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In addition to this: They’ve been building ad tools because that’s what developers have been asking for as a way to surface their app. Otherwise all developer

by quitit 4y ago

In addition to this: They’ve been building ad tools because that’s what developers have been asking for as a way to surface their app. Otherwise all developers had was a situation where only Apple’s algorithms decides which app is similar to another app, which is largely generated through user searches/behaviours (something that is easily exploited as seen on amazon with the “customers also bought” exploits). That left developers with limited ability to surface their ad honestly and absolutely no way to feature event-based activities, expansions and other promotional industry norms. HN won’t like it because it’s Apple - but this largely improves the experience for the developers. While consumers get relevant ads without the unscrupulous on-selling of data.

Apocryphon 4y ago
Will this really improve the experience for the average developer, or will this be a way for those with deep pockets to blanket the platform with ads and drown out small-time indie devs even more? It feels like a more lasting solution not based on being able to buy eyeballs would be making the search experience on the App Store more robust and modernized. To fix the solution with an UX upgrade. That feels more like an Apple solution, not by adding more ads into the mix.
- quitit 4y ago
  Why not both? Improve the UX which they do regularly and introduce ads which developers have been screaming for. With or without ads in the app store, the problem about being out marketed exists outside the app store. What this is merely apple’s privacy-protecting solution for what is seen inside the app store. Im yet to see an argument which isn’t just some thinly veiled distaste for apple. Hate apple all you like, but actually challenge the conversation with a valid argument.
  - Apocryphon 4y ago
    I don't hate Apple; I've worked there myself, continue to be a shareholder (and thus have vested interest in its fortunes), and given the way the industry works, may return there eventually. But I find blind faith in the company from die-hard fans both misplaced, and frankly, distasteful. As with any organization, Apple is deserving both scrutiny and critique, and it is wrong to dismiss critique as hatred. And the image of Apple as a scrappy underdog beset on all sides by haters is two decades out of date by now. It's a corporate giant that deserves as much skepticism as the others. > Improve the UX which they do regularly and introduce ads which developers have been screaming for. If ads can be better, then developers will like them. But I question the supposition that developers have been screaming for ads, given that the status quo with App Store ads is situations like this: https://twitter.com/wilshipley/status/1270568780712706049 https://twitter.com/wilshipley/status/1270568780712706049 https://twitter.com/wilshipley/status/1197642397854777344 https://twitter.com/wilshipley/status/1197642397854777344 https://twitter.com/wilshipley/status/1271154427034918912 https://twitter.com/wilshipley/status/1271154427034918912 Granted, that's from two years ago, and any new ads rollouts would presumably be of greater quality. It's just that track record doesn't inspire a lot of confidence, and really throws into question the idea that developers really want ads. How do you prevent the big players with the biggest marketing budgets from buying up all of the space? I'm not going to pre-judge the feature, but I do believe some healthy skepticism is warranted. If App Store ads follow even a modicum of some of these feature requests, then perhaps they will really be what developers want. https://twitter.com/wilshipley/status/1271185023744397312 https://twitter.com/wilshipley/status/1271185023744397312 Edit: an example from six months ago https://twitter.com/tgrapperon/status/1492460177001431042 https://twitter.com/tgrapperon/status/1492460177001431042 https://twitter.com/miguelkennedy/status/1492529534729654274 https://twitter.com/miguelkennedy/status/1492529534729654274
    - quitit 4y ago
      Shifting the topic and implying i’m some sort of fanboy doesn’t address the argument. Indeed blind faith, i.e making assumptions before something is even seen, works both ways. Since i see a lot of critique that is literally based on an ad opening. Do you realise how ridiculous this sounds? I don’t care about anecdotes plucked from twitter, anyone can form a counter point with a whole other set of tweets. What I’ve said, all along: It’s a privacy preserving ad product, an already announced solution to not being able to feature events, upgrades, expansions which currently doesn’t exist. Getting caught into an irrelevant philosophical debate on the virtue of ads does reveal your bias, regardless of who you say you are.
      - Apocryphon 4y ago
        I have shifted nothing. I am clarifying where I am coming from. I am explaining that my words come without "hatred" for something I am incentivized not to hate. That implies nothing about yourself, but it does explain why I take the positions in conversations in threads like this. To accuse someone of hatred addresses no argument. If you are unwilling to accept the experiences of developers who are out there, and claim that developers have been clamoring for ads without showing evidence, and discount evidence clearly presented to you, then it seems like you have made up your mind and there is a deadlock. > Getting caught into an irrelevant philosophical debate on the virtue of ads I have not been caught into any of that. I am simply expressing that the ads that have been present when it comes to exact search results matching have led to a subpar UX, as seen by many, and this is a known situation, which you are unwilling to accept. Thus we are at an impasse, so I am willing to table this conversation until the actual ad product is revealed and in public. That said, a willingness to reject evidence out of hand is clearly representative of bias. And that's absolutely fine! Human beings are all inherently biased. We are not the machines that we are talking about. We ought to recognize our biases, accept them for what they are, and transcend them.
      - Apocryphon 4y ago
        Here's something that happened off Twitter- an HN user literally encounters the App Store's poor search capability today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32371796 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32371796 I just tried it out myself and even though the search bar suggests "papers please" as a query, the results truly do not immediately yield the popular game with that title. If Apple wants to offer ads, perhaps that will make up for the shoddy search UX. But it seems like a poorer solution than simply improving App Store search functionality.
onepointsixC 4y ago
>HN won’t like it because it’s Apple - but this largely improves the experience for the developers. While consumers get relevant ads without the unscrupulous on-selling of data. No. Developers are forced to only use Apple ads, as any possible competing ads have been completely demolished. Instead of having a market of possible partners Apple is forcing it to only be them.
- quitit 4y ago
  No. Anyone can link into the app store with an ad from any provider, and this still happens today. This is ads inside apple’s own app store. The same way that I can’t use anyone else to place an ad in youtube. Your argument is utterly farcical.

by quitit 4y ago

Apocryphon 4y ago

Will this really improve the experience for the average developer, or will this be a way for those with deep pockets to blanket the platform with ads and drown out small-time indie devs even more? It feels like a more lasting solution not based on being able to buy eyeballs would be making the search experience on the App Store more robust and modernized. To fix the solution with an UX upgrade. That feels more like an Apple solution, not by adding more ads into the mix.

quitit 4y ago
Why not both? Improve the UX which they do regularly and introduce ads which developers have been screaming for. With or without ads in the app store, the problem about being out marketed exists outside the app store. What this is merely apple’s privacy-protecting solution for what is seen inside the app store. Im yet to see an argument which isn’t just some thinly veiled distaste for apple. Hate apple all you like, but actually challenge the conversation with a valid argument.
- Apocryphon 4y ago
  I don't hate Apple; I've worked there myself, continue to be a shareholder (and thus have vested interest in its fortunes), and given the way the industry works, may return there eventually. But I find blind faith in the company from die-hard fans both misplaced, and frankly, distasteful. As with any organization, Apple is deserving both scrutiny and critique, and it is wrong to dismiss critique as hatred. And the image of Apple as a scrappy underdog beset on all sides by haters is two decades out of date by now. It's a corporate giant that deserves as much skepticism as the others. > Improve the UX which they do regularly and introduce ads which developers have been screaming for. If ads can be better, then developers will like them. But I question the supposition that developers have been screaming for ads, given that the status quo with App Store ads is situations like this: https://twitter.com/wilshipley/status/1270568780712706049 https://twitter.com/wilshipley/status/1270568780712706049 https://twitter.com/wilshipley/status/1197642397854777344 https://twitter.com/wilshipley/status/1197642397854777344 https://twitter.com/wilshipley/status/1271154427034918912 https://twitter.com/wilshipley/status/1271154427034918912 Granted, that's from two years ago, and any new ads rollouts would presumably be of greater quality. It's just that track record doesn't inspire a lot of confidence, and really throws into question the idea that developers really want ads. How do you prevent the big players with the biggest marketing budgets from buying up all of the space? I'm not going to pre-judge the feature, but I do believe some healthy skepticism is warranted. If App Store ads follow even a modicum of some of these feature requests, then perhaps they will really be what developers want. https://twitter.com/wilshipley/status/1271185023744397312 https://twitter.com/wilshipley/status/1271185023744397312 Edit: an example from six months ago https://twitter.com/tgrapperon/status/1492460177001431042 https://twitter.com/tgrapperon/status/1492460177001431042 https://twitter.com/miguelkennedy/status/1492529534729654274 https://twitter.com/miguelkennedy/status/1492529534729654274
  - quitit 4y ago
    Shifting the topic and implying i’m some sort of fanboy doesn’t address the argument. Indeed blind faith, i.e making assumptions before something is even seen, works both ways. Since i see a lot of critique that is literally based on an ad opening. Do you realise how ridiculous this sounds? I don’t care about anecdotes plucked from twitter, anyone can form a counter point with a whole other set of tweets. What I’ve said, all along: It’s a privacy preserving ad product, an already announced solution to not being able to feature events, upgrades, expansions which currently doesn’t exist. Getting caught into an irrelevant philosophical debate on the virtue of ads does reveal your bias, regardless of who you say you are.
    - Apocryphon 4y ago
      I have shifted nothing. I am clarifying where I am coming from. I am explaining that my words come without "hatred" for something I am incentivized not to hate. That implies nothing about yourself, but it does explain why I take the positions in conversations in threads like this. To accuse someone of hatred addresses no argument. If you are unwilling to accept the experiences of developers who are out there, and claim that developers have been clamoring for ads without showing evidence, and discount evidence clearly presented to you, then it seems like you have made up your mind and there is a deadlock. > Getting caught into an irrelevant philosophical debate on the virtue of ads I have not been caught into any of that. I am simply expressing that the ads that have been present when it comes to exact search results matching have led to a subpar UX, as seen by many, and this is a known situation, which you are unwilling to accept. Thus we are at an impasse, so I am willing to table this conversation until the actual ad product is revealed and in public. That said, a willingness to reject evidence out of hand is clearly representative of bias. And that's absolutely fine! Human beings are all inherently biased. We are not the machines that we are talking about. We ought to recognize our biases, accept them for what they are, and transcend them.
    - Apocryphon 4y ago
      Here's something that happened off Twitter- an HN user literally encounters the App Store's poor search capability today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32371796 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32371796 I just tried it out myself and even though the search bar suggests "papers please" as a query, the results truly do not immediately yield the popular game with that title. If Apple wants to offer ads, perhaps that will make up for the shoddy search UX. But it seems like a poorer solution than simply improving App Store search functionality.

onepointsixC 4y ago

>HN won’t like it because it’s Apple - but this largely improves the experience for the developers. While consumers get relevant ads without the unscrupulous on-selling of data. No. Developers are forced to only use Apple ads, as any possible competing ads have been completely demolished. Instead of having a market of possible partners Apple is forcing it to only be them.

quitit 4y ago
No. Anyone can link into the app store with an ad from any provider, and this still happens today. This is ads inside apple’s own app store. The same way that I can’t use anyone else to place an ad in youtube. Your argument is utterly farcical.