Ask HN: On Apple's App Store, why are all the ads deceptive?
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
32 comments
[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 91.9 ms ] threadApp 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.
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?
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.
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
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.
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.
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
> 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.
Stop defending the system thats causing the issue.
Apple doesn't even clearly flag them as ads.
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.
Who accepted ads? Apple is notoriously against the ads ecosystem. Search in an AppStore should not be an ad platform.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.