Apple News app will provide real-time results on Election Day
The app will also have live video from ABC and NBC.
Come November 6th, Apple will turn its News app into election central. According to TechCrunch, the company is planning to launch a new Election Night section that will display live results, highlight updates to key races and share major stories from major news outlets. The Election Night tab will appear in place of the Midterm Elections section in the app starting at 8 PM ET on election day.
The Associated Press is one of several media companies Apple is partnering with; it'll provide real-time election results in the News app. The vote tallies from every federal election in the country will update automatically every minute, but you'll also be able to refresh manually if you can't wait for the votes to trickle in. ABC and NBC will provide live video coverage that you can watch in-app, while CBS News, CNN, and Fox News will all provide video clips that will appear in the Election Night section.
Apple News will have a Key Races section that will focus in on the closest and most interesting races around the country, as well as the races that may serve as bellwethers for how the night might go. With control of both the House and Senate set to be determined Tuesday, the app will issue a special alert if and when the balance of power changes in either chamber.
Even with all 435 seats in the House of Representatives, one-third of all the seats in the Senate, and 36 governorships being decided in a single night, Apple is choosing not to curate news and information by algorithms. Instead, it will stick with its team of human editors to handle the task of sourcing news stories and combatting disinformation. It's a big task given the importance of the evening and the massive readership Apple News draws, but it's not like they can do worse than algorithm-driven systems did in 2016.
