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Ask HN: On Apple's App Store, why are all the ads deceptive?

20 points by throwaddzuzxd 5y ago

I just started using an iPhone for the first time, and used the App Store to install my apps. Why the hell are all the results so bad? For every single app name I searched, the first result was NOT the app I was looking for but a direct concurrent. Type Amazon? Get Zalando. Type Netflix? Get TikTok. Type foo? Get bar. Wtf is going on? I thought Apple was proud of how curated their store is? How can they let this happen? Example with Spotify: - App Store - https://i.imgur.com/w4J9BHK.png - Play Store - https://i.imgur.com/m1CMARq.png

PaulHoule 5y ago
Ads are bad and app stores are where app developers go to learn dark patterns. App stores (android, Microsoft, ….) seem to think it is a failure when you think ‘I want to install app X’ and you install X. They start by hiding the search box behind an extra click so that they can spam you with 20 links to apps nobody in their right mind would want and hope you get fatigued and click on one. It is like being the quarterback in American Football they will put every distraction they can in your way to fool the weak minded and fatigue the strong minded into being weak minded. To be fair advertising has long been promoted as promoting competition — to give brand Y some exposure so you might find you like it. Many things are different now. For one thing, Y is never better than X on the internet although it sometimes is in real life. Also TV, magazines and such are destinations in themselves whereas i go to the App Store because I am trying to complete a task that requires the app, probably that task is part of a larger task nested several levels. All that is weighing on me and makes distractions all the more stressful.
- yunohn 5y ago
  You know what’s odd? The post speaks about Apple’s AppStore, and their curation of it - which is the focus of an ongoing lawsuit. But your reply neglects Apple entirely, has some whataboutism about other app stores, and makes a vague comparison to American football. Why do Apple apologists enjoy this kind of stance? Is there a reason they can’t discuss nuanced criticisms?
  - throwaddzuzxd 5y ago
    You're being downvoted but you're right, I am specifically talking about the App Store, which is the biggest offender of what I'm referring to. The Play Store doesn't do that.
- throwaddzuzxd 5y ago
  > App stores (android, Microsoft, ….) seem to think it is a failure when you think ‘I want to install app X’ and you install X To be clear, I'm talking specifically about Apple's App Store. I'm not sure about Microsoft, but Android's Play Store doesn't have the specific dark pattern I'm referring to. When I type Discord, Spotify or whatever on the Play Store, the perfect match app is displayed first and prominently. On Apple, the concurrent App is displayed first and takes more than half the screen.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
ksec 5y ago
1. Search on App Store has been bad since Day 1. And they did not bother to fix it. Apple somehow has a team working on App Store search but I have no idea what they are doing. 2. Ads were put in App Store as part of a) Increase of Services Revenue which they had a target of 100% increase from 2016 to 2020. b) Taking advantage of Ads that were in other ecosystem for Apps Discovery. c) They get to "help" Apps Developer about their App discovery without relying on other abusive Data tracking source. >Wtf is going on? I thought Apple was proud of how curated their store is? How can they let this happen? This is no longer Steve Jobs' Apple. Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren't used to an environment where excellence is expected. - Steve Jobs
- Grustaf 5y ago
  > This is no longer Steve Jobs' Apple Remember iAds?
  - ksec 5y ago
    >Remember iAds? iAds were what quality ads should have been, except the money and scale just wasn't there at the time. But iAds was never about target placement. Which is what current App Store Ads are about. And I believe Steve never said anything about Ads being evil. He himself worked with Ads agency in a very deep level to get Great Apple Ads out. Unlike the current Apple PR which is trying to shape the view that all ads are evil.
    - Grustaf 5y ago
      It seems you’re remembering things with rose tinted glasses. IAds were terrible, and appeared on top of the app while using it. Talk about bad “placement”. I personally think ads are evil, but Tim Cook doesn’t. They are limiting tracking, not ads themselves. And they’re limiting all minds of tracking, not just for ad purposes.
      - ksec 5y ago
        iAds were App Ads, not placement Ads. The same type of Ads there is appearing on top of my App when I play a free game. Compare to the Apps appeared on top of search engine are targeted placement ads. They are different type of ads and serve different purpose.
beewhisper 5y ago
I can’t reproduce your Amazon result. When I search for “Amazon” I get Amazon apps for first 10 results. [1] For Netflix, I the advertisement is TikTok but the first search result is Netflix. This isn’t really an Apple problem, this is TikTok buying ad space targeting Netflix as a search term. [1]: https://i.imgur.com/0iHoWKI.jpg https://i.imgur.com/0iHoWKI.jpg
- throwaddzuzxd 5y ago
  I just added a screenshot for Spotify. I guess search results are region dependant > This isn’t really an Apple problem, this is TikTok buying ad space targeting Netflix as a search term It's an Apple problem. They must either forbid it, or more realistically not display the ads first before the real app.
  - beewhisper 5y ago
    Ok, but that’s not an Apple issue. That’s TikTok buying ad space with Netflix/Spotify as their search terms.
    - yunohn 5y ago
      That’s literally an Apple issue. It’s as simple as not allowing competitors to buy ads for brand names. This can easily be solved by the ad seller - Apple.
    - greazy 5y ago
      ... Yes it's not apples fault they allow huge half page adverts not related to the search term. Stop defending the system thats causing the issue.
      - Grustaf 5y ago
        It's highly related. People searching for Netflix might definitely be interested in say HBO.
Grustaf 5y ago
If you accept ads, you accept the concept that some parts of your screen will be devoted to things you have not chosen yourself, so what exactly is the issue here? It probably makes sense for tiktok to advertise to people searching for Spotify, either they feel that is more efficient that placing ad when you search for "tiktok" (because you'll get tiktok in the list anyway), or they're just advertising everywhere. Either way, it's not "deceptive". Nobody will mistake the tiktok card for Spotify.
- yunohn 5y ago
  > If you accept ads Who accepted ads? Apple is notoriously against the ads ecosystem. Search in an AppStore should not be an ad platform.
  - Grustaf 5y ago
    I hate ads, but if we’re discussing the merits of a specific ad platform we sort of need to accept ads in general. Otherwise the discussion is pretty meaningless. Presumably OP means that Apple’s search ads are worse than others.
    - yunohn 5y ago
      We’re not discussing an ad platform? The AppStore is /the/ App platform for iOS. Apple decided to monetize it further with ads, despite being the most profitable App platform globally.
      - Grustaf 5y ago
        Whatever you want to call it, we are discussing a specific usage of ads, that OP think is bad and deceptive. For this discussion to be meaningful, you need to at least accept that ads exist, for the sake of argument.
        yunohn 5y ago
        This is the only kind of ads that Apple has in their entire ecosystem. The only application appears to be for app competitors to buy ad space. I’m not sure why you make this out to be a weird exceptional case?
nottorp 5y ago
Apple's marketing talks about privacy with a strong implication they're not into deceiving users. I guess the App Store team didn't get the memo. However, how is that different from Google ads? You hire marketing specialists and that's what you get. If you want non deceptive behaviour you have to train them extra.
- Grustaf 5y ago
  In what way is it deceptive? Looking at the image, how many people will mistake tiktok for Spotify?
joegahona 5y ago
Amazon is even worse, and I'm paying $119 per year for their service. Go search "Ikea desk" or anything else just as specific, and everything above the fold on a giant monitor is an ad that's not what you searched for. Ad-free should be a no-brainer feature of Prime.

Grustaf 5y ago
I know, if you read my post I also described how they worked. In app ads in free apps are some of the ugliest and most obnoxious ads, I really wonder bow you can prefer them to search ads.

throwaddzuzxd 5y ago

I agree, but the correct way to do that is what the Play Store does: display what the user asked for first and unambiguously, and AFTER, display some ads, clearly flagged as "Ads: other content that might interest you". Apple doesn't even clearly flag them as ads.

Grustaf 5y ago
I'm not saying it's a weird exceptional case. I'm saying it's pretty normal and expected that you are able to buy ads when people search for competitors, why shouldn't you? I'd say that's the _least_ deceptive ad you could possibly buy. If you buy ads for the search "best video app" then some people might think that the tiktok ad was an organic result. But if you buy an ad for the word "Spotify" then nobody will be "deceived". I don't think ads should be allowed at all, in any context, in any medium, but if they are, then I don't see any reason to make competitor names off-limit.
- yunohn 5y ago
  I’m not sure why you’re arguing this particular way, but I guess there’s not much left for me to say. You can believe what you want, but I don’t think most people would agree with this line of reasoning.

mustacheemperor 5y ago

>It probably makes sense for tiktok to advertise to people searching for Spotify It absolutely makes sense to me, OP is describing their experience installing new apps on a new phone. Someone searching up Spotify because they know they want it will be reminded "hey, lots of people are using TikTok on their phones too" or "hey, you had TikTok on your last device, hit that button to install it after Spotify." Especially since you can just hit the install button from the search pane.

throwaddzuzxd 5y ago
Don't play stupid, the ad itself is not the issue I'm mentioning here. The issue is that the ad should both be displayed AFTER my search result, AND clearly flagged as an ad in the same way the Play Store does it. It could also be a bit less prominent than the search results. Is the Apple community always this way? I came to love Apple products but the community is a piece of work, it's like nothing can be criticized and everything is perfect as it is.
- Grustaf 5y ago
  There's no "Apple community", and if there is I'm not part of it. I just don't think the order (or buying your competitors ad word) is an issue. If anything it would be more confusing to place an ad among the organic results. Plus Google has made people expect a few paid results above the real results. I do agree that they should clearly mark it as an ad, though, that's very important. And strange that they don't, I don't think they'd earn much less that way. And as I said, I think ads in general are a nuisance and my position is that they shouldn't be allowed anywhere. If the official raison d'être of the market economy is that the better products will win out, allowing ads distorts that. Ads lead to a situation where the company with the best marketing team wins. End of rant. And don't even get me started on negative externalities.