Remember Oprah's much-touted show for Apple TV+ that fizzled into a book club of sorts? Last year, Apple reserved a stage entirely for its new adventures in content and media, after  announcing a bunch of products with simple press releases.

Apple took on cable and Netflix with the Apple TV channels and TV+ subscription streamer. Game streaming and distribution platforms like Steam or Google's Stadia faced the leisurely Arcade undertaking. News aggregators and standalone publishers now have another potentially huge platform to consider - News+ - and so on.

The ...