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Apple testing new App Store design that blurs the line between ads and results

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Re: Apple testing new App Store design that blurs the line between ads and results

#171

Post by grumbel »

browningstreet wrote: post #158
bool3max wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s interesting to me is that no matter how “hidden” the AD indicator may be, my brain always seems to very quickly train itself to swiftly skip such posts when scrolling/browsing. Or I could simply be another clueless victim of advertising. If only I could know the number of sponsored posts I never consciously acknowledge and am influenced by on the daily.

The problem with this, I've found, is that you end up skipping a lot of things, and then find out later on that features were introduced years ago that you've wished, throughout the interim, existed. It's hard to keep up. I wish there was regulation enforcing background colors for ads.

We should just have an tag in HTML, regulation could then require it.

Re: Apple testing new App Store design that blurs the line between ads and results

#172

Post by BiteCode_dev »

mdasen wrote: post #21

This is what basically everyone else has done over the past decade. Google used to put a different background behind ads in its search ( https://www.fsedigital.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Google... ). It made it really easy to tell what was an ad and skip over it quickly. Now it's a lot harder to quickly notice what's an ad and what isn't. Sites used to have banner ads. Now they show posts that look exactly like t…

It's not a trick; it's the closest they can get away with lying with plausible deniability.

To sell you ads that are mostly lies already.

Re: Apple testing new App Store design that blurs the line between ads and results

#173

Post by edm0nd »

atonse wrote: post #8

More and more evidence that the a-holes with spreadsheets are taking over at Apple and they’re completely devoid of any ideas on the software side. I heard someone randomly say that they should replace Tim Cook with Scott Forstall. I chuckled at the idea but this might be a great idea. Apple is having its Ballmer moment. Google did too before AI lit the fire under their feet. Who is going to be Apple’s next Nadella?…

imo the Apple that we all grew to love or hate, died when Jobs died. Its been nothing but a shell of itself since.

Re: Apple testing new App Store design that blurs the line between ads and results

#174

Post by sonofhans »

yomismoaqui wrote: post #13
atonse wrote: post #8

More and more evidence that the a-holes with spreadsheets are taking over at Apple and they’re completely devoid of any ideas on the software side. I heard someone randomly say that they should replace Tim Cook with Scott Forstall. I chuckled at the idea but this might be a great idea. Apple is having its Ballmer moment. Google did too before AI lit the fire under their feet. Who is going to be Apple’s next Nadella?…

Can we use "ensheetification" to describe this phenomeon? (sure I'm not the first to use this word)

Yeah, I love this :)

Re: Apple testing new App Store design that blurs the line between ads and results

#175

Post by hombre_fatal »

rgovostes wrote: post #104

This makes no difference, because I can’t remember the last time I installed an app other than for the occasional airline. From 2008-12 it was genuinely exciting to see what new apps were being released every day. Mobile games from that era had cultural impact. I bought $2 apps without a thought. But Apple incentivized monetization above all else and killed that excitement. Now you can’t find a tip calculator that do…

> that costs $5/wk

Allowing weekly subscriptions is so comically evil.

It only exists to trick people into overpaying since 99.99% of subscriptions are priced on a monthly basis, so hopefully you don't notice that it says "wk" instead of "mo".

Re: Apple testing new App Store design that blurs the line between ads and results

#176

Post by criddell »

shantara wrote: post #33

It recently occurred to me that it’s been years since it was possible to find some new and interesting app just by browsing the App Store, like it used to be when iPhone and Android were first introduced. Now I open the store knowing in advance what exactly I’m looking for and take care not to accidentally click on a lookalike.

It's a mature market. Maybe the age of new and interesting apps is over? I know I've pretty much settled into a small set of apps that I use on my iPhone, ThinkPad, and iPad and probably haven't installed anything new (ie not upgrades) for five or ten years now.

The last new app I installed was either Fusion360 or Visual Studio Code.

I guess I have had to install apps for other things I bought (like Christmas tree lights), but I don't really count that because the app is only a gateway to the thing I really want to use.

Re: Apple testing new App Store design that blurs the line between ads and results

#177

Post by echelon »

terminalshort wrote: post #159
echelon wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could search for "{trademark} competitors", "{trademark} reviews", "{trademark} vs ...", etc. For bare trademark searches, we could write laws that allow competitors, but restrict taxing and bidding off the reserved mark above the trademark owner's result.

You should be able to explicitly bid on trademarks because you intend to compete directly with that business. Nobody should ever have a legal right to appear at the top of search rankings for anything. Laws restricting business competition are almost never a good thing.

I vehemently disagree.

There used to be plenty of ways to get in touch with the owner of a brand directly. Now they're all being camped by rent extractors.

Google is chief amongst those taxing businesses. They are not government anointed to perform this role. Google should not be allowed to do this.

As a business gets more successful, Google extracts more money from them. Simply trying to access the business will send revenue to Google.

Google took the standard URL bar and turned in into a rent extraction product. This should have been illegal, but our regulatory bodies have been asleep at the wheel.

Google adds costs to every business, every product, every entrepreneur. They should stick to servicing user inquiries, not stuffing ads in front of simple trademark lookup.

It's time to knock on their doors of regulatory bodies, both in the US and abroad. No more trademark camping from the "URL bar".

Re: Apple testing new App Store design that blurs the line between ads and results

#178

Post by mvdtnz »

rgovostes wrote: post #104

This makes no difference, because I can’t remember the last time I installed an app other than for the occasional airline. From 2008-12 it was genuinely exciting to see what new apps were being released every day. Mobile games from that era had cultural impact. I bought $2 apps without a thought. But Apple incentivized monetization above all else and killed that excitement. Now you can’t find a tip calculator that do…

I get where you're coming from and your examples are egregiously expensive, but do we really want to live in a world where software is valued at a $2 one-time payment? We shouldn't be engaging in a race to the bottom like that.

Re: Apple testing new App Store design that blurs the line between ads and results

#179

Post by snailmailman »

bool3max wrote: post #90
mdasen wrote: post #21

This is what basically everyone else has done over the past decade. Google used to put a different background behind ads in its search ( https://www.fsedigital.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Google... ). It made it really easy to tell what was an ad and skip over it quickly. Now it's a lot harder to quickly notice what's an ad and what isn't. Sites used to have banner ads. Now they show posts that look exactly like t…

What’s interesting to me is that no matter how “hidden” the AD indicator may be, my brain always seems to very quickly train itself to swiftly skip such posts when scrolling/browsing. Or I could simply be another clueless victim of advertising. If only I could know the number of sponsored posts I never consciously acknowledge and am influenced by on the daily.

Yeah. Its going to be easy to skip the first result in an app store search, not because its highlighted, but additionally because it isn't ever what i was searching for. The app store search has been broken like this for years and any change they make short of adding or removing the ad won't change my habits.

in every search ive done on the app store in the last several years, I'm looking for a specific app. That app is never the ad result at the top, its always the second result down.

Right now i did a search for several different popular social media apps. TikTok was the top 'ad' result for all of them. Then i did a search for TikTok and got some random app i've never heard of as the 'ad' result. Its like it doesn't want the same app to fill both of the top two slots, but there is always an ad. So what you are looking for is always second on the list. Never first.

Because of this, why would i ever click the ad? If i search something less-specific like "flashcard app" the best result will fill the second slot. Something else goes in the ad slot.

Re: Apple testing new App Store design that blurs the line between ads and results

#180

Post by error503 »

stalfosknight wrote: post #156
bigyabai wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But when you're forced to choose the App Store over the many many alternative .ipa distributors, it's perfectly logical and fair? Android is a hardware alternative - Apple needs upward pressure to make their services competitive. If you use a Mac this is already obvious, you can't buy industry-standard software on the App Store. They all avoid it like the plague when given the opportunity, and Apple deliberately clos…

The App Store is an integrated component of the iPhone experience. It's perfectly fine to have different preferences but doesn't mean you get to meddle in the UI/UX of something you didn't create. If you really want to sideload, that's what Android is for.

And when Android follows Apple's lead, then what?

The consumer harm is obvious. Whether you call it a "monopoly" or something else, it is a problem that needs to be addressed.

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