say: “thanks, Apple News!”

Update: Manton Reece notes on Micro.blog that there may be a less encouraging rationale for Apple’s crackdown on inactive publications:

@danielpunkass If you hadn’t heard, Apple News dropped RSS support for new blogs, and it sounds like they rarely approve personal blogs anymore. Weeding out inactive blogs could be the first step to removing them altogether.