Florida: Apple Inc is planning to make subscription content available through its News app, giving publishers with paywalls a new way to manage who views their articles, two sources familiar with the matter said.

The move comes as news publishers try to find ways to work with Apple and Facebook Inc, which are important distributors of news content to their hundreds of millions of users, but at the same time are hindrance between publishers and their readers.

By dispensing content through its News app, Apple would give publishers a way to maintain relationships with readers and perhaps lure new subscribers.

It is not clear how Apple would validate subscribers or if it would take a cut of payments from readers who become subscribers through the app. Apple refused to comment. Subscriber-only publications that are with Apple News now can either share their articles for free or just share excerpts of articles and direct readers to their own websites for more.

In October, Apple said that nearly 40 million people were reading Apple News, and the company has worked with more than 100 publishers as of this month.

Rival firms are working to offer publishers more flexibility. Alphabet Inc's Google has started a programme called Accelerated Mobile Pages that will let users search for news and retrieve articles from publishers instantly.