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Apple testing new App Store design that blurs the line between ads and results

• etchalon 9mo ago
  This is the Apple I've always worried would emerge.
  • pixl97 9mo ago
    Capitalism pretty much demands it. Some companies can delay it for awhile, but the numbers must go up and eventually expansion because of a better product reaches it's natural limit.
    • gtowey 9mo ago
      Corporations always operate at the lowest morality level of any member of the company. Lots of executives can say no to dark patterns, but it only takes one to say yes. Then that exec gets to report the successful revenue boosting metrics. They will tend to get promoted and soon the entire leadership team is filled with people with the lowest ethical standards.
      • lapcat 9mo ago
        > Lots of executives can say no to dark patterns, but it only takes one to say yes. I think the situation is a lot more stark than this. Unless they're desperate, the board of directors of corporations will install an MBA as CEO. In most cases, the only time this doesn't happen is at the founding of the company, when a founder is CEO. But if the founder doesn't maintain controlling interest, the founder can be replaced. The promotion of Steve Jobs to interim CEO of Apple in 1997 was a rare exception. Apple fired its CEO, and the company was in danger of bankruptcy. They were running out of options and feeling the aforemention desperation. Note how the situation was very different in 1985, when the board of directors chose John Sculley over Steve Jobs in a power struggle. At the time, they weren't financially desperate.
    • etchalon 9mo ago
      Basically, yes. With compensation so completely tied to "did our stock go up since you joined?", it's a whole thing.
  • realusername 9mo ago
    It's been like this for a while, the top results for a lot of known apps are scam impersonators. So much for the so called "safety" of the appstore. In fact, they had so many ChatGPT fake apps showing as top results that they had to do something as users couldn't find the real one and it reached the news.
    • alt227 9mo ago
      > In fact, they had so many ChatGPT fake apps showing as top results that they had to do something as users couldn't find the real one and it reached the news. This is after claiming for many years that the walled garden is a necessity to protect users, and their app store is a safely curated utopia which justifies the 30% fee cut.
  • raw_anon_1111 9mo ago
    You mean the same Apple who will remove an app like Tumblr for a little consensual nudity posted by people and is too afraid of what Trump might say to remove X which is allowing none consensual undressing of women just by posting a picture and telling Grok to remove clothes - including CSAM?
• JKCalhoun 9mo ago
  En-something-ification…
  • ivell 9mo ago
    En-adification. Or just adification. Can also use adified.
• andy_ppp 9mo ago
  Just a reminder that paid for gaming of the search results on Amazon is around a $60bn business for them.
  • HWR_14 9mo ago
    I think selling products is their fifth largest profit center, with AWS and Ads being the top two.
• PlatoIsADisease 9mo ago
  Wont make a difference. People are already in the Walled Prison and moms/teens/lower-middle class people are shamed for not being able to afford the $50/mo to buy an iphone. They had numerous privacy and security issues that caused literal deaths of VIPs. Their quality is always 2nd best if we are being generous. If they haven't switched yet, its not going to happen. Apple knows this. Late users are always punished like my parents who still have a landline and cable tv.
  • pm 9mo ago
    Quality is 2nd best to what? And people haven't switched to what? Android? The situation is no better on Google OS. Apple's App Store ad initiatives have always been woeful, and doubt it makes enough revenue to warrant a separate line item on their public accounting reports. Some executive has seen yet another overfunded company potentially making bank with an ad-based business model (OpenAI, et al.), and has thought they could extract Google-level ad revenue due to the App Store's exclusivity. It could also be a response to potentially competing App Stores given their rocky relationship with the EU. It will have little effect, on revenue or user experience. The greater tragedy is the organisational decay that led to this being greenlit in the first place.
    • Noaidi 9mo ago
      > And people haven't switched to what? Android? The situation is no better on Google OS Agree. Even GrapheneOS is hell to use. I tried both PixelOS and GrapheneOS on a Pixel 9 and ended up returning it. If I was not homeless I would switch to a flip phone and just use a Linux desktop.
      • drnick1 9mo ago
        > Even GrapheneOS is hell to use. This is not my experience. GrapheneOS is great and has absolutely zero bloatware/malware. The base system is just a couple of basic apps like the phone, messages app, and a Web browser. That's it. All the rest is up to the user to set up. You can be completely Google-free if you don't install sandboxed Google Play Services and other GApps. Without GApps, the setup is extremely private and ideal to use with self-hosted solutions like Nextcloud and Home Assistant as substitutes for the typical commercial malware found on most "smart" phones.
• spogbiper 9mo ago
  the change is more subtle than I expected but this does seem like a step in the wrong direction a bigger older problem is the number of copycat applications allowed in the app store. for example the listing for the official microsoft authenticator app (free and used in many corporate environments) is surrounded by results with similar looking icons and titles. these look a likes also work for MFA but charge a monthly subscription. not exactly a scam since they do work, but its obvious they are only there to confuse users into paying for something thats free.
• atonse 9mo ago
  More and more evidence that the a-holes with spreadsheets are taking over at Apple and they’re completely devoid of any ideas on the software side. I heard someone randomly say that they should replace Tim Cook with Scott Forstall. I chuckled at the idea but this might be a great idea. Apple is having its Ballmer moment. Google did too before AI lit the fire under their feet. Who is going to be Apple’s next Nadella? Steve Jobs was the original.
  • BanAntiVaxxers 9mo ago
    Has Nadella had one original thought? He simply passes through whatever the board orders.
    • chroma205 9mo ago
      > Has Nadella had one original thought? He simply passes through whatever the board orders. No. But for mega-tech CEO salary, I’d probably do exactly the same.
      • coliveira 9mo ago
        It takes a person with massive personality disorder to do this kind of stuff. I'm glad I'm not doing it, whatever the amounts of money in play.
        • deleted 9mo ago
          [deleted]
    • drecked 9mo ago
      Nadella turned Microsoft completely around. Before Nadella, for about 2 decades, Microsoft’s entire purpose seemed to be to stuff Windows into everything. Changing this was a massive undertaking that was largely unimaginable within MS. Unfortunately now under Nadella AI is taking the role Windows used to play, but even there he understood the importance of AI before most of his competitors did which is what allowed Microsoft to gain such a substantial footing in OpenAI.
• deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
• BartjeD 9mo ago
  Enshittification, the sequel.
• nabbed 9mo ago
  >it probably helps increase click-through rates which ultimately boosts Apple’s revenue in its ads business I assume that means it increases the number of times users install the wrong app (possibly with serious consequences)?
  • kibwen 9mo ago
    Why should Apple give a shit? Companies like Apple are sociopathic profit-maximizers, and users are cattle to be milked and slaughtered.
    • morshu9001 9mo ago
      They still don't want users to leave. Yeah they can get away with stuff like removing the jack or being slightly annoying about iCloud, but things would be way worse if they didn't care at all.
• WesolyKubeczek 9mo ago
  App Store's UX has always been a show of excrement, and its search is wonky as hell. I can't imagine myself use that to discover apps, after having been shoved tons of dreck results up my behind the last time I've tried it. I'd rather ask for app recommendations on 4chan or Reddit than browse App Store.
• tfrancisl 9mo ago
  Oh, so the Google playstore since... forever. Or at least as long as I can remember. If you have a "search" feature on your <anything app> it should filter down to exactly what you would expect, no sponsored positions, no irrelevant apps as ads, etc. Shame apple is going towards the dark pattern of ads as results.
• mdasen 9mo ago
  This is what basically everyone else has done over the past decade. Google used to put a different background behind ads in its search (https://www.fsedigital.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Google-results-page-in-2013.png https://www.fsedigital.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Google...). It made it really easy to tell what was an ad and skip over it quickly. Now it's a lot harder to quickly notice what's an ad and what isn't. Sites used to have banner ads. Now they show posts that look exactly like the organic posts in your feed, just with a small "sponsored", "promoted", or "ad" mark somewhere. Half the time the post is large enough that it takes up my entire screen and the "sponsored" mark is below and off-screen. If you go on Amazon, the "sponsored" text is much smaller and light gray rgb(87,89,89) while the product text is near-black rgb(15,17,17). They want to make the sponsored text less visible. Sometimes it's even unclear if the sponsored tag applies to a single product or a group of products. It's shocking that Apple hasn't done this trick yet when everyone else started doing it years ago.
  • echelon 9mo ago
    It ought to be illegal to host ads for registered trademarks (+/- some edit distance). Especially if you have a marketplace monopoly. Especially if you used overwhelming force to turn the "URL Bar" into a search product and then bought up 90% market share where you can tax every single brand on the planet. Google is the most egregious with this with respect to Google Search. It ought to be illegal, frankly. Google Android is a runner up. Half the time I try to install an app, I get bamboozled into installing an ad placement app (and immediately undo it). Seems like Apple is following in the same footsteps. Amazon isn't blameless here, either. So much of our economy is being taxed by gatekeepers that installed themselves into a place that is impossible to dislodge. And the systems they built were not how the web originally worked. They dismantled the user-friendly behavior brick by brick, decade by decade. Google "Pokemon" -> Ad. Google "AWS" -> Amazon competitively bidding for their own trademark Google "Thinkpad" -> Lots of ads. Google "Anthropic" or "ChatGPT" -> I bet Google is happy to bleed its direct competitors like this. What the fuck is this, and why did we let it happen? Companies own these trademarks. Google turned the URL bar into a 100% Google search shakedown. I'm thinking about a grassroots movement to stop these shenanigans.
• ChrisMarshallNY 9mo ago
  I find that's the case already. They also force you to go through their ad-splattered gauntlet, every time you reopen the app. It's pretty much worthless, to me. I always use direct app links, from the developers' sites. I shudder to think of it getting worse.
  • SkyPuncher 9mo ago
    Every now and then, normally while I’m bored before departing on a plane, I’ll scroll the App Store. It’s all ads at this point. Lists and lists of “top [x]” most of which are clearly just paid lists. I never visit the App Store outside of that. If I need an app, I search for it and go directly to its listing page (yes, technically the App Store) or install it directly from my Home Screen.
• yalogin 9mo ago
  Services business is a slippery slope, everyone succumbs to the YoY revenue growth push and they all gravitate towards the same dirty tactics. They even tried turning the hardware into a subscription model but I guess it didn’t gain much traction.
  • Noaidi 9mo ago
    Apple annual gross profit for 2025 was $195.201B, a 8.04% increase from 2024. Apple annual gross profit for 2024 was $180.683B, a 6.82% increase from 2023. Apple annual gross profit for 2023 was $169.148B, a 0.96% decline from 2022. Seems like this is just plain old greed...
    • Y-bar 9mo ago
      It seems a significant amount of that revenue is now from services (App Store, in-app purchases, subscriptions,…).
      • Noaidi 9mo ago
        Yes! And these are very easy to boycott! I don’t understand why this didn’t happen after Tim Cook shove that gold bar right up Trump’s ass.
        • pmdr 9mo ago
          This leads me to believe that most boycotts gain traction only if another corporation stands to benefit from that. Nowadays pretty much all of the big players are in bed with the current administration, so there's little surprise that boycotts aren't noticeable.
          • mrguyorama 9mo ago
            A beer company had 10% of their value go away because they dared to acknowledge the legitimacy and humanity of one trans person. Boycotts work great. People just don't do them for anything it seems.
• mrweasel 9mo ago
  The lines where pretty blurred already. If you search for the exact name of an app, I think that needs to go first in the results, the ads can be the third or forth. Having ads show up before the "correct" app is incredibly dangerous in a world where so much of our digital life is in various apps. Often the people see is actively trying to trick people into installing the wrong thing, making the ad less visible is going to get a lot of people scammed. How the hell Apple does not see this is beyond me. All of their fancy security in iOS is worthless if they allow people to be tricked into installing scam-ware.
• Noaidi 9mo ago
  Wow, how much greed will we all tolerate? Apple annual gross profit for 2025 was $195.201B, a 8.04% increase from 2024. And still, they feel they can do this? I have never seen a better sign of a monopoly in my life.
  • fhennig 9mo ago
    There is no where to go to, if you still want to use a smartphone. They all do this. Regulation is the way to go!
• shantara 9mo ago
  It recently occurred to me that it’s been years since it was possible to find some new and interesting app just by browsing the App Store, like it used to be when iPhone and Android were first introduced. Now I open the store knowing in advance what exactly I’m looking for and take care not to accidentally click on a lookalike.
  • echelon 9mo ago
    Same on Android. Except on Android when you search for something and you get the big "match found" with "install" button, it's an ad and the real result is hidden like a search result. This practice ought to be illegal. These are trademarks, and monopolies are injecting themselves as market makers in a bidding war they created. This isn't enshittification. This is Roman Empire collapse. It doesn't work anymore.
    • hu3 9mo ago
      At least in Android you can use F-Droid which is Play Store for open-source apps. I installed a regex powered notification blocker yesterday. Works as a charm.
      • echelon 9mo ago
        For now, and only but a tiny fraction of you. 99.99% of users never visit the settings. For those that do, they won't get past scare wall #1 of enabling APKs and scare walls #2, #3, and #4 of downloading, installing, and enabling the app. Google knows this. Tyranny of defaults, trained user behaviors, ecosystem, scare tactics, and even SERPs manipulation to make this nigh undiscoverable. But they weren't content with some number of you slipping through the cracks! They're starting to close the ability to release unsigned and self-signed code. You can only imagine what's after that.
        • hu3 9mo ago
          Agreed. Far from enough. But at least there's an option for tech savvy folks.
• avalys 9mo ago
  Not obvious to me that this is worse or as user-hostile as many seem to presume. Previously the blue background made the ad result look more highlighted and more prominent. Now it is just like the other results - not special or better. Yes, the HN audience knows the visual convention indicates that the blue background represents an ad. Does your everyday user know that or do they assume the blue results are better?
  • bigyabai 9mo ago
    > Does your everyday user know that or do they assume the blue results are better? Deceptive UI is the issue. By removing distinctions between ads and normal results, you're going from a frying pan situation straight into the fire.
• cdrnsf 9mo ago
  Not only are Apple's services bad, they've becoming inescapable. It's rumored that they'll add ads to maps as soon as next year. Music.app is simply an ad for Apple Music, Books.app is like reading in a Barnes and Noble while someone from marketing looks over your shoulder and their TV app features their own shows to an overbearing degree — everything else is becoming more of an afterthought.
  • whywhywhywhy 9mo ago
    > Music.app is simply an ad for Apple Music, If you use iTunes Match or load your own MP3s every time you open the app the search field is set to “Apple Music” and the search fails until you toggle it, every time. Been like that for 2+ years
    • trinix912 9mo ago
      It’s been like that ever since Apple Music became a thing. I remember fiddling with this on an iPhone 6.
    • eigencoder 9mo ago
      Buried in settings there's a way to turn off Apple Music (the subscription) and limit to only your own mp3s. I tried to run both my music library and Apple Music subscription together, but found that when I let my subscription lapse, all my playlists got deleted, even the ones that just used my own music. Now I'm staying FAR away from apple music the subscription.
  • TheDong 9mo ago
    > inescapable. It's rumored that they'll add ads to maps If you move to the EU you can change the default navigation app on iOS and never see apple maps. A plan to display ads would explain why they region locked that setting.
    • cdrnsf 9mo ago
      I'd much prefer the EU to the current situation in the US, but it's not in the cards at the moment.
• cute_boi 9mo ago
  Wow! They force you to use their app store, and now they have the gall to trick users into installing ads—and there will be multiple ads.
• stalfosknight 9mo ago
  Why must Apple do this? They're already rolling in profits that dwarf the national budgets of most countries. And I say this as a shameless Apple fanboy.
  • bigyabai 9mo ago
    Maybe it's time to stop being shameless. The App Store monopoly has a direct impact on the quality of first-party services you consume.
    • stalfosknight 9mo ago
      It's a bit silly to call it a monopoly. No one is forced to choose an iPhone over the many many Android alternatives.
      • bigyabai 9mo ago
        But when you're forced to choose the App Store over the many many alternative .ipa distributors, it's perfectly logical and fair? Android is a hardware alternative - Apple needs upward pressure to make their services competitive. If you use a Mac this is already obvious, you can't buy industry-standard software on the App Store. They all avoid it like the plague when given the opportunity, and Apple deliberately closes this escape hatch on iOS. Apple has known the App Store isn't good enough for over a decade. It is an arbitrary and deliberate protectionist monopoly of app distribution. How many trophies does Tim Apple need to give Trump before people get the hint?
        • stalfosknight 9mo ago
          The App Store is an integrated component of the iPhone experience. It's perfectly fine to have different preferences but doesn't mean you get to meddle in the UI/UX of something you didn't create. If you really want to sideload, that's what Android is for.
          • 9mo ago
• b3ing 9mo ago
  This will always be a thing, the click metrics dictate it and to justify the costs to the company advertising and the low # of clicks, something has to be done to save the new revenue Ads give. They might as well add modal (psudeo popup) ads, because they will be there in 15yrs.
• teekert 9mo ago
  With stuff like this, this is just a really bad idea: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46323041 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46323041 You can't tell family to search for things in the app store anymore, I always provide direct links. It's just to dangerous otherwise.
• hopelite 9mo ago
  This feels like a conversation about irrelevant matters the App Store ad design at the advent of AI integration? I see the future being AI suggesting or responding with an app or extension to add specific abilities or features based on stated objectives, i.e., just a package manager behind the scenes. I don’t see myself going to some App Store. I haven’t even “browsed” one in years because they all seem extremely static, having reached a peak saturation and static state. Frankly, Apple could have probably just totally replaced the App Store a long time ago if they were not slaves to financial reports by simply integrating app search into spotlight more closely or prominently… pull down, search “ai app” (or whatever) and you’re provided with a list of app results that includes an install button. App updating could and should have been integrated into the settings app. These kinds of things will only increasingly start biting the Apple as Google has been forced to face the abyss of the death of the common search they’ve dominated for decades now. I don’t think Apple has faced that existential Grim-reaper yet… what do you do when the app ecosystem, OS UI/UX advantages, and even hardware quality has vanished through the cascading integration of AI? I don’t know that Apple has faced that yet or at least has been left blindsided, considering what I’ve been seeing from them.
• sergiotapia 9mo ago
  Google does the same where an ad is the first result. :(
• journal 9mo ago
  i don't remember last time i was in the app store.
• codeulike 9mo ago
  What cant i search for paid apps
• seabass 9mo ago
  Feels short sighted. Every such change gets me closer to ditching the ecosystem altogether.
• rgovostes 9mo ago
  This makes no difference, because I can’t remember the last time I installed an app other than for the occasional airline. From 2008-12 it was genuinely exciting to see what new apps were being released every day. Mobile games from that era had cultural impact. I bought $2 apps without a thought. But Apple incentivized monetization above all else and killed that excitement. Now you can’t find a tip calculator that doesn’t charge a monthly subscription. A popular flight tracker is $60/year (or a $300 purchase). A flash card app costs the same. Apple’s curated list of “essential utilities” includes a birthday countdown that costs $5/wk. I know every app will cost me hundreds over the span of just a few years for marginal utility so I simply stopped buying them. And I wonder if Apple’s push for more ad revenue is a symptom of that trend.
  • whywhywhywhy 9mo ago
    It’s because no one bothers with pay once apps anymore the only way to get customers is free app and tricking them into a subscription. Entire system raced the price people would pay for iOS software to 0
    • port11 9mo ago
      I’m building a pay-once app, but as mentioned in another comment, the business advisors don’t believe in that model. Since I’m unemployed, I need them to approve my financial plan, and they’re really pressuring me into a subscription model. It’s crazy how many spreadsheet folk don’t think of anything but recurring revenue with a captive customer base.
  • MaxL93 9mo ago
    The same thing is happening on the Android side. If you've made a game, it doesn't matter how high quality it is, how many awards it has won, etc. The only thing that matters is that it's live service, that it doesn't "have an end", that it can drive engagement and perpetual revenue. Quite a few testimonies from game devs: according to them, Google representatives pretty much told them this. See also: the requirements to constantly update your app/game even if it's a "finished product" that does not inherently require any updates.
• spockz 9mo ago
  This is very unfortunate. To me Apple was the last corporate standing that is not doing ads nefariously. If this is changing what is next? I’m aware it is a slippery slope argument, but this has to do with trust. Apple’s advertised stance on privacy and security and ads always has been believable (to me) because of their business model and that they made it the distinguishing feature. Now, what is left? iPads are great, MacBook with Apple silicon are unmatched in refinement, iPhones are awesome but getting a bit stale. Apple Watch is awesome, but for sports Garmin are better. It is the integrated ecosystem with iCloud that makes the total system powerful. Where to go? I love Linux with CachyOS on my desktop. Anything similar for tablets and laptops? I think KDE has something like connect that aims to do what iCloud does.
  • lern_too_spel 9mo ago
    As with security and privacy, the only real solution is user choice. On Android, if you don't like the app store(s) that came with the device, you can use another one or none at all. On iOS, you have to get apps from the App Store.
    • neop1x 9mo ago
      This will probably end with "certified android devices" https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2025/08/elevating-android-security.html?m=1 https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2025/08/elevating-...
    • spockz 9mo ago
      This only holds if you don’t need/want/care for banking apps or things like Netflix. More apps are requiring hardware and software attestation like my sibling mentioned.
      • lern_too_spel 9mo ago
        Attestation just requires an attestation service, not a store, and apps installed outside the Play Store can use Play Services.
• otikik 9mo ago
  One of the reasons ChatGPT is taking over google searches for a lot of people is that they also did this kind of shit. These companies are overconfident. Overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer.
• DonHopkins 9mo ago
  Liquid Glass was always about blurring the line.
• phreack 9mo ago
  If an iPhone is going to be as bad as an Android like that then what's the point. The "premium" feeling is eroded like this.
• CGMthrowaway 9mo ago
  Do people actually use the app store? Are we not all just searching in spotlight and clicking the first app that comes up (as long as it has 100K/1mil+ downloads) ?
  • hu3 9mo ago
    if that was the norm, there wouldn't be ads in AppStore
    • CGMthrowaway 9mo ago
      I'm sure you're right. I'm out of touch because I can't remember the last time I actually had a need to browse (or search) the app store for something. Does it go like this for most people, really? Open app store > search "food delivery app" > Read and compare the reviews of Doordash, ubereats, jimmyjohns app, pizzahut app, shawarma city app, scam app > Make a decision > download the app ???
• testbjjl 9mo ago
  I can remember, or perhaps imagine a time when the FTC would knowingly not look kindly on a situation like this, so Apple with its huge market share and revenue wouldn’t consider it. I imagine now it’s likely not a concern for the agency, and if it were, a political contribution would go a long way towards resolving any concerns.
• darkteflon 9mo ago
  Ffs. Alright, what’s the best way for me to run Silverblue on Mac hardware these days with a full GPU-accelerated desktop experience? Is UTM any good? Any alternatives? I used to run Win 10 in Parallels on MacOS and it was excellent - that’s the level of virtualisation polish I’m going for. After 25+ years, I see the direction of travel - I’m done with this bullshit. Yesterday my MacBook started ringing loudly in the middle of the cafe where I was working when a call came in. I switched off Handoff years ago, but a recent update has obviously silently re-enabled it. I cannot have Apple just arbitrarily switching shit up for their own benefit on the machines I use to get my work done. And they are now unquestionably succumbing to increasingly baldfaced enshittification. Do we need an “Ask HN” for developers stuck on / preferring Mac hardware, unwilling / unable to run Asahi on bare metal, but wanting a GPU-accelerated Linux desktop experience?
  • kmbfjr 9mo ago
    I think the issue ends up being the Linux desktop experience makes one need to fix their own shit after a long day of fixing other people's shit. That's one thing about MacOS, I can leave the driving to someone else. Increasingly, that driving is to places I dislike, but I'm still not driving.
• nottorp 9mo ago
  Seriously? Already the only thing that makes ads distinguishable from results is that you search for "microsoft authenticator" and the first result is ... something else. They do have an unnoticeable "this is an ad" tiny text somewhere. Are they talking about removing even that?
• andsoitis 9mo ago
  Apple’s Ads business is around 8-10 billion dollars in revenue. Thats a tiny fraction of their overall revenue.
  • alt227 9mo ago
    Exactly so if they really cared about their customer experience they could easily ditch this dark practice ad stuff in their app store and make it much easier for their customers to navigate safely, all with only taking a tiny hit to their bottom line. So why dont they?
• MaysonL 9mo ago
  26.3 ß 2 still shows the blue background on my iPad.
• deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
• amelius 9mo ago
  The masters of UI design are showing us how to build an app store. /s
• kmfrk 9mo ago
  To be be honest, the worst Google-like thing about the before and after is how you have to scroll down to see actual results. On my iPhone, I get half of an app showing below the full sponsored app. Just makes me want to find iOS apps through other means than the App Store.
• AuthAuth 9mo ago
  I'm a pretty liberal guy, I like democracy I like captialism but its stuff like this that is blackpilling me on private enterprise. No matter how much they have they continue to push the boundary and squeeze the customer. My cope at the moment is that its only americans and its due to a failure of culture. But im starting to the same greed in companies in my own country. I dont think worker owned enterprise is any better as they still have the same incentives.
• amatecha 9mo ago
  I remember when it was a news headline that Apple showed ads _at all_ in App Store. It's sad that they're straying even further into scummy ways to nickel-and-dime every ounce of profit they can get out of everyone using their products and services. (Check out nice and simple it was in 2008: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xo9cKe_Fch8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xo9cKe_Fch8 )
• LandenLove 9mo ago
  The most insulting aspect of these kinds of changes is the fact that Apple is generally sold as the "premium" brand. You are still paying a premium price, but you are getting the "freemium" experience anyways. And don't forget the additional 30% they take on every sale on the app store.
• greatgib 9mo ago
  It's crazy to think that even if you buy the phone with the highest price premium your are still forced to navigate between ads for basic feature and have a shitty experience. Despite Apple not needing more money has they have already can reserves more then they can know how to use it
  • jesterson 9mo ago
    Two things - browsing appstore is not a "basic feature". It's an entertainment and folks gotta pay for it. I have never browsed Appstore in my life - all i got were either direct links or search by title. On the "highest price premium" - they can charge it simply because there is no alternative. I have tried android several times and it was was a huge eye opener how shitty and unworkable it is, even in 2025. Boy, they can't even get notifications working properly. So yea, apple charge because they can, can't they?
    • greatgib 9mo ago
      What you say doesn't make any sense. The ad appears in search result. So "search by title". Not like having fun "wandering randomly" in the app store... Probably not the best place to troll iphone vs android, but you are probably mind fucked by apple coolaid because so far there are both good and bad sides of both android and iOS. But iOS has a lot of things really fucked and missing or broken features compared to Android. Just recently you had this nice "liquid glass" making apps unreadable/unusable with semi transparent buttons on top of random UI elements... Still they clearly can charge whatever they want, that is not the question, the point is that nowadays you can buy the product with the highest margin and still not expect an experience without ad and fucked up interface dark patterns. In the same way, whatever price you pay for a tv set, it is becoming harder and harder to get one from a major brand that we not screw you with hidden telemetry or forced ads or unwanted features...
• fnord77 9mo ago
  the enshitification continues
• mlhpdx 9mo ago
  This is an interesting left hand vs right hand thing. Apple is making it more difficult for find a particular app while coding assistance is making it easier to build one. At some point those curves intersect and the App Store becomes irrelevant.
  • niek_pas 9mo ago
    Not as long as Apple requires you to manually re-sign your apps every 7 days without a $99/year developer account.
• NamlchakKhandro 9mo ago
  Normal hn post: 50 comments A hn post about Apple: the entire clergy and the clandestine cell network of Apple devotees emerges to hug hn to death.
• morshu9001 9mo ago
  I read the title then looked at the screenshots and thought what? It still says "ad."
  • nvader 9mo ago
    Paragraph two of the article is: > This means the only differentiator between organic results and the promoted ad is the presence of the small ‘Ad’ banner next to the app icon. If it's that easy to fail to notice a paragraph, how much easier would it be to miss just the word 'Ad'?
    • morshu9001 9mo ago
      I wasn't there to read the text, the screenshots say everything. Thought I was looking at the wrong pic cause it seemed obvious.
      • Dylan16807 9mo ago
        > I wasn't there to read the text, the screenshots say everything. That's the exact kind of attitude that will make people miss an "obvious" marker. And I wouldn't call that tiny thing on the third row of text obvious. Even knowing it said 'ad' somewhere, it took me several tries to find it.
        • deleted 9mo ago
          [deleted]
        • morshu9001 9mo ago
          > That's the exact kind of attitude Apparently not though, I saw it said ad. Maybe you missed it because you were focused on the wall of text instead of the UI.
          • Dylan16807 9mo ago
            > Apparently not though, I saw it said ad. It's not like it's a guarantee. And being the "kind" of attitude doesn't mean you miss the exact same things in each situation. It didn't bite you here but it's a risk elsewhere. > Maybe you missed it because you were focused on the wall of text instead of the UI. I was looking at the ads the whole time, but I was intuitively focusing edges and the corners and the fine print at the bottom but the actual marker was tucked into the middle very small.
• nvader 9mo ago
  What if we all Venmo'd Tim Apple 5 bucks so he wouldn't be forced to do this?
  • hsbauauvhabzb 9mo ago
    Apple wouldn’t exactly go broke without this, maximising profits is the only goal and any ‘good’ behaviours and ethos will erode over time. Apple might take user privacy seriously now, but don’t assume that will be the case forever.
    • alt227 9mo ago
      > Apple might take user privacy seriously now They dont and never have, its all marketing. How do you think those app store adds are displayed to you? They profile you like any other ad company to figure out which ads you are most likely to click on to generate them more revenue.
• supermatt 9mo ago
  How do you test for ad effectiveness vs annoyance? Especially so for a captive audience where they can’t leave and go elsewhere? It seems like every market leader that gets ads eventually “optimises” towards making them look like not ads. Obviously they will be more effective if people don’t realise what they are, so how do they account for annoyance (and the other negatives a user experiences) while doing these a/b tests?
  • akimbostrawman 9mo ago
    >How do you test for ad effectiveness vs annoyance? In a walled garden like apple? You simply don't, just make the test gradual and long enough until people get used to it.
    • supermatt 9mo ago
      That’s the way it appears, sure. But my question is how would you do it if you did care. What metric would there be you could measure if they have no choice but to use the product.
  • schubidubiduba 9mo ago
    Why would you care about annoyance when you captured your audience?
    • supermatt 9mo ago
      It is a question asking how you would do that if you cared. I.e how do you measure/quantify that annoyance as a metric when they are captive and have no choice to leave. Traditionally you would be able to measure annoyance by reduced usage, but that’s not the case in a captive market, so how do you measure it?
• akimbostrawman 9mo ago
  but HN told me apple isn't a advertisement company?
• self_awareness 9mo ago
  This is funny, since clear separation of ads and not ads is one of the requirements of apps that are admitted to AppStore. If there is no clear separation, the app is rejected.
• willtemperley 9mo ago
  It still says AD in big blue letters on the new version. Not really a big deal from my point of view. Still there does seem to be a pattern of ignoring their hardcore fanbase: using Gemini, making ads less obvious, making free apps part of paid bundles. I suspect Apple are getting a lot of pressure from shareholders, given their recent growth has been far lower than e.g. Google. This is not a trend I like and I'm definitely looking for a Linux boat to jump on, to future proof app distribution, but there just doesn't seem to be an obvious candidate right now.
  • crote 9mo ago
    > It still says AD in big blue letters on the new version. Not really a big deal from my point of view. Sure, but it'll be small next letters after this. Then small grey letters. Then small grey letters on the details page. Then small grey letters in an accordion on the details page. Then ...
  • j_maffe 9mo ago
    That 'Ad' text is literally the smallest text in the entire app listing UI
    • willtemperley 9mo ago
      It's not. Just glimpsing the top of the article will reveal this is a patently false statement. Something I don't get about Apple haters is they just spout absolute bllx for no apparent reason. I don't feel the need to defend Apple, I just want a reasoned discussion. I just don't get this attitude.
      • latexr 9mo ago
        I share your frustration. I’m an Apple user and absolutely dislike everything about their direction regarding software. I have nothing but criticism for Tim Cook. Yet I see myself having to correct batshit lies people make about Apple to have a proper discussion. There’s no need to make shit up (and doing so gives Apple the opportunity to outright dismiss those as haters), Apple makes a lot of crappy decisions we can criticise in good faith.
• apparent 9mo ago
  The search results in the App Store are ridiculous. Sometimes I search for an app by name and have to scroll through dozens of other apps before finding the one I had searched for. App Store search is as broken as Apple Mail search, if not worse.
  • VerifiedReports 9mo ago
    Amen. App-store search is an offense sham, wasting users' time and stealing from developers. And +1 to pitiful Mail search. But Apple has long suffered from a peculiar learning disability in regard to search. Not only does Finder fail to find files matching search strings that it's showing you IN THE CURRENT DIRECTORY... but both Finder and Spotlight provide no option to include WHERE it found stuff in search results. You can't even add "path" to the result columns as an OPTION. So if it finds a bunch of files with the same name... oh well. Leave it to Apple to field a search facility that refuses to tell you WHERE it found stuff.
    • deleted 9mo ago
      [deleted]
    • port11 9mo ago
      The Finder issue can be alleviated if you include the path bar in your Finder window, at least it is so before Tahoe. So you highlight a search result and the path bar shows you where it is. Search on iOS Mail is… what is it doing? I can see the e-mail right there, but Mail can’t find it. Especially if it needs to be « connected to power and on Wi-Fi ». Why?
      • sunrunner 9mo ago
        I’m not sure if this still works as everything gets a bit more broken in every new macOS, but context menu ‘Reveal in Finder’ used to be my way to figure out where the search result was. My latest macOS gripe is that the ability to copy text out of iTunes (something ridiculous like, say, an album description) has...just disappeared? I’d love to know what UI framework shenanigans just straight up break text selection.
• VerifiedReports 9mo ago
  Apple's app-store "results" have long been absolute bullshit. Apple lied to judges, developers, and the public about the app store. I wrote an application for a popular company; and even if you searched for the company's exact name, the application didn't show up in the top 300 results (which is where I gave up scrolling). Instead, Apple delivered results with misspellings of the company name or applications that didn't contain any portion or variant of the search string AT ALL. Not in the app name, description, publisher name... anywhere. I complained to Apple and got a boilerplate bullshit response. Then I raised a threat of legal action for Apple's hijacking and perversion of our trademark in their search results. This at least provoked a specific response, where Apple claimed that publisher name is "one of the top three" criteria for app-store search. BULLSHIT.
• skc 9mo ago
  Apple have enough customer behaviour data at hand to fully understand that there is very little they can't get away with. So why not maximize profit?
• elnerd 9mo ago
  In related news, 10% of Meta ads are malicious, and they have Meta seems to have little incentive to stop it. https://www.reuters.com/investigations/meta-is-earning-fortune-deluge-fraudulent-ads-documents-show-2025-11-06/ https://www.reuters.com/investigations/meta-is-earning-fortu...
  • kalleboo 9mo ago
    Today a friend of mine literally got an ad for a prostitute on Instagram. They've just completely given up about even pretending to care.
• submeta 9mo ago
  Do people actually browse the App Store to discover what’s new? I personally only open it when I already know exactly what I want to download, for example Obsidian or Firefox. I search, install, and I am done. I never scroll around or browse for inspiration. I am genuinely curious how others use it. Is App Store browsing a real behavior, or is discovery mostly being forced because search no longer reliably gets you to the thing you already know you want?
• danols 9mo ago
  Etsy is probably the worst I have seen. Almost impossible to see. Doubt it is even legal in EU. https://imgur.com/a/ntnNVZF https://imgur.com/a/ntnNVZF
  • rcMgD2BwE72F 9mo ago
    Have you reported this to a consumer protection agency? What did they say?
• thisislife2 9mo ago
  Is anyone really surprised over this?
• fhennig 9mo ago
  We really need more competition in the smartphone space. I think everyone hates this stuff.
• solarkraft 9mo ago
  The old App Store is already terrible. If this is the blueprint for their planned platform endhittification I may as well go back to Android.
• Khaine 9mo ago
  This sounds horrible for user experience. That used to be Apple's claimed Raison d'être. It's sad how far they are willing to debase themselves to chase a few extra nickels. They are already one of the richest companies in the world. Surely they should focus on improving the actual quality of their products (particularly software), and developer experience and documentation, rather than further watering down their quality. This is going to leave a black stain on Tim Cook's legacy. Sure apple may be more profitable and bigger than ever, but its betrayed its legacy, and its users.
  • KolibriFly 9mo ago
    History tends to remember outcomes more than tradeoffs
  • bean469 9mo ago
    When the shareholders want infinite growth no matter the cost, this is what you get
• KolibriFly 9mo ago
  This feels like the same old dark-pattern playbook, just dressed up more subtly. When the only difference between an ad and an organic result is a tiny "Ad" label, you're no longer informing users
• MarginalGainz 9mo ago
  It’s the final stage of 'Search Enshittification'. The core utility of a search engine is Relevance (finding the best match for user intent). The core utility of an Ad engine is Yield (finding the highest bidder). When you blur the visual distinction between the two, you aren't just 'optimizing monetization', you are actively degrading the product's primary function. From a UX perspective, this trains users to develop 'banner blindness' for the entire top half of the viewport. They stop trusting that the first result is the best result. It’s a short-term revenue extraction hack that burns long-term trust in the platform's neutrality.
• dathinab 9mo ago
  there are already regulations in the EU which say - ADs need to be clearly recognizable as such - bunch of other things related to deceiving users and customer protection - the risk this enables in combination with target ads to trick a user into installing a look alike malware makes such designs IMHO negligent, and in the EU you are responsible for (your) negligence no matter what you put in some TOS so why do we tolerate sites systematically blending the lines between ads and content in a way which makes it unclear what is and isn't an ad and is designed to deceive the user into clicking on an ad instead of the content they are looking for. Which to make it worse also has lead to absurd market practices where competitors can semi-hide your product by buying ads which puts their look alike products above your product every time a user looks for your product.
  • cube00 9mo ago
    > so why do we tolerate Regular people outside tech couldn't care less. They scroll endless influencers pushing goods and services they were "invited", "collaborated with" with no advertising disclaimers, and they lap it up leaving streams of positive comments.
    • trinix912 9mo ago
      I know plenty of “regular” people saying “f this, it’s all ads, can’t even find anything anymore!”
  • alt227 9mo ago
    > so why do we tolerate sites systematically blending the lines between ads and content Precisely because it has started to be regulated. Pre regulation, companies were tiptoeing forward, creating a new market and seeing what they could get away with with their customers. Now there is regulation they have a line drawn in the sand for them, and they know exactly what they can and cant do to screw consumers. Therefore they all now toe that line, and push as close to it as they can without crossing it. What follows is a never ending cat and mouse game of companies finding loopholes in the regulation and regulators rushing to catch up and close the holes.
• alex1138 9mo ago
  Honestly, I use iOS purely as anti-Facebook guardrails I trust there's granular permissions so that Zuckerberg can't scrape contacts I understand there's corruption, and that annoys me. I wish Apple remained pure. But you still have to do this. Zuck is malicious as hell and we need sandboxes
  • alt227 9mo ago
    This is also very easy to do on Android. IOS devices are not magic in their ability to block Facebook tracking.
    • alex1138 9mo ago
      Perhaps, though Apple outright revoked FB's certificate after the Onavo nonsense, that counts for something
      • alt227 9mo ago
        Yeah and why did they do that? People think its because Apple are looking after you. In reality its because it allowed Facebook to target Ads at Apple users. Something Apple fiercly guards the privilage of doing only for itself.
        • alex1138 9mo ago
          I thought it was because FB was wildly abusing its privileges, it would not be the first time
          • alt227 9mo ago
            Yep, thats exactly what Apple wants you to think. They spun the whole thing to turn it into a Facebook is the bad guy story, when in reality what they did was eliminate a competitor from their platform without any backlash. Very clever.
• UqWBcuFx6NV4r 9mo ago
  Alright. Directly into the bin.
• dbs255 9mo ago
  Why such outrage? Businesses need to make money afterall.
• pmdr 9mo ago
  The next obvious step is to shrink the 'Ad' label, remove its background altogether and make the text a faded gray, or completely transparent "glass."
• Loudergood 9mo ago
  This is what happens when companies start selling advertising. Inevitably the incentives for making that advertising "succeed" infect the quality of the other products they sell.
• junglistguy 9mo ago
  [dead]
• bjoli 9mo ago
  They already blurred the line between bad design and utter insanity with liquid glass. This feels like the natural progression.
• wvh 9mo ago
  I feel these practices contribute to the post-truth society where a user looks for a fact and gets a paid-for opinion shoved in the face instead. It should be easy for the user to discern the factual relevance of search query results, and it does not bode well if the provider of the search functionality is in on the deceit.
  • podgorniy 9mo ago
    > It should be easy for the user to discern the factual relevance of search query results Is it even possible to structure incentives in such way that this happens? _Without totalitarian dictatorship methods_ if possible please.
    • trinix912 9mo ago
      Put a sticky ad banner to the bottom instead of mixing it with the results?
      • inetknght 9mo ago
        How about: zero ads permitted at all?
    • TheDong 9mo ago
      The only reason that these company mark ads at all are due to consumer protection laws about undisclosed sponsored content. If stronger consumer protection laws are "totalitarian dictatorship methods", then no, there is no path. If we aren't allowed to have laws and regulation, only unregulated capitalism, by definition capital makes right, and so apple having more money than you means you have no recourse. Any way to structure incentives (like "we will all agree to only buy from companies that don't act unfairly") is the same as creating an ad-hoc government regulation.
• worksonmine 9mo ago
  Apple must be aiming for innovations in the renewables sector. They're trying to get Steve Jobs spinning fast enough to harness the energy. /s
• workfromspace 9mo ago
  Apple, do you want to lose customers? Because that's how you lose customers. But seriously, one of the reasons why I got iPhone for my parents to replace their Androids is it's relatively safer environment. But this change increases potential spam and attack surface.
  • podgorniy 9mo ago
    It's impossible that they will loose more money from gone customers than make money from this change
• qmr 9mo ago
  Enshittification of Apple has been sad to watch.
• Nekorosu 9mo ago
  Enshittification of Apple continues. I was quite dedicated to Apple for years but I'm glad I just bought Google Pixel (degoogled with GrapheneOS).
• naravara 9mo ago
  At a glance I don’t really see how this is meaningfully worse at differentiating. If you saw more than 2 apps on the screen at a time the blue background might serve to distinguish ads from organic results, but when it’s the only thing in your screen-view with a few pixels of the next result peeking out from the bottom, then it just looks like they’re alternating colors from one row to the next.
• wkjagt 9mo ago
  Does anyone know when it started to be "ok" to disguise ads as search results? And I don't mean making them look more similar, but including them at all, even as the top results. I'm genuinely wondering how this started because it feels like such a bad idea, but everyone is now doing it anyway because we got used to it by adding it to our list of noise to filter out when interacting with anything connected to the internet.
  • davidjfelix 9mo ago
    It mostly seems like this was a response to the complex world of SEO. My perception is that SEO was seen as this pay-to-play 3rd party service that was offered by "experts" which allowed you to get the leg up on your competition. Search engines saw this as value being externally captured so they offered ads. Want to buy your way to the top? Quit paying 3rd parties to play the game and pay directly.
  • Auracle 9mo ago
    It happened at the same time enough users trained themselves to mentally skip over the ads.
  • morshu9001 9mo ago
    Google had sponsored links for as long as I knew about it, at least 2000. That section was at the top back then and is like that today, but there were times it was only on the right side.
• pier25 9mo ago
  I download new apps maybe once or twice per year. Every time I already know the app I want to download. I haven't browsed an app store casually in almost a decade.
• aaroninsf 9mo ago
  Sighs, points to Best Books of 2025 table, https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittificatio...
• everdimension 9mo ago
  They've been blurring a lot lately
• benced 9mo ago
  Google Play - at least on tablets - makes ads vs not ads much clearer and, if you're searching for one app very obviously (like "Kindle") puts that above the ads. Companies good at selling and distributing ads have the confidence to not be annoying about them.
• ljflkajslkejr 9mo ago
  Enshitification Anyone who has used the most ios or macos updates knows Apple has run out of good ideas
• SaaSasaurus 9mo ago
  "Blurs the line" between ads and results is generous. In 5 years from now, showing up high on the app store will require big $$$ 99 times out of 100, IMO.
• 0xTJ 9mo ago
  Ah, great, they're copying the worst part of the Play Store. I use Android, and avoid opening the Play Store unless I already know exactly what I'm looking for, it has been enshitified to within a centimeter of its life. I would actually spend more money through the Play Store if it wasn't such an awful user experience.
• MiddleEndian 9mo ago
  One of the main reasons I used to like Macs instead of Windows machines was because Apple did not do this kind of bullshit lol. Although showing ads on the app store above your searches at all is terrible behavior that both iOS and Android are guilty. They already get a cut of all the sales.
• zombot 9mo ago
  Apple's App Store has been a stinking dumpster fire for many years now, and I've been avoiding it like the plague. I'm not surprised that Apple works on making it even worse.