Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

9to5mac.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 523 posts

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

#131

Post by nikitaga »

madeofpalk wrote: post #49
nikitaga wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is MacOS as enshittified as Windows? It doesn't have ads, doesn't push AI on you, their online services are trivial to ignore once and never think about again, etc. I haven't tried Tahoe, and sure, its new glass UI is shit, but merely incompetent UI design is not "enshittification" and is not in any way equivalent to what Microsoft does in Windows.

macOS absolutely, definitely, 100% has ads. Buy a new Apple Watch and notice that the settings app with have a [1] badge trying to upsell you to buy AppleCare+. They obscure dismissing these by clicking the "Add AppleCare Coverage" button and then having a button that says actually no.

My MacOS "100%" does not have any ads. But I don't use Apple watch or Apple online services, so that's the difference I guess.

You don't need to buy a Windows Watch to get ads on Windows though. They'll be right there anyway, and more of them.

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

#132

Post by saagarjha »

galenko wrote: post #128
seviu wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only that, it’s dangerous too specially if you have a family account with a single credit card. Apple doesn’t care about quality.

Yes. My wife’s mother keeps buying crap in game using my card and I have no reasonable way of blocking her from doing so if I want to keep app purchase sharing. It’s insane. Does no one at apple have senile in laws? Or is this acceptable?

I’m sure Apple realizes how many senile in-laws can make them money.

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

#134

Post by atonse »

iwontberude wrote: post #70
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?…

Forstall was an enshittefier too. Apple Maps was exactly what we are talking about.

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 old vs Google Maps 5 years old. Not Apple Maps brand new vs Google Maps 10 years later.

Forstall is the one that pushed to make iOS based on macOS/Unix. He was definitely a lightning rod but had product sense.

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

#136

Post by TheDong »

cdrnsf wrote: post #41

Not only are Apple's services bad, they've becoming inescapable. It's rumored that they'll add ads to maps as soon as next year. Music.app is simply an ad for Apple Music, Books.app is like reading in a Barnes and Noble while someone from marketing looks over your shoulder and their TV app features their own shows to an overbearing degree — everything else is becoming more of an afterthought.

> inescapable. It's rumored that they'll add ads to maps

If you move to the EU you can change the default navigation app on iOS and never see apple maps.

A plan to display ads would explain why they region locked that setting.

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

#137

Post by mihaaly »

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 is shocking is that deception is the common. Accepted, argued for by some. Loosing trust of the site/app doing the deception is the result. Becoming common, accepted, trend, and then loosing trust in the whole industry is the result.

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

#138

Post by amelius »

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.

Shouldn't be too difficult to train a DL network on it, as well. I'm waiting for a pi-hole like device that works on the HDMI level and simply replaces ads by blank space (or art, or whatever the user chooses).

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

#139

Post by testbjjl »

I can remember, or perhaps imagine a time when the FTC would knowingly not look kindly on a situation like this, so Apple with its huge market share and revenue wouldn’t consider it. I imagine now it’s likely not a concern for the agency, and if it were, a political contribution would go a long way towards resolving any concerns.

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

#140

Post by mihaaly »

yalogin wrote: post #28

Services business is a slippery slope, everyone succumbs to the YoY revenue growth push and they all gravitate towards the same dirty tactics. They even tried turning the hardware into a subscription model but I guess it didn’t gain much traction.

Ah! The illusion of predictability (for the organisation, of course, because that's what only counts nowadays). Then users get tired/upset of the crap and walk away.

Like long lasting customers of my employer.

Still, the new investor pushes the method further, into infinity, price strategy 'modernization' and whatnot, so numbers and charts in categories of buzzwords look as they want in the sheets. For a while.

Functionality? Secondary, tertiary, or even lower priority annoyance.

I wonder why they invest in troublesome R&D and not in selling sugary water or something from that beatifully simple alley instead, that would be better playfield for them.

Post reply on HN