Thread

Apple has added persistent 'ads' to iOS, and it's driving users crazy

822 points · 601 comments · MC995

AnonC · 1790088825 · focus · HN ↗
I doubt John Ternus will change direction anytime soon, since it will look like he’s reversing the plethora of eyesore ads that Tim Cook added over his tenure.
But the Apple with ads is not the Apple that had some taste and discernment in the past. For a long time I’ve visited the App Store’s app update page directly (tap and hold on App Store icon to see the context menu option). Anytime I inadvertently go to the App Store home page or the few times I search, it’s an ad filled disaster!
From this article
> repeatedly attempting to prod customers towards even more of the company’s products might seem cheap, even distasteful.
From a recent post by John Gruber:
> Steve Jobs in 2011: 'We Build Products That We Want for Ourselves, Too, and We Just Don't Want Ads' [1]
Looks like Tim Cook, John Ternus and Eddy Cue really enjoy being swamped with ads in their products. Will there soon be a time when Apple executives start carrying some other brand’s devices with them to avoid having a rotten experience?
[1]: We don’t want ads <a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2026/07/28/jobs-we-dont-want-ads" rel="nofollow">https://daringfireball.net/linked/2026/07/28/jobs-we-dont-wa...
1. api · 1790088911 · focus · HN ↗
  Ad revenue is bad revenue if you're going for the high end of the market. If it has ads, it's crap.
  Apple has all but conquered the high end of the market, but that ad revenue... it's so tempting... soooo tempting... just one hit...
  1. malfist · 1790089693 · focus · HN ↗
    What are you going to do? Switch to android which has even more ads?
    What we need is antitrust enforcement so there are other options and more competition. The free market can't fix anything if the market is just a race to the bottom between two companies
    animuchan · 1790092984 · focus · HN ↗
    Android user here, switched from iOS (not because of ads, a different gripe).
    Not going to lie, it's a holistically bad experience, very similar to iOS in this regard. But Android doesn't show ads. The closest thing would be the Google Photos pestering to back up to cloud, things like that. It's per app, and usually there are better apps to replace the offending ones. (And vendor garbage can even be uninstalled, although it's very deliberately inconvenient to do.)
    Bonus points for having Brave browser with built-in adblock, for the free YouTube Premium-ish ad-free experience.
    petre · 1790099795 · focus · HN ↗
    I guess you can disable or uninstall Photos but I don't know anything better so I'm currently ignoring the nags.
    I was horrified about how many ads my wufe has on her iPhone. I mean web ads in Safari. It's unsusable.
    lostlogin · 1790101691 · focus · HN ↗
    > I mean web ads in Safari.
    That’s just the internet isn’t it?
    Not sure we can blame Apple for that, but I’m sure they could cook up a decent blocker if they wanted.
    jwitthuhn · 1790126338 · focus · HN ↗
    Apple also forces users onto a web browser that effectively has the same limitations as recent versions of chrome with respect to ad blocking.
    They could easily resolve that by allowing alternate browsers, but choose not to.
    microtonal · 1790101934 · focus · HN ↗
    Install Wipr on her phone. Problem solved.
    About Photos: why not disable notifications for the Google Photos app?
    petre · 1790109153 · focus · HN ↗
    They're disabled, I get the nags in the app.
    VibrantClarity · 1790100017 · focus · HN ↗
    It's worse than that. Google Photos sends push notifications telling you to buy photo books and prints unless you opt out. Play Books also sends push notifications telling you to buy particular books; it's also opt out. I'm semi-certain other built-in apps like YouTube and the Play Store do the same. However, once you turn all that junk off, the Pixel experience is pretty good.
    microtonal · 1790101882 · focus · HN ↗
    Why would you even enable notifications on these apps?
    I'm on GrapheneOS, so they are not enabled by default, but I think on Google certified Android you can also switch them off. Also, besides that, if apps implement notifications nicely, they are nicer on Android, because you can turn on/off notifications per category/channel. Of course, some apps just put everything together.

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