Apple Finds Its Next Big Business: Showing Ads on Your iPhone | Hacker News Reader

Apple Finds Its Next Big Business: Showing Ads on Your iPhone

bloomberg.com

115 pointsmiles83 comments

The article is very thin on actual new information. It forms a lot of time talking about how ads currently work. The only new thing is the advertising head saying he wants to grow as revenue, but there’s no concrete info on how they actually intend to do that, just a lot of ‘maybe’ about maps.

My reaction too. The writer didn't even do the homework to know the publisher revenue split for Apple News. I believe it's 70/30 publisher/Apple if Apple sells the ads (in which case the end user gets shockingly awful ads, borderline bellyfat ads), and it's 100% to the publisher if the publisher can navigate and set up ads through Apple's tools, which is time-consuming and resource-intensive.

The only bit I found is this unsourced text:

> On the App Store, display ads are currently shown in the search tab in the Suggested panel. Apple will also soon expand ads to the main Today tab and within third-party app download pages.

I suppose an article titled “Apple to advertise apps in the store you got to to buy apps” probably wouldn’t be as grabby.

Apple needs to be very careful that they don’t erode the things that most differentiate them from their competition.

Why? With their loyal fandom, they could put ads into every part of iPhone and there would still be millions running around telling everyone how those Ads are improving their lives and Apple helped them live their life.

Ads are coming to iOS (heck, my iPad and Mac already have quite a bit peppered around) and Apple will earn even more money in the future from them.

Not on my phone or computer, and I am all in on their ecosystem. I was prepared to bail over their CSAM scanning plans and I can easily move forward with it for ads. The Pixel with Calyx is still quite functional.

I have an ethical line and it is my phone and computer are for my convenience, not a way to toss advertising toward me.

Go ahead Apple, test me. Ya almost lost me a year ago. And I am not alone in this, I think most of Apple’s user base would be quite intolerant of such a plan.

> And I am not alone in this

But you are probably one of a handful of people who would switch ecosystems over an ad for a business in Apple Maps.

Most people have significant amounts of lock-in impeding such a move.

Before almost every startup dev in the world was on Macs, only a handful of people were using anything but Windows on the pro desktop... Macs were widely derided for well over a decade, even after OS X and the eventual Intel switch. And then suddenly there was critical mass and they kinda weren't anymore. Nobody in 1997 would've seen that coming, but mistakes that push a handful of people there and a handful of people there to new things have a way of compounding over time.

(Look at how people talk about Google today vs 10 years ago, too, for instance.)

A privacy respecting OS on google hardware is just controlled opposition. Please don't buy a new pixel if there is any other option (and there are a few for most use cases).

Bull.

They’re already annoying even the faithful with ads for Apple One, Apple TV+, and Apple Arcade. It’s been mentioned as garish and obnoxious on multiple relatively pro Apple podcasts.

I don’t the entire fan base would just sit there and take it. I think they’d see a strong reaction.

People always think users are more activist than they actually are. In reality, as long as something works, most users will tolerate a large amount of bullshit.

Just like when they put ads on ad-free paid for cable?

I don't think todays generation are more activist than those that came before. They fall far short in fact.

You are very mistaken if you think Apples recent "privacy" push wasn't about taking over advertising revenue from Facebook, Google, snap and tiktok

They could have done that without a so called "privacy push", they "own" the device and if they chose to, could provide advertisers a level of targeting that the mentioned entities cannot match without resorting to privacy as a red herring

They are very tactical. They want to be praised as the good guys while killing their competition.

They can't compete with the big ad players and they know it. They tried. It's another classic example of "if you can't beat them, use your other enormous industry leverage to change the game to your advantage." Truth is, I don't think Apple realizes yet how critical that tracking data is to keep advertisers happy and informed. I predict that they will enter the ad market in full 3 years from now, and the existing players will push for an antitrust lawsuit in 5. If they survive that is.

> Truth is, I don't think Apple realizes yet how critical that tracking data is to keep advertisers happy and informed

I think they do. Note that Apple can still track conversions on apps (gaming apps is where the money is), which basically no-one else can without getting ATT agreement. Note additionally how Apple (and Google's) business are conveniently excluded from ATT concerns (because they track installs differently).

Like the gaming advertisers on iOS have nowhere else to go now that Apple have hobbled the competition, which they tried to do with App Store ads about 5 years ago.

Further, Apple will now do it's own tracking while observing privacy by keeping the tracking data inside the device [1].

It has already disabled the ability of 3rd party apps to perform tracking locally while preserving privacy by "disabling the ability of apps to share data locally within a device". If you click an Amazon ad on Facebook and open the Amazon app, Apple will not allow Amazon to report a successful conversion locally (thus preserving privacy) to the Facebook app.

However the same restriction won't apply to Apple as they are the operating system.

Note that Apple is always complaining about "privacy", not Ads. They are going to go all in on Ads.

[1] I suspect law enforcement will still be able to access the local data from the phone, so the privacy preserving tracking might not work when you need it the most.

No, they can't provide better targeting than Google/fb. Taking out competitors makes it a lot easier to seek rent.

Agree. But I believe Apple thinks they also need to move harder into "services" and, I suppose, now ads. I think Apple recognizes that the high-margin hardware business is not not sustainable. Especially as everyone who would want an iPhone already owns one. Apple needs to grow somewhere.

Then Apple is more blind than I assumed possible. Yes, their phone business is probably saturated, but their computer business is not. Apple produces the only ultra-book worthy of the name.

There is no reason for them not to own the premium-business market with all day battery, but still powerful machines. Mac runs the office suite, Mac runs your browser and Teams, Zoom or whatever your organization uses. It runs figma, it runs your IDE, etc.

There are definitely areas where they don't work, and they don't really have a meaningful desktop, and some companies will have speciality software that isn't browser based.

But in general the boss-and-above market has very little reason to not use an Apple Air.

Everyone that owns an iPhone cycles them out every 2-3 years. It’s a perpetual cash cow.

That’s not true. A lot of people wait until their phone no longer works to upgrade.

And also, something being a cash cow at the moment does not mean that thing will continue to be one. Since the iPhone 6ish, iPhones have become “good enough”; there’s not much to differentiate each model from the previous as there was with, say, the iPhones 3GS and 4. The iPhone 13 just doesn’t have much going for it compared to the 12.

Apple is still selling a million iPhones a day.

I stopped cycling when they removed headphone jack. Back to the Android.

Likewise. I wonder if we'll ever see them restore the headphone jack on the SE models simply because there's a good 10-20% chunk of the market who won't buy a phone without one.

A Mini-chassis-based SE with a headphone jack and a touchID home button would be a day 0 buy for me -- I wouldn't even wait for reviews.

Unfortunately I think Apple's treating the headphone jack (on iOS devices) like USB-A, not like the SD card slot or the HDMI port (on the Mac) -- the backlash hasn't been strong enough for them to backtrack.

Of course, that leaves me trapped in the failed evolutionary path of my touchID, small-sized, headphone-jacked 2016 iPhone SE that's losing iOS support this fall. The Zenfone 9 has me intrigued as a modern SoC with solid cellular band coverage and most of the features I want. But it's still bigger than I'd like.

That was the case, now its more like 4-5.

I want an iPhone but im not sacrificing my entire ecosystem of USB-C charger, batteries, car chargers, etc that i can share between my laptop and headphones to mix in lightning nonsense. When iPhone goes USB-C I'll buy.

The differentiation is not in having no ads but in not tracking the user for targeted advertisements. Which is why of course next up people are going to complain about the bad quality of the ads.

I doubt they'll lower their prices anytime soon.

After CSAM, I switched the main office machines to Manjaro. A lot of my colleagues sold their beloved iPhones and moved to De-Googled Android.

Luckily, the fiasco with Little Snitch was resolved, and I can enjoy a mac for occasional design work, but Figma is running well in the Browser and if I see any attempt to push me into Ad Hell, it is totally over.

Vertical integration is important for Apple, but as an old Apple user, this will be "no-fly zone" for me.

Actually, CSAM had a positive in my life. Since then, I am using my smartphone less and with basic apps, some banking, calls and chatting.

What does CSAM have to do with this story on how Apple might grow their ad business?

Nothing. This story is an opportunity to Apple bash, so they’re doing it.

Personally I’m deep in the Apple ecosystem. I don’t think I’d leave because of this ads idea, but I share would get pissed off a lot because of it.

I still use Apple computers for design work, properly monitored by Little Snitch and some modifications on my router.

We all have opinions. And I have invested a ton of money in Apple products in 20+ years of usage. Constructive criticism is not "Bashing".

CSAM was a blatant attempt for breaching user privacy and classification with third party agency hidden criteria. We live in a surveillance economy and ads are the highway for privacy abuse. Apple argument: "We don't share the user data" has no ground for me.

In the increasingly connected world, with billions of data points, trusting a big tech behemoth is a suicide act. Allegedly. :)

> CSAM was a blatant attempt for breaching user privacy and classification with third party agency hidden criteria.

I feel like there's a good amount of FUD about this, so for anyone who might not know: All online file hosts do CSAM matching against known CSAM images, regardless of the client OS(s) you're using. In Apple's case specifically, matching only happens to images you've uploaded to iCloud Photos.¹

¹ https://www.apple.com/child-safety/pdf/Expanded_Protections_...

I trust the experts on this.

Apple's Plan to "Think Different" About Encryption Opens a Backdoor to Your Private Life.

"That’s not a slippery slope; that’s a fully built system just waiting for external pressure to make the slightest change."

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/apples-plan-think-diff...

The point is Apple was already reacting to an external pressure. They don't make up the rules. They were attempting to be open about it, and also give the user options to avoid it (don't use iCloud).

It's great that you've found an alternative that suits you but I think it's disingenuous to argue that Apple is the culprit.

Talk to your representative.

My next door neighbour owning a sledgehammer is a "fully built system just waiting" to bash my door down, but I don't lose any sleep over it.

Exactly. The Apple bashers never fail to come out of the woodpile.

This article reads like the other completely unsubstantiated Apple rumors.

Bloomberg has a long history of quoting "sources briefed on the matter" type articles and this doesn't feel any different.

Well, it is veteran Apple blogger/fairly accurate Apple leak publisher Mark Gurman.

It's not exactly new, but I do hate it when Apple pushes ads onto the iPhone, especially on the lock screen and in Settings.

TFA includes a summary of what data apple will use to target those ads and the incomplete extent to which you can disable it, so I would say the common thread is using a users data for other possibly conflicting interests.

CSAM represents an increasingly invasive trend of Apple's idea that "your device is not yours", and integrated ads would be further in that space

How does the article relate to CSAM? Unless Apple is going to target ads on users that flag

Same here - the constant iCloud upgrade prompts in macOS pushed me to Fedora Linux, and I’ve been a happy camper ever since (performance on the same mac hardware increased significantly too).

If this ad stuff is true, I’ve been eyeing a switch from iPhone to postmarketOS on the Oneplus 6 - the mobile phosh Linux experience is really starting to look pretty daily drivable for my simpler phone use cases.

What was the fiasco that happened with little snitch?

https://tinyapps.org/blog/202010210700_whose_computer_is_it....

> After CSAM, I switched the main office machines to Manjaro

> Actually, CSAM had a positive in my life.

This post sounds like a confession that you had CSAM on your machines and because of that switched away from Apple.

(Read what you wrote out loud expanding the acronym)

No. And I don't think CSAM is gone. By demonstrating the capability to the governments, Apple actually created a demand for the technology.

Politico reports that the European Union is planning on announcing a new law requiring tech giants to scan for CSAM. That would leave Apple having to figure out how to comply without reigniting the controversy.

https://9to5mac.com/2022/05/11/apples-csam-troubles-may-be-b...

I think the point was that your decision to use the abbreviation for child sexual abuse material as a synonym for Apple’s approach to scanning for it is unusual and potentially confusing. Semantics.

It was happening long before Apple explained how it was building a more privacy preserving method and told everyone how to avoid it...

Apple's already showing ads on AppleTV+.

Oh sure, their "crack marketing team" (as Craig calls them) will probably just call them "promos" or "previews", or perhaps even "teasers" - but I don't call a bull turd sprinkled with icing sugar a "confection" - I call out bullshit for what it is, and Apple has ads on their TV service already.

That's right, *ads*.

It's those damn ads for their other shows, that I *didn't* ask about, nor *care* about, yet I'm forced having to deal with fast-forwarding/skipping this B.S. when I wanted to just start watching the actual show I wanted to watch. Not even Netflix pulls this kind of crap; they respect you by simply having any 'previews' within the menus - they don't outright shove it in your face like arrogant Apple does.

I didn't quit paying for cable TV with its incessant insult to your intelligence referred to as "commercials" to pay for ads on streaming services.

If there's anyone that can make the 20-mins-of-commercials-before-the-movie "experience" the new 'normal' for streaming services, it's Apple, and I sure AF won't reward them in that endeavour. (Suffice to say I didn't subscribe after my trial ended.)

(now watch all the Apple fanbois downvote my post in 3... 2... 1... (but not before seeing the next AppleTV+ "preview"))

Well, it was bound to happen eventually. Apple is a public company and if there is one thing that is clear, it is that shareholders demand constant growth and new revenue sources. Monetizing users is cheap and easy way to do it. Users barely understand privacy anyway ( I am not joking; when I talk about this stuff with my wife or her family, the impression I have is that they do not even understand the impact ).

When will the HN forums get rid of it's fascination for Apple, the privacy company, and realise it's as bad as Meta or Google or Amazon in terms of invasiveness (and possibly worse), since it cloaks everything as "privacy company". It doesn't. They are as evil as anyone else.

I think ultimately a lot of people really don't care as much about the privacy angle as they let on. And they just use it as a talking point to justify supporting Apple despite its bad behavior regarding platform lock-in and walled gardens (something that the hacker ethos has historically despised). Apple's current walled garden would have made Bill Gates blush in the 90s and we know how hacker types reacted to 90s era Microsoft.

So how do you keep your hacker card while stilling buying Macbooks and iPhones? Well, its because the "other side" isn't just worse than Apple. They are actually evil. And while Apple is a dictator, they are benevolent. And so thats actually a good thing because Apple is using the immense unilateral power bestowed upon them to protect us from the evils of non-Apple Big Tech.

What we learned about Apple over the weekend was pretty incredible.

Apple tried to extort Facebook for a portion of its ad revenue (arguing that boosted posts paid for by iOS users were IAP).

Facebook didn't relent. Apple couldn't bully Facebook like it did Tumblr (by rejecting app updates until boosted posts were implemented as IAP) so instead they eventually crushed its core business with ATT. Does anyone actually think that Apple would have done that if it were getting a cut?

Now, we see that Apple is expanding its own advertising business.

Its really sort of remarkable when you think about it. They are acting exactly like the mob. Pay us or we'll crush you. And after we burn your laundromat down, we might just build our own to replace it. No doubt that if this were Google, people would be screaming for the DOJ to break the company apart on anti-trust grounds and it would be justified.

Ha! Kill the goose that laid the golden egg.

I remove brand labels from nearly all of my possessions. I don’t watch television and I listen to NPR. Add advertising to my phone?

Hmm. Always wanted to try that e-ink phone, Lite Phone. Prolly have my Motorola Razor in a drawer…

https://www.thelightphone.com/

Apple’s News app is worthless to me and provides no value or access to objective, rigorous journalism. It’s more like corn flakes … they provide simple, bland calories, but why eat them when there are so many other interesting options?

It is quite ironic though how Apple takes steps to prevent dark practices by advertisers, but they utilize dark patterns like filling up the news stories for certain stocks in the stocks app with stories that are only accessible using News+. How many times do we need to be asked to buy that crap?

I think that they would lose customers in droves if they did such badly - a bit like google losing to alternative search engines due to them pushing paid ads first. I’m already rethinking alternatives along the lines of Ungoogled phones - but I still like ios as it just does what it’s supposed to do kinda well. But if I see an ungoogled phone I’m likely to get it as a second phone - or maybe a first phone and iPhone becomes media phone!!

I'd like to think so but I really doubt it, I mean the App Store experience has been long compromised by advertising to the extent where exact searches just show spam apps. I doubt the average iOS user would care if that sort of experience leaked into other parts of the OS.

Is there a legal reason they can't just demand 30% of Meta's ad revenue of ads viewed on iOS and have to instead start building their own system while attacking the tech that makes Meta's viable?

Why would I want advertisements when I paid £1000+ for my phone? I can semi understand when you are on a paid schedule with Apple or a mobile provider but when I paid cash at the Apple Store?

It's just a little advertisement:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_IaVMsCbf8

They didn't post one in Ops.

TL-DR: iOS becoming Android.

if they're embedding ads in the news app itself it's worse than Android, because Google does not put ads in that app. I honestly don't think any of the Google apps on android phones show ads.

They do.

There are ads in the play store (labelled), ads in the Google news feed (labelled), ads in Gmail (labelled and similar to the ads in the web version).

But no ads in what I would consider the daily experience (home screen, lock screen, apps menu, settings).

is that a regional thing? I do see promoted apps in the play store but I have never seen a single ad in either the android Gmail app or the news app.

Ads in Gmail exist under the Promotions tab, a few emails below the top, at least in France. In my day to day usage of the app, I'd say i even open the Promotions tab once a week, at most? So pretty low impact.

Just opened the promotions tab for the first time. There are ads there (USA). Don't see any reason to ever open it again.

There's a comment voted to death about phones showing ads. Remember when Google's selling point was that their home page just had a search interface and not like e.g Yahoo, a homepage "portal" full of celebrity, etc, news? I got a new Android phone recently, you can swipe left from the home screen to get the Google search, and there "Google Discover" is active, and it has celebrity, etc, news. Even the search suggestion drop down is to show what searches are trending. I share the dead comment's sentiment of needing curse words.

It feels like everything is so user hostile nowadays, even the Google keyboard nag you to give them a Play Store star-rating and review. Or they interrupt you with a spammy notification that asks you to tell your friends about them... (Insert more curse words here).

Maybe I should start a SaaS that will offer IoT device manufacturers a way to spam their owners to rate them on the appropriate store. You touch the fridge door, it doesn't budge, and the screen lights up: "Before you get your milk, do you like your fridge? Please rate us 5 stars on the Walmart store!"

The story continues:

You open the door, and immediately a banner slowly slides up asking if you'll accept a virtual cookie. Obviously you want that cookie, so you agree. The banner slowly descends back into its slot.

Now you identify the location of the milk and begin reaching for it.

Suddenly a banner unfurls from above, blocking your reach suggesting, "Subscribe to the Samsmug Smartfridge Newsletter!" Somewhere on the edge of the inside of the fridge is a button to make the newsletter banner retract. You find it and press it, and the banner retracts.

Now you reach for the milk... But! The shelves suddenly move up and down to make room for a flip-out screen which starts playing a video ad of the new weekly butter delivery service. Somewhere else on the edge of the interior of the fridge is a button to hide the screen, but fortunately you can still see the top of the milk container down near the bottom of the accessible opening.

So you squeeze the jug out the narrow space, turn around, and slam the door as you turn. D'oh!

Now you debate just drinking as much of the milk as you can and then throwing the rest out rather than go through the whole process again just to return the milk to its place.

Unauthorised Bread: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-...

Perhaps the decline of Apple finally starts. And a startup will take their place eventually.

Sadly it's not the 80s anymore. A startup building their own hardware without VCs getting involved is basically impossible. Of course, I'm not talking about taking something like a Raspberry Pi off the shelf and making something with that. Wozniak was building something from scratch that could be sold as an actual product - no chance of that now.

VCs aren’t that interested in hardware. Nobody bets on a crippled horse. The same with hardware startup. Why invest in something with tons of embedded software, connectivity software and all the problems with moving physical objects when one could invest just in software venture that has at least 10x higher chance to succeed?

There's Framework and Librem laptops, I'd rather buy those than a Mac (I didn't downvote)

I wanted to buy a framework, but they don't accept crypto payments. So I bought apple gift cards with Bitcoin and bought a MacBook pro instead.

Interesting. Did you not have to disclose a similar amount of personal information to buy the Mac?

Have you considered buying used? This can be better for the environment and privacy.

It could possibly happen in robotics or home automation. SparkFun could get there, or Adafruit.

Robotics - super expensive just to start. Think about 3 developers for mechanical, electrical and software parts plus expensive hardware. Timeframe at least 2 years. So $1M just for shy start.

Home automation topic goes for decades. However I don’t see wide adoption anywhere. Most tech savvy buddy is playing often with new products and stated, that the best thing is Philips Hue lights in home automation area. Other things barely work.

if only Microsoft was not trying to sneak ads everywhere, this could be a moment for MS Phone

I am so confused when people say this. Microsoft Windows Professional allows you to configure any such things. I have almost all telemetry off, all permissions off, all notifications off, all ads off. I don't see this ad riddled Windows that people speak about.

I am not surprised when I hear 'normies' complain about this, because they mostly run OEM Windows Home which the vendors of their devices decided is OK, but on a forum such as this one, I am surprised to hear these kind of complaints.

* Everything is configurable from the Privacy Settings with an on / off toggle

* Whenever a new invasive option gets pushed with an update, there's an update screen which allows you to disable it and is disabled by default, so by skipping, you don't enable it

At least this is how I perceive my machine.

Hey Cortana, define confirmation bias. You say you have to disable ads manually and then go on saying "I don't see this ad riddled Windows". Are you being serious?

Good for you for buying Windows Pro, what about everybody and their grandma else stuck on Home? I guess they don't count. Fucking normies.

> Hey Cortana, define confirmation bias. You say you have to disable ads manually and then go on saying "I don't see this ad riddled Windows". Are you being serious?

Please re-read my argument. I expect more from this community.

> Good for you for buying Windows Pro, what about everybody and their grandma else stuck on Home? I guess they don't count. Fucking normies.

Please re-read my argument. I expect more from this community.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com