Last month, The Wall Street Journal pulled the plug on What’s News, its standalone news digest app that offered a different, more swipe-heavy reading experience from its main app.

Now, the Journal is keeping to its promise of using some of the lessons from What’s News to inform the design of its main news app, which got a refresh yesterday. The new version of the app, which the newspaper says is designed to be a “more deeply-engaging, interactive destination for users,” features a curated What’s News feed with more variegated story presentation than the previous app’s rote list. Users can also customize their experience in various ways, such as saving articles, and opting into notifications for specific categories and from specific authors.

We launched the new @WSJ iOS App today. Honoured to be part of it and to work with such an incredible team. pic.twitter.com/VAovGXBa0L

— Thomas Williams (@twandco) July 11, 2017

Just launched new version 9.0 of @WSJ iPhone & iPad app. In the room with @gerardtbaker @murraymatt @raminbeheshti1 & team. pic.twitter.com/PFBQmOu97H

— Rajiv Pant 潘睿哲 राजीव (@rajivpant) July 11, 2017

As our own Josh Benton pointed out, the new home screen and other elements will likely be familiar to New York Times readers, including those who used NYT Now (another secondary news app that met its maker; the Times shut it down last August). But the Journal app’s improvements, while comparatively late, come as news apps are becoming more strategically important for the newspaper and other members of its cohort. Ken Doctor noted in a recent piece that, in May, its Android and iOS apps represented 27 percent of the daily active user base for the Times. Responses to Josh’s tweet included discussion of the merits (such as they may be) of news organizations investing in native apps.

Am I crazy or is that a massive outlier worth exploring? Are crappy native apps leaving huge traffic (with loyal readers!) on the table?

— Ben Welsh (@palewire) July 12, 2017

USAT’s native numbers were always huge, too. PVs is a silly metric for native, though, with all the swiping, app opens at homepage, nav, etc

— Ryan Sholin (@ryansholin) July 12, 2017

Theory: there is a huge traffic gap between top national publishers and others on native, maybe orders of magnitude

— Ben Welsh (@palewire) July 12, 2017

I think folks should not assume that even a small majority of native app users tap through from push notifications to the article.

— stacy-marie ishmael (@s_m_i) July 12, 2017

I suspect some news companies have given up on native for social. If they have subscriber biz model and readers like native … Bad call?

— Ben Welsh (@palewire) July 12, 2017

So, lots to say about this. 1) Not even clear on the web these days what constitutes a PV, esp with so much happening on the client side.

— Aron Pilhofer (@pilhofer) July 12, 2017

… infinite scroll, et. As @ryansholin says, it’s doubly hard to say what a PV is in a native app context given all the scrolling.

— Aron Pilhofer (@pilhofer) July 12, 2017

(^ that should have been a 2)… and therefore, it’s virtually impossible to make an apples-to-apples comparison for web v app PVs.

— Aron Pilhofer (@pilhofer) July 12, 2017

Apps thrive on habitual, deliberate consumption (pull). Harder to win the push notif scrum.

— Dayo Olopade (@madayo) July 12, 2017

And @palewire, I think native v/ social is also a false choice. It’s one app people use (FB) vs. an app they won’t (yours).

— Aron Pilhofer (@pilhofer) July 12, 2017

We have tried to force new and evolving behaviours into old and and increasingly unhelpful metrics, to no one's benefit (esp audiences).

— stacy-marie ishmael (@s_m_i) July 12, 2017

Far smarter IMO to monetize those folks where they are than try to shift them from one app to another, which is nigh impossible.

Um… Sad!

— Aron Pilhofer (@pilhofer) July 12, 2017

Right, totally! We had endless debates @ the G about this. “if we could only move everyone to our app!” Doesn’t work that way, unfortunately

— Aron Pilhofer (@pilhofer) July 12, 2017

Yep, broadly :) Trouble with native app approach is sits outside dominant discovery patterns. You gotta be in their flow.

— Tony Haile (@arctictony) July 12, 2017