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
    TheDong · 1790090784 · focus · HN ↗
    > Switch to android which has even more ads?
    Android has more ads if you buy it through a carrier, but you can easily make it have far fewer ads by installing LineageOS, and then installing Firefox with the real uBlock origin (not ublock origin lite).
    iOS does not allow you to install alternative browsers, nor can you customize the OS to the level of lineageOS, so iOS simply cannot match the best that you can do on android.
    Android has more of a free market because on my pixel phone, I can choose either Google's android distribution, or LineageOS, or Graphene, or build my own ROM. I can use F-Droid or the google play store.
    What we need is laws requiring that all iDevices apple makes are open hardware which support installing android, iOS, or a custom OS you build yourself, all hardware-essential drivers are free, and so on. That would let people compete on the software side of thing while Apple's hardware team iterates on that. If iOS really is better on its merits, people would install it even with the option to pick other OSs.
    armadyl · 1790096354 · focus · HN ↗
    > What we need is laws requiring that all iDevices apple makes are open hardware which support installing android, iOS, or a custom OS you build yourself, all hardware-essential drivers are free, and so on.
    I strongly disagree with this sentiment, Apple shouldn’t be forced by the government to allow other OSes on their products. There is a solution to this, it’s simply to stop buying Apple products if that’s a concern.
    AnthonyMouse · 1790100199 · focus · HN ↗
    > There is a solution to this, it’s simply to stop buying Apple products if that’s a concern.
    Your proposal is that the way to address market consolidation is to buy a different product. You can see the problem with that, right? Products with a network effect need a critical mass of users to be viable, e.g. to be targeted by third party developers and hardware OEMs. The way they achieve that is by starting off with compatibility with existing apps and devices. If the incumbents can lock them out of doing that then new challengers are doomed.
    Moreover, it stops being "Apple's product" when they sell it to the customer.
    armadyl · 1790100929 · focus · HN ↗
    > Your proposal is that the way to address market consolidation is to buy a different product. You can see the problem with that, right? Products with a network effect need a critical mass of users to be viable, e.g. to be targeted by third party developers and hardware OEMs.
    Almost every company, tech or otherwise, even expanding into things like sports have faced this. It’s nothing new. If Android or Linux OEMs want to convince people to move to their ecosystem they should just produce better products that the majority of a population would actually want. Not run to the government to hinder another company because they can’t or won’t compete technologically or brand wise.
    There is nothing Apple is doing to lock competitors out of the market. iMessage, Facetime? Convince customers that your option is better.
    And also Apple customers buy the hardware knowing it runs macOS/iOS. Apple has never once advertised the OS is changeable or the ecosystem is “open” unlike Google who started that way and is trying to claw things back. You don’t go to a BBQ place and get mad that it serves meat and demand they start serving vegetarian food.
    lostlogin · 1790101482 · focus · HN ↗
    > You don’t go to a BBQ place and get mad that it serves meat and demand they start serving vegetarian food.
    You might if there were only two restaurants and both were really meaty.
    Yes, there are more than 2 phone OS options but nearly the whole of the market is those 2.
    armadyl · 1790101635 · focus · HN ↗
    Then if there’s a good enough product for it, it’ll gain market share. People act like Apple was just miraculously granted market share over Blackberry and that they didn’t create a competitive product to earn that spot.
    Terr_ · 1790105145 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    AnthonyMouse · 1790106018 · focus · HN ↗
    > Almost every company, tech or otherwise, even expanding into things like sports have faced this. It’s nothing new.
    "Bad thing has occurred previously, therefore nothing should be done about it"?
    > If Android or Linux OEMs want to convince people to move to their ecosystem they should just produce better products that the majority of a population would actually want.
    That's what they're trying to do. "OS that people would actually want" is the one that runs their existing apps on their existing hardware. That's the thing the incumbents are blocking them from doing.
    "If you want to make a new OS you must first reproduce the entire hardware supply chain and replace the entire installed base of user devices with a new system that has no existing users" is basically saying that you're not allowed to do it.
    > There is nothing Apple is doing to lock competitors out of the market. iMessage, Facetime? Convince customers that your option is better.
    If I create a messaging app which is exactly as good as iMessage, but Apple preinstalls theirs and not mine on the majority of US phones and messaging apps have a network effect, what happens?
    > Apple has never once advertised the OS is changeable or the ecosystem is “open”
    Ma Bell never once advertised that you can use your own phone on their phone network.
    armadyl · 1790113886 · focus · HN ↗
    > "Bad thing has occurred previously, therefore nothing should be done about it"?
    The solution isn’t degrading another company’s product or forcing them to do x when there’s already existing competition.
    > That's what they're trying to do. "OS that people would actually want" is the one that runs their existing apps on their existing hardware. That's the thing the incumbents are blocking them from doing. "If you want to make a new OS you must first reproduce the entire hardware supply chain and replace the entire installed base of user devices with a new system that has no existing users" is basically saying that you're not allowed to do it.
    I mean I just disagree here, I don’t know what else to say. People were fully aware of what Apple was when they bought the products, Apple didn’t trick anyone, or anything. They also are not the sole phone OEM and they don’t have a monopoly.
    Other companies can step up and provide actual competitive hardware. There’s nothing stopping Samsung or (especially) Google from putting more effort into their lineups to match the performance, fit and finish that Apple users like. They’ve just settled for mediocrity in some aspects (i.e. Google holding onto their Tensor chips, or not improving the UX/UI of Android, or even improving its brand perception).
    > If I create a messaging app…
    Not the same thing at all as far as other OSes go, this is more applicable to something like allowing Chromium on iOS. The appropriate comparison would be if another OEMs OS had a messaging feature baked into their OS. Google attempted it (or still does?) and their branding and advertising are just so incredibly bad they do nothing to sway the average population.
    I think like a lot of the HN users here, the Android and Linux OEMs and even companies like Framework are disconnected from the average consumer and can’t comprehend why people choose Apple and don’t care about all the technical stuff like an unlockable bootloader, installing apks, etc.
    > Ma Bell never once advertised that you can use your own phone on their phone network.
    Again, not the same thing as Apple holds nothing near a monopoly in the US or worldwide.
    AnthonyMouse · 1790136661 · focus · HN ↗
    > The solution isn’t degrading another company’s product or forcing them to do x when there’s already existing competition.
    How does it in any way "degrade" their product to allow the customer to do something with it that the customer is not required to do?
    > People were fully aware of what Apple was when they bought the products, Apple didn’t trick anyone, or anything.
    We can disagree about this one too. Consider what happens if a company simultaneously has no ads and prohibits ad blockers. People aren't really going to object to the prohibition on ad blockers in that case, right?
    Then they introduce ads and suddenly the prohibition on ad blockers becomes relevant, but your reply is that ad blockers have always been banned. Okay, but now there are ads.
    If your claim is that you can't object if something doesn't change, does that imply you do get to object every something does change?
    > They also are not the sole phone OEM and they don’t have a monopoly.
    They have more than 50% market share in the US. The trope that anyone who has less than 100.0% market share can't violate antitrust laws is invalid.
    Moreover, "two companies together have >99% of the market" is an oligopoly the likes of which is exactly what is meant to be broken up, regardless of what the split between them is. A duopoly is not a competitive market.
    > There’s nothing stopping Samsung or (especially) Google from putting more effort into their lineups to match the performance, fit and finish that Apple users like.
    We're talking about competition for operating systems. The GrapheneOS Foundation isn't Samsung -- and Samsung locks their bootloaders, so they can't even use Samsung.
    > The appropriate comparison would be if another OEMs OS had a messaging feature baked into their OS
    Only in the sense that then they would both be engaged in anti-competitive behavior.
    mitxela · 1790107210 · focus · HN ↗
    They do. People won't buy good products if they have green bubbles. Guess who controls the bubble color.
    Capitalism is the art of making your customers act like this.
    armadyl · 1790113986 · focus · HN ↗
    This isn’t permanent. We see the rise and fall of plenty of brands overtime (Nike, Mitsubishi, etc).
    If your branding and product is good enough you can overcome this. I mean just look at social media networks too that constantly come in and out of the picture.
    AnthonyMouse · 1790137811 · focus · HN ↗
    > I mean just look at social media networks too that constantly come in and out of the picture.
    Have a look here:
    <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_popular_social_platforms" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_popular_social_pl...
    Can you find a US or EU-based social media platform launched in the last 15 years that isn't now a subsidiary of one of the incumbents?
    The closest you can come is things like Signal or Discord that are more like messaging apps than social media, and even then both of those are more than 10 years old and both of them put together have less than 10% of Facebook's user base.
    Network effects are wicked when incumbents are allowed to purposely impede interoperability.
    mitxela · 1790300854 · focus · HN ↗
    We can do adversarial interoperability if we want, but we don't want.
    brookst · 1790117145 · focus · HN ↗
    I really dislike the sheeple argument.

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