Apple testing new App Store design that blurs the line between ads and results • Hacker News Board

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

#521

Post by VerifiedReports » Fri, Jan 23, 2026, 4:58 AM UTC

morshu9001 wrote: post #481

VerifiedReports wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amen. App-store search is an offense sham, wasting users' time and stealing from developers. And +1 to pitiful Mail search. But Apple has long suffered from a peculiar learning disability in regard to search. Not only does Finder fail to find files matching search strings that it's showing you IN THE CURRENT DIRECTORY... but both Finder and Spotlight provide no option to include WHERE it found stuff in search results…

Finder has always been the weakest part of Mac OS for some reason. The one UI that Windows beat them on.

Yes, Finder has always sucked. We were promised a "ground-up rewrite" years ago... don't know what happened there.

Microsoft has degraded Explorer, though. For example, you used to be able tell which directories were empty by simply noting whether there was a + symbol next to them. Clever and time-saving.

Now, not only did MS replace the universally-understood + sign with a stupid triangle, but it now HIDES all the triangles unless you happen to roll the cursor into the left pane. WTF, WHY?

Oh, and if you select multiple files in Explorer and right-click to say "Open with..." NOPE! Microsoft inexplicably removes "open with" if you select multiple files, even files of identical type (PNGs, for example).

The opening of multiple files was fully functional 30 years ago. WTF?

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

#522

Post by Wowfunhappy » Sat, Jan 24, 2026, 1:29 AM UTC

krackers wrote: post #197

atonse wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple Maps from day one was skating to where the puck was going to be. They had vector based maps when that stuff was brand new. Possibly before Google deployed it widespread (but I'm not sure on this fact). But the problem with Apple Maps was easy to see (and can only be fixex over time)... data. Google and others had a decade+ head start on Apple when it came to collecting data for maps. Judge Apple Maps 5 years ol…

From my reading, Forstall was one of the few who actually refused to partake in performative corporate culture, and decided to quit rather than bend over >when Apple issued a formal apology for the errors in Maps, Forstall refused to sign it It's obvious that apple maps would never be able to be a perfect replacement for google maps at launch, and it's possible Forstall in fact voiced these exact concerns but was ove…

I find this take interesting, but it does hinge on "well maybe the bad part was actually someone else's fault" being true.

Apple Maps launched much too early. It's certainly plausible that someone else forced Forstall to launch it, but I don't think we actually have reason to believe that, do we?

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

#523

Post by port11 » Sat, Jan 24, 2026, 6:02 PM UTC

janfoeh wrote: post #517

sunrunner wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never actually thought to try such an obvious and definitely-not-ridiculous approach, and I can (happily?) confirm it works, so thanks for that. Apple are certainly leaning into Think Different with this.

I... well, you are welcome :-) Playing around with it for ten seconds, it looks to me you might even use the Shortcuts app to - Take interactive screenshot - Extract text from screenshot - Copy text to clipboard and assign that to a keyboard shortcut to at least clean up this abominable workaround a bit.

That… sounds like Command-C with extra steps. Modern software…