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2026 Apple introducing more ads to increase opportunity in search results

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Re: 2026 Apple introducing more ads to increase opportunity in search results

#141

Post by nottorp »

teekert wrote: post #138
nottorp wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One of the differentiators between iOS and Google was a lack of ads Newsflash: the first slot in an app store search is an ad that is not marked as such. Your extra $100 are already wasted. Here's a nice ad I ran into recently: https://imgur.com/a/sq1HFHK I was trying to install microsoft authenticator and the first "result"... I don't want to know what that is. If they add more ads at the top I suppose I'll have t…

OMG, this requires it's own submission here on HN, I suggest you do it, this egregious. How low has Apple sunk. This is "the luxury brand" people.

Meh.

Context: we're migrating to MS cloud services at work from Google so everyone is setting up accounts, authenticators etc. Pretty seamless migration overall btw, guess our admins worked like dogs.

So I post this screenshot in a work chat as a warning (that's why i still have it). All my Android using colleagues tell me "it's the same in the Play Store, watch what you click."

Re: 2026 Apple introducing more ads to increase opportunity in search results

#142

Post by agos »

heavyset_go wrote: post #23
al_borland wrote: post #3

I’m really not a fan of this direction for Apple. One of the differentiators between iOS and Google was a lack of ads, which make the experience feel more premium. Increasing ads, or having them at all, really erodes the user experience. Apple managed to become the most valuable company in the world without ads. Adding them after hitting that milestone feels either greedy or desperate, maybe a little of both. I know…

> One of the differentiators between iOS and Google was a lack of ads Both have had ads in apps, in app stores and on websites. This was never a differentiator.

there was definitely a time when iOS App Store did not have ads

Re: 2026 Apple introducing more ads to increase opportunity in search results

#143

Post by teekert »

nottorp wrote: post #141
teekert wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OMG, this requires it's own submission here on HN, I suggest you do it, this egregious. How low has Apple sunk. This is "the luxury brand" people.

Meh. Context: we're migrating to MS cloud services at work from Google so everyone is setting up accounts, authenticators etc. Pretty seamless migration overall btw, guess our admins worked like dogs. So I post this screenshot in a work chat as a warning (that's why i still have it). All my Android using colleagues tell me "it's the same in the Play Store, watch what you click."

So it really is normal, wherever you go. We're not even surprised about it, let alone outraged.

We've lost.

Re: 2026 Apple introducing more ads to increase opportunity in search results

#144

Post by charcircuit »

Wilder7977 wrote: post #122
charcircuit wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If such a platform can get your business billions of dollars I think they are happy to have access to such a platform. Businesses are free to partner with other platforms if they don't like the agreement.

They are not free to do that when there is a duopoly and in most countries the platforms don't even allow competitors for that market (especially true for Apple). Seriously, playing the "free market" card in the tech (especially mobile) space is really brave.

No one is forcing people to make businesses that release ios apps. A business could be based off of a Windows app. Or they could even not have an app and do business through an existing one like Discord.

Re: 2026 Apple introducing more ads to increase opportunity in search results

#145

Post by realusername »

charcircuit wrote: post #101
heavyset_go wrote: post #35

Imagine paying $100 a year for the privilege to develop apps, only to have your revenue confiscated to the tune of 15% - 30% and for the same entity to spam users who are looking for your apps, on the only place they can look for apps, with ads for your competitors, or with scummy ads that make you look bad by association.

If such a platform can get your business billions of dollars I think they are happy to have access to such a platform. Businesses are free to partner with other platforms if they don't like the agreement.

Well there's only a single other mobile platform and it has the same pricing as the other one (I'm sure it's a total coincidence, nothing to see here!)

Re: 2026 Apple introducing more ads to increase opportunity in search results

#146

Post by everfrustrated »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #70
dangus wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to break it to you, but it's been like this for YEARS now. The frog has been boiled. Line must go up and the market is saturated. I watched an "Android user switched to iOS" YouTube video recently and it's interesting how much you don't see when you haven't been removed from an environment. This Android user was shocked at how much iOS advertises to you, which is not intuitively what any of us would think an A…

As an Android user, it really is depressing to see screenshots of how clean the Android Market used to be. Nowadays even when I search an app name verbatim it's a crapshoot if I'll actually find it

Best to find a link to a companies app from their website - searching in the store is asking for trouble. Too many hijacked search results.

Re: 2026 Apple introducing more ads to increase opportunity in search results

#147

Post by hu3 »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #53

Apple is just another runner in the race to the bottom, and they're trying their best to catch up to 'the leaders'. One thing I've noticed with the Play Store is that top-level advertised app results are, more often than not, totally unrelated to what I searched for, and therefore completely useless as both a suggestion to the user and an 'opportunity' for the app creator. In fact, it usually invokes a 'this app must…

What baffles me is when people defend this broken wallet garden to be used by their grandmas.

Surely they won't be able to tell which one of the 20 ChatGPT apps is the correct one in search results.

Re: 2026 Apple introducing more ads to increase opportunity in search results

#148

Post by heavyset_go »

charcircuit wrote: post #101
heavyset_go wrote: post #35

Imagine paying $100 a year for the privilege to develop apps, only to have your revenue confiscated to the tune of 15% - 30% and for the same entity to spam users who are looking for your apps, on the only place they can look for apps, with ads for your competitors, or with scummy ads that make you look bad by association.

If such a platform can get your business billions of dollars I think they are happy to have access to such a platform. Businesses are free to partner with other platforms if they don't like the agreement.

Yes, they can go to the 1 other option, where they've boiled the frog completely by matching the App Store's policies, practices and advertising schemes. The entire mobile app and mobile app distribution markets are captured by two entities, including Apple.

I'd buy your suggestion when Apple's duopoly status is rightfully fixed, perhaps by breaking out the App Store into its own independent business, along with the rest of Apple.

Re: 2026 Apple introducing more ads to increase opportunity in search results

#149

Post by ben_w »

fasbiner wrote: post #39
mystifyingpoi wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

THIS. Never promote the idea of "can you please not bother me with ads, there you go there is your extra $100, what, $200? okay sure". That's how mafia operates. Do not promote such.

People pay the mafia protection money because it's cheaper than fighting the mob and it makes the mob go away for awhile, and in the long run, we're all dead. Most mafia-like entities don't have an inexorable existential drive to take it all, they just charge what the market will bear. And if you think there's a definitional difference between a government, a corporation and a mafia that stands up to any objective me…

> People pay the mafia protection money because it's cheaper than fighting the mob and it makes the mob go away for awhile, and in the long run, we're all dead. Most mafia-like entities don't have an inexorable existential drive to take it all, they just charge what the market will bear.

If I had to guess, the Mafia will have professional economists on payroll telling the bosses about the Laffer curve and emigration.

But in this context, Apple's clearly on the low end of the Laffer curve* because they don't need a million apps, so who cares if the store fees are 15% or 85%, the supply is still there?**; while for emigration, being the least bad of the Apple/Google duopoly is all that is necessary.

* if you take literally that the App store fee is the "Apple tax"

** Answer: Judges in market abuse/monopoly cases because Apple is not actually sovereign; on paper neither is the Mafia, but this is where "monopoly on violence" is a useful definition of a state, in that where anything like the Mafia can exist, the state is de facto not sovereign no matter what it says on paper.

Re: 2026 Apple introducing more ads to increase opportunity in search results

#150

Post by hurfdurf »

type0 wrote: post #133
godelski wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’d rather pay an extra $100 for the phone than have ads all over it. Wasn't that part of the deal with iPhones in the first place? You pay more for less but you get a "more premium" experience. Though lately I feel like Apple is just really bad at being... Apple It's like they are dumping all the good parts and doubling down on all the bad parts. Things are far from "just working", have more glitches/bugs, but at…

> When literally typing on a phone is a daily frustrating experience you know you fucked up "You are holding it wrong", maybe it's intentional and Apple decided that you should use Siri more

It is intentional: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46232528
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