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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

#341
post #333
post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that in that world they cannot force apps to adopt new APIs and have to keep supporting the old ones, thus the forced upgrades.

Apple does keep supporting old APIs indefinitely.

No it doesn't, do you need examples?

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

#342

The search results in the App Store are ridiculous. Sometimes I search for an app by name and have to scroll through dozens of other apps before finding the one I had searched for. App Store search is as broken as Apple Mail search, if not worse.

Yeah that was very visible when HBO Max launched here in Austria and Germany. The top result was HBO Max FYC (which by itself is a very bad name, but it's not for normal customers), then came other results with even other streaming services and only after scrolling a bit you got the normal HBO Max app. Didn't matter if you searched for "hbo" or the full name "hbo max".

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

#345
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It ought to be illegal to host ads for registered trademarks (+/- some edit distance). Especially if you have a marketplace monopoly. Especially if you used overwhelming force to turn the "URL Bar" into a search product and then bought up 90% market share where you can tax every single brand on the planet. Google is the most egregious with this with respect to Google Search. It ought to be illegal, frankly. Google An…

Advertising alternatives to trademarked names is completely legal in every sense. It's known as comparative advertising and is established for more than a century. You simply cannot pretend to be that trademark product/business and you cannot disparage that trademark.

> You simply cannot pretend to be that trademark product/business

Some fraction of consumers are duped. Otherwise there wouldn't be so many knockoffs.

If I enter Acme Orbital Thrusters into a search engine, the exact match, their actual website, must be the top hit. Otherwise it's a racket, not a search engine.

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

#346
post #341
post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple does keep supporting old APIs indefinitely.

No it doesn't, do you need examples?

I can give you examples. Just the other day I was updating an API that has been deprecated for a decade and a half but still worked. I never had to update a deprecated API in macOS, though I do. Maybe I got lucky in the ones I use, but either way the point stands.

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

#347
post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The time that an “App Store” existed and didn’t have adverts was very minimal. Like OP I haven’t browsed the iPhone App Store for over a decade. Occasionally a web page will send me to their app directly and if I want it (very rare) I’ll get it, same with installing specific apps - Spotify, YouTube, WhatsApp etc. Apple used to charge money for a premium product where the customers were customers and not the product.…

> The time that an “App Store” existed and didn’t have adverts was very minimal. The iOS App Store was introduced in 2008. Ads in it began in 2016. We’re in 2026. The App Store has had ads for longer than it didn’t, but the early period was not “very minimal”, it was almost half its current life time.

Did ads on search appear in 2016? I vaguely remember the change to the “curated” pages with ads but I thought searching for a specific app and getting an ad for it (or something else) before the first search result was even newer.

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

#348
post #346
post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it doesn't, do you need examples?

I can give you examples. Just the other day I was updating an API that has been deprecated for a decade and a half but still worked. I never had to update a deprecated API in macOS, though I do. Maybe I got lucky in the ones I use, but either way the point stands.

Try to use Quicktime, Quicktime3D, QuicktimeVR on Tahoe, with their Mac OS 9 API surface.

Or Java Bridge, Carbon, AGL for some more recent on OS X timeframe.

An example on Github compiling on Tahoe is welcomed.

Nope, "Apple does keep supporting old APIs indefinitely.". doesn't stand.

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

#349
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…

Apple not adopting these kinds of user hostile designs is why a lot of us were happy to a premium for their products. I guess Cook is just too stupid to understand that.

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

#350
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 shocking that Apple hasn't done this trick yet when everyone else started doing it years ago.

Is it a coincidence that they started exploring this once they've been forbidden from collecting the "Apple Tax"? This is exactly why I've been arguing against preventing Apple from collecting money from developers: the laws of capitalism will force them to collect money somewhere else, and putting ads in their app store is the obvious next step.

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