Apple's App Store Has Become an Ad-Plagued Version of Its Former Self

I believe Apple is falling into the "arrogance" trap..

When we were kids, we used to be told the "rabbit and turtle race story" and, if you hadn't heard about it, you must have been born directly as a teenager :)

Apple is slowly playing the rabbit role, and yes, it can sleep for as long as it wants then, maybe waking some day to realize what damage the once-believed turtles have already caused to it.

Yes, the "rabbit" role is, by no means, new in tech industry.. Kodak, Blockbuster, Windows (with its epic IE) -to some extents- , were all "rabbits" at some points in the past but not any more. And, guess what? Nokia Mobile was also the big "rabbit" that was taken in no time by.. Apple!

I don't know if there is a proper term to describe this concept, but I will write it in plain English: I always tell myself, friends, and relatives that if any entity, whether it is a single person, a community, a company, or a government, is misbehaving and/or walking in an incorrect path, sooner or later it will pay a high bill in the future that is not apparent at present.

Maps was a cover story. Forstall was fired because he was Tim Cook's only serious rival for power post-Jobs, and also because some other execs (such as Jony Ive) didn't like him. When Steve Jobs died, Forstall lost his only protector in the company.

Spinning up a maps service from scratch to match Google Maps was a monumental task, nearly impossible to do quickly and well. Apple Maps continued to suck for years after Forstall was fired. Not to mention that Siri continues to suck today. Forstall wasn't fired for incompetence. He was a proven executive who was in charge of developing iOS!

In contrast, Hair Force One has overseen a massive downgrade in Apple software design and quality. But he gets along well with the other execs, doesn't rock any boats.

From Tim Cook’s point of view he’s seeing a line go up. Things aren’t getting worse for him, they’re getting better. He’ll probably be gone by the time the consequences of his management have an impact on Apple’s coffers. Assuming that ever happens, because what’s making Apple a crappy company is that it’s becoming indistinguishable from the alternatives.

> This needs entire departments to be shutdown.

This needs Tim Cook to retire.

If they'd be willing to go somewhere else, then they wouldn't be loyal.

And the "somewhere else" can only be Android, and even for non-loyal users, that's a big step (and vice versa).

In my own personal (and thus limited) experience, I know zero users that have made the switch. The Android/Apple choice seems to stick really hard.

As for getting new apps, it's almost always through a webpage that takes me directly to the app in the store.

It has categories? Lists? Curated content? Ads? Paid placements?

I had no idea.

These days you don’t browse the App Store. You go there knowing exactly what app you want.

In my area some crappy banking apps made it to the top list for the same reason: often downloaded.

Ads were in print for newspapers. Then in television, allowing for content and network providers to grow. Tech just became the next delivery medium for ads and a superior one at that once data harvesting and targeted ads were the norm. Tech has become the de facto medium for ads due to the margins and greater potential for returns.

Apple's implementation of IAP was to neutralize as much competition as possible, probably because they would not have been able to compete fairly. This anti-competitive behavior hurt the other ad companies but it also hurt tons of smaller businesses that were able to benefit from the targeted ads. This is probably the government intervention that needs to happen IMHO.

NB, I don't know what the solution is for ads in tech. On one hand, targeted ads mean data harvesting and all the repercussions associated with that (we know now there is no such thing as anonymized data no matter who is collecting the data) while non-targeted ads have little value for all parties involved (wasted ad spend dollars by companies and patrons being shown ads that are not relevant to them), and no ads mean less revenue for services and sites, which mean they eventually go out of business unless they have other means of monetization. What is the optimal solution? (Or just the least bad one if we must?)

Almost all of the apps (I found one exception) that appear above my app have in-app purchases and or ads, and most of them have a lower score than mine.

It's hard not to come to the conclusion that my app is somehow penalized for not generating income for Google.

If we had real competition with stores competing to provide the most value for the users, then I would expect non-profit apps like mine to bubble up rather than drown.

Lots of apps crank up the forced ads/other BS after they’ve nagged you a few times, and they like to that right after a dopamine hit, like beating a boss.

I use Firefox Focus, and it seems it did its job well.

AppStore never had discovery this good, but relied on being heavily curated for quality instead.

I do feel play store is in a much worse state still. The curating is barely there and the algorithms had user interests (our at least my interests) optimised out of them.

The fact that it used to work so well is insulting in a way. It's like when android took out the process manager.

Edit: formatting

Ah but I *like* the 30% cut I'm forced to give for apps on the store like Spotify or Netflix. Because for my sacrifice I am allowed to live in the ivory tower above the plague rats of Android!

Alternate application stores, that fulfill a basic number of legal and commercial conditions, should always be a choice for any owned hardware, perhaps at the cost of the device warranty.