I love how, on the "I am retiring page", the image of the old woman even has artifacts of the Gemini logo on the bottom right - someone very probably manually tried to blur them with a tool that was not meant for blurring.
Somehow, he or she was still convinced and put it up.
Why would Apple enshittify their News app in this way when there are so many legitimate advertisers out there? It seems obviously damaging to their brand, so it makes no sense to me.
I don’t know if it is just a symptom of growing up during the days of the net’s Wild West and navigating through sites like gamecopyworld or what, but I just seem to have some inbuilt filter which doesn’t even acknowledge the existence of ads.
It’s hard to explain but it is like some subconscious filtering that occurs on a preRecognise hook or something. Weird.
Apple News and News+ represent everything wrong with modern Apple: a ham-fisted approach to simplicity that ignores the end user. It is their most mediocre service, jarringly jamming cheap clickbait next to serious journalism in a layout that makes no sense.
The technical execution is just as lazy. While some magazines are tailored, many are just flat, low-res PDFs that look terrible on the high-end Retina screens Apple sells. Worst of all, Apple had the leverage to revolutionize a struggling industry; instead, they settled for a half-baked aggregator.
It’s a toxic mix of Apple tropes that simply weren't thought through. The ads are the cherry on the cake.
Does Apple News still share Apple News links to articles instead of the canonical link? When I had an iPhone, I uninstalled/disabled Apple News because I don't like distractions but when people shared with me an Apple News link I couldn't open it, because it would go to the app store instead of a redirect for the article. Ironically, on Android, that wasn't a problem. I'd get the article.
However when one such is opened in the browser, it - like any other app link - asks if you want to open it in the news app. And if you close that popup and click on "tap here", you get the link to the original article.
I use it daily and it's decent. It's easy enough to just filter out all of the low-quality news sources (either block those channels or "suggest less"). I use it for sources I want to occasionally read articles from but wouldn't subscribe to: WSJ, New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, Scientific American, or sources I do subscribe to but it's convenient to have them in one place (Atlantic, Wired, my local paper) instead of 5 different apps.
I mostly ignore the "For You" and go straight to browsing the sources I like, "saving" articles to read later, etc.
Never noticed there were lots of ads; I guess I'm used to just scrolling on by them automatically.
I wasn't sure where I'd seen that "retiring" spiel before, but then I remembered someone was (still is) selling a handmade jewelry website claiming $4.3M revenue and $1.3M profit.
We should assume that all ads in general are scams. The noise to signal ratio is too large to care. Word of mouth and maybe trusted communities like HN is the only way to reliably discover new things.
I think that the most fundamental issue with ads and more generally with provider-curated content is that they represent what the advertiser or the provider wants. Not what you want.
Even if the ads are heavily personalized, the advertiser is still the one who is trying to push an idea onto you. Similarly, even if your social media account has a lot of personal information on you, the provider is still the one who is selecting which content will appear in you "feed".
I believe that these practices make people less self-aware of what they actually want. Because they mostly respond to suggestions. They do much less research into what is possible. They just say yes or no to the things they see in their ads or in their "feed". While becoming more and more distant from the reality that is happening outside the provider-managed ads or "feeds".
I think that a safe way out of this is to ignore ads and "feeds" completely. And actively search for the things or content you want. Curate your interests in a way you like. Not in a way advertisers or providers want.
We use a PiHole, plus ad-blocking browsers, so we see very few ads. According to Claude, around 40% of users in the West use ad-blockers at least some of the time.
You would think that advertisers would understand that they are killing the goose? They have made ads pervasive, annoying and untrustworthy. Hence, fewer and fewer people are willing to put up with them.
Perhaps enshittification will eventually hit a wall. One can hope.
Surely what they make from these ads is negligible enough to not warrant the terrible user experience for something users pay for. The ads in Apple News are infuriating.
I bought a remarkably similar mug (last advert shown) from an add from different site [1]. Everything about it was a fake. Almost every feature they advertised did not exist (including the fact that it did not come in a gift box.) That was from a site I visit a lot and I wanted to show support. BTW the AI generated animation is quite cool, too bad it is not real...
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[ 7.1 ms ] story [ 100 ms ] threadEspecially with the failed Apple Intelligence that they will now have to pay their way out of.
Somehow, he or she was still convinced and put it up.
I'll load up Facebook right now and get the same things. Google? The same.
And to no surprise, ads like these break Apple's ad content guidelines[1].
OP should figuratively put down the video camera and go perform CPR. Report the Ad. Make the internet a better place.
[1]: https://support.apple.com/en-au/guide/adguide/apd527d891a8/1...
It’s hard to explain but it is like some subconscious filtering that occurs on a preRecognise hook or something. Weird.
The technical execution is just as lazy. While some magazines are tailored, many are just flat, low-res PDFs that look terrible on the high-end Retina screens Apple sells. Worst of all, Apple had the leverage to revolutionize a struggling industry; instead, they settled for a half-baked aggregator.
It’s a toxic mix of Apple tropes that simply weren't thought through. The ads are the cherry on the cake.
However when one such is opened in the browser, it - like any other app link - asks if you want to open it in the news app. And if you close that popup and click on "tap here", you get the link to the original article.
I mostly ignore the "For You" and go straight to browsing the sources I like, "saving" articles to read later, etc.
Never noticed there were lots of ads; I guess I'm used to just scrolling on by them automatically.
Even if the ads are heavily personalized, the advertiser is still the one who is trying to push an idea onto you. Similarly, even if your social media account has a lot of personal information on you, the provider is still the one who is selecting which content will appear in you "feed".
I believe that these practices make people less self-aware of what they actually want. Because they mostly respond to suggestions. They do much less research into what is possible. They just say yes or no to the things they see in their ads or in their "feed". While becoming more and more distant from the reality that is happening outside the provider-managed ads or "feeds".
I think that a safe way out of this is to ignore ads and "feeds" completely. And actively search for the things or content you want. Curate your interests in a way you like. Not in a way advertisers or providers want.
You would think that advertisers would understand that they are killing the goose? They have made ads pervasive, annoying and untrustworthy. Hence, fewer and fewer people are willing to put up with them.
Perhaps enshittification will eventually hit a wall. One can hope.
Do not buy this!! [1] https://kenmiso.com/products/%E2%9A%A1%E2%9C%A8ultimate-v8-e...
100% shit