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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

#81

Post by al_borland »

dash2 wrote: post #5
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…

Yeah, they seem to be moving from innovators to exploiting their user base. In particular, I interpret their AI failures as the innovator's dilemma. They have loads of highly paid people designing and creating beautiful UIs. A chatbot could replace a lot of this: just tell your phone what to do instead of clicking and swiping. But that would put most of their employees out of work. So instead they are going to milk a…

Apple spent a lot of time already doing a lot of this with Siri instead of focusing on external knowledge. This didn’t replace their UI people. Voice commands aren’t always appropriate and a UI is still needed.

The UI for setting up a daily alarm is a little clunky, since it requires individually selecting each day. I needed to setup alarms for pills every 12 hours. Instead of doing this manually, I asked Siri to do it and it was much easier.

As an easter egg, you can even use some Harry Potter spells. “Lumos” will turn the flashlight on, “nox” will turn it off.

Not everything needs a bunch of AI. Most OS operations and settings are probably better without it, other than maybe for helping to process intent if it’s unclear.

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

#82

Post by godelski »

ee64a4a wrote: post #9
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…

> Apple managed to become the most valuable company in the world without ads. Yeah, but what about next quarter? Jokes aside, they're not the most valuable company anymore. Nvidia is ahead, I think MS has jockeyed with them on that position a few times and is still on their heels, and Google is ascendant (even ahead of MS as of end of close) after the antitrust clouds started to recede and Gemini started to match Cla…

  > Yeah, but what about next quarter?
Apple was the first $1T company, the first $2T company, and the first $3T company. Okay, they weren't the first $4T company, but also Nvidia is an admittedly freak situation and isn't in direct competition with Apple.

Point being, why fuck with a strategy that is working? Is being #1 so important that you'll throw it all away because of an unpredictable and outlier event that isn't in competition with you? That seems incredibly irrational and a great way to lost your market advantage. It is incredibly myopic.

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

#83

Post by teekert »

When I switched to iOS from Android it took me a while to realize why App Store search was so bad compared to the Play store (and f-droid, at least back then). It was because the first option was never wat you wanted. The highlighted app at the top was always an ad, never relevant.

I immediately lost some respect for Apple “so this is the expensive luxury platform people talk about?”

I hate that “we” focus on the second derivative to determine value (not just growth but speed of growth). It’s just for the shareholders, meanwhile us customers are looking at a company that is rich beyond believe thinking: “Seriously??”

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

#84

Post by wolvesechoes »

dash2 wrote: post #5
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…

Yeah, they seem to be moving from innovators to exploiting their user base. In particular, I interpret their AI failures as the innovator's dilemma. They have loads of highly paid people designing and creating beautiful UIs. A chatbot could replace a lot of this: just tell your phone what to do instead of clicking and swiping. But that would put most of their employees out of work. So instead they are going to milk a…

> Yeah, they seem to be moving from innovators to exploiting their user base

Wow, who could have expected that to happen?!

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

#85

Post by thomassmith65 »

N_Lens wrote: post #8
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…

Enshittification is Inevitable.

Perhaps, but it exploded in the tech industry as soon as Steve Jobs died.

Whatever his faults, he had a high bar for user experience, a massive megaphone, and the respect of journalists, industry leaders, and the public.

Apple's market differentiator, under Steve Jobs, was that it wasn't shitty.

Jobs would regularly mock competitors publicly for the way in which they 'enshittified' their products (in words of the time, obviously). And his reputation was such that people listened.

We have a dearth of authority figures today; there's nobody around to shame bad actors.

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

#86

Post by sintax »

How long until the AppleTV will look like your own in-home billboard? At least on the NVIDIA Shield you could just not install the update that changed the homescreen to incorporate ads (or install an alternative launcher). With the closed eco system of the AppleTV, the options are probably limited if/when Apple decides they need to extract more money from you by blastering ads all over the interface.

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

#87

Post by gloxkiqcza »

bitpush wrote: post #48
axus wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you browsed Google Play? :) Or Amazon appstore for that matter.

Why? Does Apple allow you to download apps from Google Play or Amazon?

In EU and Japan it would (have to) if Google/Amazon managed to provide iOS binaries.

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

#88

Post by fainpul »

bee_rider wrote: post #12
dash2 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, they seem to be moving from innovators to exploiting their user base. In particular, I interpret their AI failures as the innovator's dilemma. They have loads of highly paid people designing and creating beautiful UIs. A chatbot could replace a lot of this: just tell your phone what to do instead of clicking and swiping. But that would put most of their employees out of work. So instead they are going to milk a…

Apple hasn’t been much of an innovator for decades. They take an idea that’s already been worked out (like MP3 players) and then just out-execute the competition. It is possible they won’t pull it off for “AI,” of course. But we won’t know until when somebody finds a profitable consumer-facing application for these models.

You picked a bad example. The iPod was very innovative (first time you could have all your music with you on the go – instead of having to decide on a tiny selection before you leave home and slowly upload it to your player).

But yeah, that was decades ago. And with Jobs, innovation has left.

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

#89

Post by IlikeKitties »

sgentle wrote: post #19

Only time I've ever been successfully phished was the App Store. I have an Android phone but I wanted to try the ChatGPT app on my iPad and naively clicked the first result, which was of course a scummy clone. I have since wised up and understand the App Store search results to be roughly torrent search levels of trustworthy. I guess the bar for user trust has now dropped enough across the board to sell more off with…

> I have since wised up and understand the App Store search results to be roughly torrent search levels of trustworthy.

join a private tracker friend :)

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

#90

Post by threatripper »

The "increased opportunity" is for advertisers. For users it will mean more ads in their search results. Not sure if they provide users with a switch to turn off the opportunities. Apple doesn't like configuration options too much, i guess users will have to live with more ads and spend extra time to find what they were searching when using the shop search where you go to search for specific apps. Maybe Apple AI will present the user with their desired search result without first scrolling through more ads but i sense that there, too, might be new opportunities.
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