1/19/2026 at 5:27:00 PM
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...). 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.
by mdasen
1/20/2026 at 10:10:52 AM
>It's shocking that Apple hasn't done this trick yet when everyone else started doing it years ago.They sell a walled garden. If shit gets inside the walls, we might as well come out.
I’m not willing to pay the apple tax any longer. Let the ad sellers pay if they’re the main costumers.
by torben-friis
1/20/2026 at 6:11:56 PM
I’d like to revisit and see if in 6 months time you’ve actually left or if you just were angry.by jama211
1/20/2026 at 7:55:53 PM
Great point! If he is smartphonized, he will not get out of his addiction without losing job, life etc.by eimrine
1/21/2026 at 4:23:32 AM
I meant to apple specifically… pretty sure you don’t lose your job switching devices usuallyby jama211
1/20/2026 at 1:48:23 PM
> I’m not willing to pay the apple tax any longer.Problem here is that when you decide you no longer wish to pay the tax and want to exit the walled garden, you discover that there's a heap of functionality and convenience you'll have to let go, and add complexity and cost to your setup.
I actively avoided relying on iCloud even when it was the sane option, but many people that will feel like the walled garden is no longer suiting them will have to figure out ways to move files, emails, and (crucially) communication channels out of the ecosystem.
I think a large number of them will decide that it's not worth the hassle, and remain walled in. Which is the idea to begin with.
Sure, this is HN, and many will say "screw it, I'll Nextcloud my way out", but the genpop will remain within the gilded cage.
by MonkeyClub
1/20/2026 at 3:14:58 PM
Other than blue bubbles, you aren't leaving behind much nowadays. Apple is now lagging in general usability vs competitors, Siri as one glaring example.by lorddumpy
1/20/2026 at 4:38:23 PM
I think parent was referring to how challenging it is to move data (files like photos and other types of files, all of which are only accessible through apps with those specific capabilities) out of the Apple mobile ecosystem and to something non-Apple-ish.This is still true even if you use a Mac as an intermediary (if you have one), which also implies that you're probably going to be using iCloud to sync those as well.
Bottom line: it's exceptionally difficult, even for tech-forward Apple-philes, to move your own data off your iPhone without actually going DEEPER into the Apple ecosystem, and Apple has been actively removing capabilities and neutering apps like NextCloud etc (always for 'privacy' or 'security' reasons) to make it MORE difficult to exfil your own data.
by gunapologist99
1/20/2026 at 9:28:03 PM
I wasn't aware of that, that's pretty awfulby alex1138
1/20/2026 at 3:06:46 PM
>you discover that there's a heap of functionality and convenience you'll have to let go,Cloud storage of pictures is not an issue as I do regular backups (we all should, we’re a false positive account termination away from crying otherwise).
What’s else is there? I’m not American so no iMessage, I struggle to find some other blocker.
by torben-friis
1/20/2026 at 3:31:08 PM
>you discover that there's a heap of functionality and convenience you'll have to let go, and add complexity and cost to your setup.Which is?
Every time I got an Apple product, it felt like a step back. They were late to widgets, late to AI. Their security is historically poor.
by PlatoIsADisease
1/20/2026 at 6:56:51 PM
> Their security is historically poor.
by throwaway2037
1/20/2026 at 8:15:55 PM
> For the desktop Mac, the base OS is essentially UNIX. It is much more secure by default than Microsoft WindowsCitation needed.
by dblohm7
1/20/2026 at 5:57:16 PM
> Every time I got an Apple product, it felt like a step back. They were late to widgets, late to AI. Their security is historically poor.It's not a bad thing to be late to AI. Most of it has shown to be a complete waste of time, money and resources.
As for poor security - this has got to be a joke, right? If anything, it's the Windows world that has a piss poor track record when it comes to security. Apple meanwhile, unless you're a terrorist or drug kingpin, no way the police can access a properly protected device.
by mschuster91
1/20/2026 at 6:58:24 PM
> It's not a bad thing to be late to AI.
by throwaway2037
1/20/2026 at 10:36:58 PM
>it's not a bad thing to be late to AI. Most of it has shown to be a complete waste of time, money and resources.This is just cognitive bias. If Apple was doing well with AI, you'd be praising it.
I've been having gemini look at my screen and add events to my calendar in 2 clicks.
Not to mention... I don't really have lots of faith in the people who don't see the value in AI. Its halved my programming costs if not more.
>As for poor security - this has got to be a joke, right? If anything, it's the Windows world that has a piss poor track record when it comes to security. Apple meanwhile, unless you're a terrorist or drug kingpin, no way the police can access a properly protected device.
You do you then. I need my device secured. I won't explain because it makes myself a target.
by PlatoIsADisease
1/20/2026 at 2:18:57 PM
> here's a heap of functionality and convenience you'll have to let goThat's a very outdated point of view. All mobile ecosystems have practical feature parity. Convenience - that's a tricky one. With Apple stuff, you only have convenience if you're one of the bubble people who has their entire family and close friends in the Apple ecosystem. The reality outside that is that for every 1 iOS person, there are ~2 non iOS people they need to collaborate with and share stuff. Convenience has left the room a long time ago.
by isodev
1/20/2026 at 4:50:36 PM
Oh how I wish that was universally true. Unfortunately ive experienced strong discrimination for green checks especially amongst boutique SMB servicersby chasing0entropy
1/20/2026 at 4:13:16 PM
Oh no I lost my conveniences! Cry me a river. Are people really so weak we can't even give up little things to show these fucking tech companies we don't like what they are doing?by olyjohn
1/20/2026 at 4:54:32 PM
Wait, do you like what android and Microsoft are doing ?by bethekidyouwant
1/20/2026 at 5:54:32 PM
I want to see a movement of people using dumbphones or no phones at all. Anything you do on a smartphone can be done later on a desktop computer and a landline phone.by izzydata
1/20/2026 at 8:41:41 PM
I left the Apple ecosystem three years ago and have been daily driving a Linux-based phone ever since.I’m still dealing with the fallout even today. There are tons of things in 2026 that you can no longer conveniently do without an Apple or Google mobile OS. For example, you’re out of all the group chats. No more WhatsApp, Telegram, or Signal. You can’t have those on a computer unless you have the account tethered to a phone.
by Hackbraten
1/20/2026 at 10:04:28 PM
At least in the US people still only use SMS or a program that can be installed on a computer. I've never used WhatsApp, Telegram or Signal.The only thing right now that I need my Android phone for is Duo Mobile authentication to log into my work computer.
by izzydata
1/22/2026 at 1:14:51 PM
In Europe, where SMS used to be ridiculously expensive until the early 2010s, WhatsApp usage is absolutely endemic to the point that many businesses use it as their primary means of communication. It also has a quasi-monopoly on group messaging among friends and relatives.by Hackbraten
1/20/2026 at 7:52:23 PM
your (and many others') argument is basically a "there are no atheists in foxholes" "I know, better than you, what you think" argument.to me, no idea what you are talking about, i find the iphone/Apple experience to be a huge pita, all the time. i love unix for the swiss army knife of general purpose tools, not the many different garden walls with no garden inside.
the reason fsckboy doesn't leave is that all his bitches expect it, otherwise, gone in 60 seconds.
by fsckboy
1/20/2026 at 8:39:24 PM
This feels inevitable for any 'unique' company that lives long enough for leadership to retire and starts hiring replacement c-levels externally.Those external people are going to run Apple just like whatever other companies they were running before. You need to keep the vision alive and promote people internally who understand that vision to keep running the company.
Being publicly traded probably doesn't help either.
by p1necone
1/20/2026 at 3:35:11 PM
It’s still better than the alternativesby dymk
1/20/2026 at 4:13:29 PM
Once we grow up as a nation and legalize competing app stores on native Android and iOS you can try to make this pointHowever, the alternatives are currently illegal, so your point doesn't hold
by css_apologist
1/20/2026 at 4:19:44 PM
Then they're not really alternatives, are they?by dymk
1/20/2026 at 6:53:44 PM
technically jailbreak stores count, but not practically comparableby css_apologist
1/20/2026 at 4:00:46 PM
I think that may depend a lot on just what you're used to.Having never been in there, I can't imagine buying in now.
by metalliqaz
1/20/2026 at 4:23:03 PM
In what ways? Apple, IMHO, has been jumping on every proverbial band wagon. And some of its 'better intended' changes like ATT seem only to have been to stifle competition while they set up their own solution.by NBJack
1/20/2026 at 4:26:33 PM
Well, the alternatives is Android and... not really much else, for a full-featured smartphone. Say what you will about Apple, they're not perfect, but they have a better track record w.r.t privacy than Google in every way.I'm not saying I like what Apple is doing here, but I trust Google a lot less with my data.
by dymk
1/20/2026 at 4:32:41 PM
There are ways to have full featured smartphones without Google, like Graphene OS.I am not aware of any alternatives that exist for Apple devices though
by abustamam
1/20/2026 at 5:00:54 PM
This! Sure you might need a Google account for your android but you don't HAVE to use all their services.First just don't use Gmail, docs, search, chrome and co. But even better get a Pixel with Graphene and Google's invasive tactics are even more limited.
However it is sad that a company like Apple that used to produce superior hardware with superior UX is falling apart on all fronts - hardware (especially pricing), UX (hello glass design), software (macos just getting worse every release without adding ANYTHING of value)
And now introducing more and more ads while keep selling you "pro" laptops with 512GB SSD :-/
by axelthegerman
1/20/2026 at 5:23:25 PM
> you might need a Google account for your androidYou don't. LineageOS works without a Google account. I would be surprised if GrapheneOS worked differently.
by like_any_other
1/20/2026 at 7:13:27 PM
Only if you hate digital freedomby ulrikrasmussen
1/19/2026 at 6:36:10 PM
What’s interesting to me is that no matter how “hidden” the AD indicator may be, my brain always seems to very quickly train itself to swiftly skip such posts when scrolling/browsing.Or I could simply be another clueless victim of advertising. If only I could know the number of sponsored posts I never consciously acknowledge and am influenced by on the daily.
by bool3max
1/19/2026 at 7:00:39 PM
If the vast majority of people recognized ads and skipped them as more technically minded people do, they'd either not do that or step up a notch and make them even harder to spot. The reality is that these dark patterns do work for a large part of the users. We're the lucky few who can stay away though it is taxing and tiring.by tartoran
1/20/2026 at 8:09:03 AM
Or at least we’re arrogant enough to think it doesn’t affect us.by hsbauauvhabzb
1/20/2026 at 3:52:18 PM
It does affect us quite a bit. This situation makes us have to think hard, makes us be very wary of what we click on or read and sometimes bites us as well. I personally find ads extremely tiring such that I mostly avoid add riddled products/sites and always use ad blockers. Quite on the contrary, the vast majority of users aren't even bothered by ads, they've been accustomed to them. My main point of the comment wasn't to be arrogant but to say that most users don't care.by tartoran
1/20/2026 at 4:20:32 PM
> If the vast majority of people recognized ads and skipped them as more technically minded people doPeople definitely do this. When I worked for a large social media company, we almost always had ads in position 2. People noticeably (in the aggregate data) spent less time with this position in the viewport.
But honestly, most people are just extra impressions/revenue for most advertisers, there's a much smaller number of people who drive ~all of the conversions.
by disgruntledphd2
1/20/2026 at 11:13:40 AM
The sickening truth is that most normals don't turn their attention in another way even when they recognize an ad for what it is.by mikkupikku
1/20/2026 at 3:24:31 PM
Why should they if they’re buying some commoditized item on amazon, for example? I bought an ergonomic ice pack for my knee this morning, something I couldn’t find in the store near my house. Why should I scroll past the first, cheapest, decent looking item that meets my needs? As a moral duty, perhaps. At any rate, advertisement doesn’t necessarily mean scam.by gnatman
1/20/2026 at 7:06:40 PM
In that scenario I can understand paying attention to ads, even though I personally don't. But normals will stay tuned in and eyes glued even for television ads pitching things they have no interest in. Hypnotized by the machine, indifferent to the commercial propaganda. Even asking them to mute the ads is met with puzzlement.by mikkupikku
1/20/2026 at 3:55:16 PM
When you pay for an advertised product you're also paying for their advertising budget hence most likely not the best price/quality. Sure, not 100% true all the time, sometimes there's a liquidation of stock or something like that.by tartoran
1/19/2026 at 10:15:10 PM
Yeah. Its going to be easy to skip the first result in an app store search, not because its highlighted, but additionally because it isn't ever what i was searching for. The app store search has been broken like this for years and any change they make short of adding or removing the ad won't change my habits.in every search ive done on the app store in the last several years, I'm looking for a specific app. That app is never the ad result at the top, its always the second result down.
Right now i did a search for several different popular social media apps. TikTok was the top 'ad' result for all of them. Then i did a search for TikTok and got some random app i've never heard of as the 'ad' result. Its like it doesn't want the same app to fill both of the top two slots, but there is always an ad. So what you are looking for is always second on the list. Never first.
Because of this, why would i ever click the ad? If i search something less-specific like "flashcard app" the best result will fill the second slot. Something else goes in the ad slot.
by snailmailman
1/19/2026 at 8:12:23 PM
Shouldn't be too difficult to train a DL network on it, as well. I'm waiting for a pi-hole like device that works on the HDMI level and simply replaces ads by blank space (or art, or whatever the user chooses).by amelius
1/19/2026 at 8:49:39 PM
Normal users do not do this. We break Google Ads' links at the office (yours should too, malicious linkjacking in ads is prevalent) and I am told "Google doesn't work" all the time. People have to be taught not to click the ads and usually that's only effective if you ensure the ads don't work.by ocdtrekkie
1/19/2026 at 7:06:46 PM
Amazon has gotten "good" at it. If I search for, say, AirPods, I get ads from Apple followed by the regular listings that look identical sans gray "sponsored" text. It helps that in this rare case the ads are actually relevant.by dpkirchner
1/19/2026 at 9:09:49 PM
The problem with this, I've found, is that you end up skipping a lot of things, and then find out later on that features were introduced years ago that you've wished, throughout the interim, existed. It's hard to keep up.I wish there was regulation enforcing background colors for ads.
by browningstreet
1/19/2026 at 9:44:46 PM
We should just have an <advertisement> tag in HTML, regulation could then require it.by grumbel
1/20/2026 at 6:28:37 PM
It's not an ad, it's a paid message from a sponsor. Completely different. :-)by brewdad
1/20/2026 at 9:20:07 AM
Yeah, but that's just moving the goal post. They'll find some way to get around having to do it.by deafpolygon
1/20/2026 at 8:19:05 PM
Any ideas? I'm struggling to come up how they could circumvent thisby efilife
1/20/2026 at 1:35:05 PM
The solution to the plague of ads is to just stop buying so much shit. Most the stuff we buy shouldn’t even exist in the first place.by nkrisc
1/20/2026 at 3:20:48 PM
> Most the stuff we buy shouldn’t even exist in the first place.But how would we know what should or shouldn't exist, if someone doesn't bring it into existence first so we can figure it out?
by embedding-shape
1/20/2026 at 5:16:26 PM
For example: most small, plastic toys should not exist, regardless of how many people might want them. They’re essentially mass-manufactured pollution that harms the global environment. Sure, you can find positive effects of them, but I argue those effects are not worth the downsides.There are many other things that would be a net positive of they didn’t exist.
Just because something can exist, just because some people might want it to exist, doesn’t mean we’re better off. Honestly I think the Amish and their measured approach to technology is correct (though my rubric would be different than theirs).
by nkrisc
1/20/2026 at 10:18:22 AM
> The problem with this, I've found, is that you end up skipping a lot of thingsThe solution is to stop caring so much about what you miss. Whatever it is, it’s not worth the unrelenting assault on your senses.
Replace your FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) with JOMO (Joy Of Missing Out).
by latexr
1/19/2026 at 9:28:45 PM
I'm okay with missing things. As I got older, I cared less and less about being aware of everything out there, and I was glad I got the thing done I needed so I could spend time with my family.by godzillabrennus
1/19/2026 at 8:39:34 PM
I do this automatically too. But then I wonder if that matters. Are the results that have the best SEO actually going to be any better than the sites that pay the most to be displayed for my search? I have no idea.by terminalshort
1/20/2026 at 4:01:10 PM
"I can always tell when someone is lying to me."by bevr1337
1/20/2026 at 10:14:20 AM
Yet when Apple adopts the same patterns, it feels less like "catching up" and more like quietly abandoning a standard they once benefited fromby KolibriFly
1/20/2026 at 6:33:34 AM
Amazon is particularly wild because you can use the site without realizing %70 of your results are ads.by Hammershaft
1/20/2026 at 8:00:39 AM
I‘d argue it‘s often 100% unless you are looking for things so extremely specific no one paid ad/placement money for it.by Traubenfuchs
1/20/2026 at 2:03:29 PM
Not even then, because search wants to show you something and it will just randomly grab ad placements to make up the difference.by coredog64
1/20/2026 at 4:40:27 PM
Yeah I'll often look for something specific and I'll see listings that have nothing to do with what I'm looking for. Like I think I was looking for wide mouth nipples for baby bottles, a specific brand and model, and I was seeing baby toys. Like ok, they surmised I have a baby... But don't show it to me as a result for a query for something completely different.by abustamam
1/20/2026 at 11:17:40 AM
I can’t confirm that exact percentage, but yes—“prime” placements on Amazon are driven by Amazon Ads.the Sponsored Brands banner at the top of the search results page, and the Top of Search Sponsored Products slots.
[1] https://advertising.amazon.com/lp/build-your-business-with-a...
by average_r_user
1/20/2026 at 12:06:45 PM
>I can’t confirm that exact percentage, but yes—“prime” placements on Amazon are driven by Amazon Ads.It's a quip, anecdata, not quantitative analysis————why would you need to "confirm that exact percentage"?
by usefulposter
1/20/2026 at 4:37:59 PM
I think it was a polite way of saying "I think that is an exaggeration" and instead focusing on the part they agreed on.by collingreen
1/20/2026 at 10:28:21 AM
I'm not trying to excuse Amazon but you do know what like, super markets, best buy etc, take ad money (promotional money?) from suppliers who pay for placement. That Samsung TV at the front being pushed at you, that's effectively ad money Samsung paid to have their TVs put at the front of the store. Those cans of Coke stacked at the end of the isle or piled up near the entrance at your super market? Coke paid to have them placed there.I'm not saying it's good or that therefore Amazon or Apple should be excused. I'm just saying, the naieve me thought Coke was on the end of the isle because the store thought it's what customers wanted. No, it's what Coke wanted, and paid for. And it's the same with Amazon and now Apple.
by socalgal2
1/20/2026 at 11:52:59 AM
When I owned a liquor store, the cigarette sales reps would all fall over themselves givings us free stuff, including straight cash, to place their cigarettes more prominently than the other brands. This would last for about a week or two until the other brand's rep would notice and up the ante.> Those cans of Coke stacked at the end of the isle or piled up near the entrance at your super market? Coke paid to have them placed there.
Often, though endcaps are also used to move product that wasn't selling well and you want gone. But in any case, as a consumer you're usually better off ignoring products on the endcaps.
by technothrasher
1/20/2026 at 4:15:16 PM
Someone's gotta explain why the tortillas are always on the end caps...by olyjohn
1/20/2026 at 4:37:35 PM
Off-topic but I hate it when stuff I'm looking for is ONLY at the end caps and not even on the end cap of an aisle that makes sense (like a particular soda at the end of the bread aisle).by abustamam
1/19/2026 at 6:23:51 PM
I am suddenly realizing how silly it is that I have put up with this for decades. Are GreaseMonkey or similar tools still around that would let me customize the CSS of sites? I am thinking I should be able to run my own styling to make the ads nearly invisible. Or do the big players do all sorts of tricks to make identifying the ad content so dynamic that it would require constant vigilance to maintain? I have heard that Facebook does insane rendering tricks to prevent people from scraping their sites, not impossible to imagine some companies obfuscate the ad selection.Probably a few dozen lines of CSS could give me a much better browsing experience.
by 3eb7988a1663
1/19/2026 at 6:40:04 PM
Yes, Greasemonkey still exists. Also there are ad blockers, you know? Such as the oft recommended uBlock Origin[0].by tasuki
1/19/2026 at 6:37:41 PM
I use the Stylus extension for site-specific CSS in Chrome. Usually end up with a big comma-separated list of selectors getting the { display: none !important; visibility: hidden !important } treatment.by ebertucc
1/19/2026 at 6:35:55 PM
ublock origin does wonders. I use it to give HN a dark modeby downrightmike
1/19/2026 at 6:49:32 PM
Sure enough, this looks great. Found a blog post where someone did the exact same thing. Unlike the Firefox mechanism of usercontent.css which requires a reboot after every change(?) this works dynamically on a page reload. Now trivial to restyle some content which would otherwise not hit a blocklist.by 3eb7988a1663
1/20/2026 at 8:12:07 AM
As someone extremely adverse to plugs, I was unaware ubo (the only plugin I use) was capable of this. Thank you!by hsbauauvhabzb
1/20/2026 at 4:50:44 PM
Similar boat, so the no-novel extensions bit is an enormous win.by 3eb7988a1663
1/19/2026 at 7:04:50 PM
Use an adblocker, like the FBI recommends.by wahnfrieden
1/19/2026 at 11:35:00 PM
It's more important even than anti-virus since advertising, nowadays, is so ubiquitous and regularly-enough the actual vector for a virus infection.by BLKNSLVR
1/19/2026 at 6:34:10 PM
> GreaseMonkey or similar tools still around that would let me customize the CSS of sitesThat's default firefox behavior.
by veqq
1/19/2026 at 6:39:49 PM
Funny enough, even iOS Safari has a “hide distracting items” button you can sorta use for this kind of thing. I guess it won’t work on the App Store though.by bee_rider
1/19/2026 at 11:30:54 PM
I like how, the way you've described it, it sounds as if, with the effort they go to to make ads as difficult to identify as possible, they're trying to hide their shame.It's tacit admission that people need to be 'tricked' into thinking that the advertising is actually an organic result. It's manipulative. It's an admission of the fact that advertising actively gets in the way of the service they're (incidentally) providing that 'the people' actually find useful.
Unfortunately this is just a much longer way of saying 'you're the product'.
by BLKNSLVR
1/20/2026 at 2:52:54 PM
There’s no shame. They want money, ad clicks make money, and users avoid things they know are ads, so content providers obscure the ads identification signal. Stop anthropomorphizing corporations. They hate that.by spolitry
1/19/2026 at 11:30:46 PM
On amazon.ie at least, the sponsored products are so hilariously out of place it's dead easy to spot them, and banner blindness kicks in.E.g. I search for "nuk baby bottle warmer" and the first result is a window washing squeegee and the second is a bathroom grime scrubber.
by beAbU
1/20/2026 at 8:10:51 AM
Works as intended. If you’re looking for a baby bottle it’s reasonable to assume that your house is in disarray from the whole new baby in the house thing, and it’s above average probability that you’ll buy completely unrelated products during your search.by hsbauauvhabzb
1/20/2026 at 2:21:22 PM
Except a portion of the population has been accustomed to not buying crap that’s been pitched infomercial-style.by xattt
1/20/2026 at 12:54:34 PM
Apple not adopting these kinds of user hostile designs is why a lot of us were happy to a premium for their products. I guess Cook is just too stupid to understand that.by patrick451
1/20/2026 at 2:46:46 PM
What it must be like to be an Apple hardware engineer these days, designing the most beautiful physical devices in personal computing, then handing it over to the bosses where they load it up with this schlock.by troyvit
1/20/2026 at 2:41:37 PM
Yeah, we need a law that these are very much visually distinguished and in the same color so we can learn to ignore them. So much of the web is completely anti-consumer.I used to look for stuff on Poshmark but now when you search it is almost impossible to find your search results as everything is "Promoted". So I just gave up and stop using their product.
by snarf21
1/20/2026 at 7:34:00 AM
Found a series of Google screenshots over time, although some of the search terms are questionable. :pby Terr_
1/20/2026 at 1:28:22 PM
Ironically, as I scrolled a few pages down that site, the content was blocked by a popup and I closed the tab.The internet is over. Pack it up.
by encom
1/20/2026 at 5:47:20 PM
This is the end goal of having apps instead of browsers.On an app I have to see the ad.
On a website I can use Firefox + ublock origin and I won't see an advert.
by heraldgeezer
1/19/2026 at 6:11:51 PM
Apple's whole selling point is they aren't pulling the same crap that the everyone else is. It's not a defense of Apple to say they're just doing what everyone else has already been doing. Think different?by 2OEH8eoCRo0
1/19/2026 at 6:27:19 PM
Yes, this is part of what is supposed to justify the premium prices, is that they can have a different business model.But it seems Tim Cook can’t leave anything on the table. I’m really going to be irritated if we end up with a premium Siri. It’s going to undermine the privacy aspect, the hardware innovation, and everything else they have going for themselves despite missing the boat on AI
by rudedogg
1/19/2026 at 6:58:27 PM
If they ever actually manage to make Siri competitive you can bet it will be another subscription and bundled with Apple One.by whywhywhywhy
1/19/2026 at 6:51:35 PM
Even the CPU. Windows users lose probably 25% of their machine power to ads, telemetry and OEM spyware and spamware, back to Oracle’s Ask Bar in 2005.by eastbound
1/20/2026 at 7:25:32 AM
I'd say Windows 98 with IE bundled in Explorer and Active Desktop.by anthk
1/20/2026 at 8:11:12 AM
It was ahead of its time, now we have people shipping Electron all over the place.by pjmlp
1/20/2026 at 9:17:18 PM
I think IE, ActiveX and the like were reused in tons of VB5/6 applications... at least with zillions of Spanish shareware, such as amateur games, crossword puzzles, home agendas, book databases and the like. They worked smooth enough, but in a crazy insecure way. Today it's the reverse; Chromium/Blink can do sandboxing but they bundle everything. Video and audio codecs, HTML renderers, a JS engine, a CSS engine, TTF rendering engines, 2D drawing engines, their own window and process managers... half an OS.by anthk
1/19/2026 at 6:26:40 PM
> It's shocking that Apple hasn't done this trick yet when everyone else started doing it years ago.It's not that shocking — them not doing that is part of why I keep buying their products. I believed their leadership understood that.
Looking at the article, the kind interpretation is that this is the same wrong-headed shift towards uniformity at all costs we've seen elsewhere in their products. The less kind interpretation is that they're deliberately blurring the lines with ads. Either way, it erodes away some of the trust that has been their lifeblood for the better part of maybe two decades.
by pdpi
1/19/2026 at 8:32:47 PM
Absolutely this. I can’t agree with this more. Having been using apple macs for 2 decades now I’m wondering whether my next machine will be apple. There’s even a setting for the adverts in the system settings. This is disguising.by jaffa2
1/19/2026 at 8:40:16 PM
Wait for the spin, i.e. "It's not a simple Ad, we are recommending a service valuable to you based on the interests of your anonymized persona."(aka a personalized Ad)
by rickdeckard
1/19/2026 at 9:24:21 PM
>Either way, it erodes away some of the trustLets say you compete in a market with 3 players.
You have a 95% trust rating.
Your other competitors have a 55% and 35% trust rating.
Modern capitalism would tell you that you have a 40% trust margin you can burn to make more profit with.
by pixl97
1/19/2026 at 8:09:40 PM
What is shocking is that deception is the common. Accepted, argued for by some. Loosing trust of the site/app doing the deception is the result. Becoming common, accepted, trend, and then loosing trust in the whole industry is the result.by mihaaly
1/20/2026 at 6:56:43 PM
Yeah, it's bad enough for capable users, but it's a nightmare for old people and the unaware. The online space is full of scams, and there's no real safe haven.by sdwr
1/19/2026 at 6:59:34 PM
> It's shocking that Apple hasn't done this trick yet when everyone else started doing it years ago.I pay Apple premium price for their phones. If they become as bad as the other, what’s the point to pay so much ?
by aucisson_masque
1/20/2026 at 1:29:12 PM
That's the demand for GROWTH.They've hit the limits of iPhone sales - and upgrade cycles are slowing. Hardware products in general are "streaky" - ie. demand and sales drop in the period after a new product is released, so how often can you produce a new version and what happens if that new version isn't a hit?
Whereas subscriptions provide recurring revenue. And services, in general, can bring in more money without an equivalent increase in costs.
I recently read "Apple in China" and one of the things I hadn't realised is how many people at Apple came from IBM under Tim Cook's reign. What he's done for Apple is turn them into a predictable, consistent, revenue machine.
by rahoulb
1/19/2026 at 9:38:56 PM
Green bubbles. Or was it blue? Either way.by recursive
1/19/2026 at 7:03:32 PM
Conspicuous consumption? Like always?by mnsc
1/19/2026 at 9:01:18 PM
You don’t think the hardware and software ecosystem are superior to the competition?by andsoitis
1/19/2026 at 9:41:38 PM
Not OP, but I think they still have the lead in hardware. However, I'm using an iPhone 14 which apparently released 4 years ago now, and it's still plenty fast enough for all my needs. If it lasts another 4 years, I won't update. That's probably their problem.Do I think the software ecosystem is superior? I _hate_ using the app store with a passion. I _hate_ trying to find an app for my needs(most recently a gym app) and there's 40 options and they're all a monthly subscription. I _hate_ the advertising that my children get trapped in while playing a game(I sometimes have to switch to data so that my pihole isn't used so that the ads can load so that the game will work at all), but the ads don't have a timer or an X in the top right, you have to interact with them the right way to escape.
But most of all, I _HATE_ that all my daughter wants is a draw-by-numbers game and there's literally hundreds of almost identical games which all charge $10+ a MONTH for the privilege.
Nah, I don't think the software ecosystem is superior. Although Google trying to stop sideloading does make me think they're happy racing to the goddamn bottom.
by Andaith
1/20/2026 at 3:41:07 PM
Any 4 year old medium range Android phone is mighty fine these days, ie Samsungs just keep chugging, mine S22 ultra still has fine battery and rest is like new and I've seen the same for lower tiers. Market won't allow much gap anymoreby kakacik
1/20/2026 at 7:44:37 PM
I don't disagree with your overall point, but how's an S22 ultra a "medium range Android"?by shadow28
1/21/2026 at 9:37:51 AM
If you need a sub-free gym app check out Strive Gym Logby koala888
1/20/2026 at 7:30:24 AM
What software ecosystem?Due to the previous idiot's brilliant idea of not allowing major version paid upgrades, everything is either a subscription or an IAP fest.
The "App Store" should be called the "Gacha Store".
This new idiot it just ruining whatever was left to be ruined, software wise.
Too bad about the hardware.
by nottorp
1/20/2026 at 10:34:24 AM
I’m not the person you asked, but what I’d say is that comparing two turds isn’t really meaningful. Sure, maybe one of the turds doesn’t have such a strong smell or has fewer flies, but it’s still a turd.by latexr
1/20/2026 at 1:31:23 PM
Their cheapest iPhone in my country is 719€, the cheapest Google pixel is 399€, the cheapest Samsung Galaxy is 149€. I can install firefox with addons from the play store. I can still for now install whatever software I want on my android phone. If I'm not happy with an android brand I can switch with minimal effort to another brand next time. So no, iPhone are not superior to the competition on all situationsby poulpy123
1/19/2026 at 11:57:55 PM
Not at all. Bought and promptly returned an iPad last year when I realized they were going to force me to see ads with their safari wrapper for every 'browser alternative.'Great ecosystem for my aging parents, but not for me.
by slumberlust
1/20/2026 at 11:27:25 AM
One of the ways its superior is the lack of adverts trying to double-dip.by iso1631
1/19/2026 at 9:33:56 PM
> If they become as bad as the other,See, instead of leaving a lot of cash on the table to be way better than the other, they'll pocket that cash and become just a little bit better than the other
by pixl97
1/20/2026 at 6:09:53 AM
> I pay Apple premium price for their phones. If they become as bad as the other, what’s the point to pay so much ?No choice. Most Apple users usually defend by telling... they are not as bad a Google or now it is impossible to escape ecosystem.
by faust201
1/20/2026 at 4:07:02 PM
This is the eventual evolution of any platform that sells ads or sponsored content. Who is paying the bills? App developers and their desire to bring on customers...by spacecadet
1/20/2026 at 1:19:07 PM
> just with a small "sponsored", "promoted", or "ad" mark somewhereAnd often, the only reason they do that is due to legal requirements.
by dormento
1/20/2026 at 7:12:35 PM
Amazon is so bad it's getting difficult to find the actual search resultsby fooey
1/19/2026 at 5:40:09 PM
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.
by echelon
1/19/2026 at 8:45:18 PM
Advertising alternatives to trademarked names is completely legal in every sense. It's known as comparative advertising and is established for more than a century.You simply cannot pretend to be that trademark product/business and you cannot disparage that trademark.
by delfinom
1/20/2026 at 12:41:19 PM
> You simply cannot pretend to be that trademark product/businessSome fraction of consumers are duped. Otherwise there wouldn't be so many knockoffs.
If I enter Acme Orbital Thrusters into a search engine, the exact match, their actual website, must be the top hit. Otherwise it's a racket, not a search engine.
by specialist
1/22/2026 at 8:27:39 PM
What if Acme Orbital Thrusters is a long-running, covered-up fraudster? Why should they get to automatically outrank sites exposing their crimes?Or what about when there are multiple trademarks for different goods and services from different companies that are all exact matches for the search terms?
by Marsymars
1/20/2026 at 2:58:37 PM
How much did you pay for that search engine?by spolitry
1/20/2026 at 4:57:26 PM
You worried Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple will cease to exist if they stop tricking their audience?by specialist
1/20/2026 at 1:05:04 PM
Trademarks differentiate products. App Store is full of shady clones with near identical icons, screenshots and names that differ from the original by a few letters.by skylurk
1/19/2026 at 6:43:13 PM
> It ought to be illegal to host ads for registered trademarks (+/- some edit distance).This makes me a bit uncomfortable because of how close it comes to infringing on freedom of speech, and how specific a rule it would for search engines (and chat bots) - i.e. there's no real analogy of "can't target trademarked terms" for any ad format other than search engines.
I think my preference would be to simply enforce laws around fraud. If you're a business and you intentionally mislead people, that's fraud, pure and simple. Bring the enforcement hammer down so that companies don't dare make an ad that granny might mistake for not being an ad. Make them err far on the side of making ads look unmistakably like ads for fear of ruinous fines.
by Marsymars
1/19/2026 at 7:17:11 PM
>This makes me a bit uncomfortable because of how close it comes to infringing on freedom of speech,That's fine, ads should be downright forbidden and get no "freedom of speech".
by coldtea
1/19/2026 at 7:10:23 PM
It wouldn't impinge on freedom of speech. Nothing would be prohibited from being said.It would require conflicts of interest to be disclosed clearly. I.e. labelling speech incentivized by someone else (ad buyer) clearly, as not organic speech (the search engine results).
That is pro-transparency and ethics, not anti-speech.
by Nevermark
1/19/2026 at 7:18:38 PM
> It would require conflicts of interest to be disclosed clearly. I.e. labelling speech incentivized by someone else (ad buyer) clearly, as not organic speech (the search engine results).That's specifically what I'm proposing in the post you replied to?
by Marsymars
1/20/2026 at 7:11:34 AM
Ha! You are correct, that you were correct.Thanks. I misread a sentence, missed your nuance, and then off to the races.
by Nevermark
1/19/2026 at 6:53:16 PM
You're not allowed to use Pikachu commercially. Why should Google? They're taking advantage of every trademark to make money.Googling a trademark should activate a "no bids" mode.
If Google wants to defend this action, then they should explain why they turned the URL bar into a search product and bought up 90% of the real estate. They've been incredibly heavy handed in search, web, and ads.
by echelon
1/19/2026 at 11:23:41 PM
> You're not allowed to use Pikachu commercially.There are many uses of "Pikachu" that are reserved for the trademark holder, but by-and-large the point of trademark is to avoid consumer confusion by preventing people from passing off goods/services that aren't from the "Pikachu" holder as actually being from the "Pikachu" trademark holder.
Generally, I am allowed to use "Pikachu" if it's in reference to Pikachu and doesn't involve passing off non-Pikachu things as actually being Pikachu things. If I'm a former employed-by-Nintendo Pikachu illustrator, I'm allowed to advertise that. (Even if I can't provide samples of my work.) I can advertise that I'm the "#1 seller of Pikachu snuggies" as long as I am the #1 seller of non-counterfeit Pikachu snuggies. I can charge people a subscription fee for full access to a website where I review Pikachu (and other pokemon). If I work at Walmart and someone asks me where they can get a Pikachu plush, I'm allowed to direct them to the Digimon plush section, for which I receive a kickback on sales.
The consumer confusion happening when someone googles a trademark and gets ads for different things isn't due to trademark infringement, it's due to misleading ads, which shouldn't be allowed regardless of whether a search term is trademarked or not.
by Marsymars
1/20/2026 at 2:57:22 PM
During a sale aren’t allowed to lie about digimon being pikachu, even if it’s hard to enforce.by spolitry
1/20/2026 at 4:37:02 PM
Yes, of course, you can't lie as a business, but if someone walks into Walmart and searches for "Pikachu?", Walmart employees are free to be trained to use the trademarked term and reply "You don't want Pikachu, consider Digimon!"(It's a contrived hypothetical, but the closest I could get to a meat-space version of search keywords.)
by Marsymars
1/19/2026 at 6:59:11 PM
Let’s remember it’s not new: Back in 2005, gannies (and 20yo non-nerds too) would install all sorts of viruses by clicking on popups thinking it’s the real thing. I personally switched to Firefox then Mac which didn’t have this problem. It’s like browsing a torrent website without an adblocker: There is absolutely no way to hit the right button, it’s URL changes between mousedown and mouseup.by eastbound
1/20/2026 at 1:23:36 PM
Putting adblock in my moms browser was basically the end of weekly support calls.by Loudergood
1/19/2026 at 8:42:22 PM
If I search for a product or service I want to see their competitors too.by terminalshort
1/19/2026 at 8:59:27 PM
You could search for "{trademark} competitors", "{trademark} reviews", "{trademark} vs ...", etc.For bare trademark searches, we could write laws that allow competitors, but restrict taxing and bidding off the reserved mark above the trademark owner's result.
by echelon
1/19/2026 at 9:12:06 PM
You should be able to explicitly bid on trademarks because you intend to compete directly with that business. Nobody should ever have a legal right to appear at the top of search rankings for anything. Laws restricting business competition are almost never a good thing.by terminalshort
1/19/2026 at 10:03:07 PM
I vehemently disagree.There used to be plenty of ways to get in touch with the owner of a brand directly. Now they're all being camped by rent extractors.
Google is chief amongst those taxing businesses. They are not government anointed to perform this role. Google should not be allowed to do this.
As a business gets more successful, Google extracts more money from them. Simply trying to access the business will send revenue to Google.
Google took the standard URL bar and turned in into a rent extraction product. This should have been illegal, but our regulatory bodies have been asleep at the wheel.
Google adds costs to every business, every product, every entrepreneur. They should stick to servicing user inquiries, not stuffing ads in front of simple trademark lookup.
It's time to knock on their doors of regulatory bodies, both in the US and abroad. No more trademark camping from the "URL bar".
by echelon
1/19/2026 at 10:41:04 PM
And every single one of those ways to get in touch still exists. Advertising is, and always has been, optional. But of course those companies that pay for it get more customers. So in practice, almost everyone pays for it. That's not rent extraction. Paying for advertising is paying for attention. And you are in absolutely no circumstance ever entitled to anyone's attention. The only difference with Google is that you even get to appear at all without paying. No other ad supported platform is like that. It's pay up or GTFO. Nobody hijacked your URL bar. You can type in the URL just like you always could.by terminalshort
1/20/2026 at 8:28:26 AM
> And you are in absolutely no circumstance ever entitled to anyone's attention. The only difference with Google is that you even get to appear at all without paying. No other ad supported platform is like that.If google wants to rebrand to an advertising platform instead of a search engine, I will accept that argument. And I mean truly, fully rebrand, making it clear to everyone that visits.
Until then, their rent extraction is a real problem. They're pretending to return information and putting ads in the way in a deliberately deceptive manner.
Companies wouldn't feel nearly as compelled to bid on their own name if that deception wasn't there.
by Dylan16807
1/19/2026 at 11:29:34 PM
If I want to get in touch with a company, I go through Google. It's not the brand's choice, it's not my choice. The brand has to pay for that. I, ultimately, also have to pay for that.This is NOT okay. Google is using monopoly power to do this. They have inserted themselves as parasitic middle men. No different than a cymothoa exigua eating away at the tongue.
This is not advertising. It's a road bump. It's getting throttled by the mafia. It's a protection racket on people's hard-earned brands. A tax on cognition and communication.
Google is a villain here. They are not offering value or service or anything useful. They're extracting.
They're the Harvey Weinstein of the internet here -- nobody wants to do business with the guy, but he's there and he's asking you to do what he wants. You can go along, and do the thing, or you can say no and completely lose your customer.
The customer that already knows you by name. You made it this far. Now there's this gross middle man asking you to give up.
So you let Harvey Weinstein slip his hands in. Cost of doing business.
That's what Google is in this story.
This isn't advertising. It's the R-word, being perpetrated because of a lack of the other R word: healthy market regulation.
90 percent of all humans on the planet are being fleeced by this. Every time you put something into the URL bar, Google gets a piece of the action.
What I'm saying is, when these are brand names, this is theft. Highway robbery. Monopolistic pillaging.
Google needs a slap down.
by echelon
1/20/2026 at 7:02:12 AM
Typing in URLs by hand is a choice you can make. Scrolling down to organic results (for brands you like) is another choice you can make. Paying for a search engine service is a great choice.Brands can ask you to add them to your contacts with their website in their vcard. They can prompt you to bookmark them. They could publish a feed for you.
Sure Google can get us to routed in a way we’re all conditioned to depend on, but there are plenty of other ways to get to your destination. There must be 50 ways to leave…
by reilly3000
1/20/2026 at 1:17:30 AM
Yes it is your choice. You could have gone to the physical location, called them, sent a letter to their address, used Bing, Yahoo or whatever. Your argument is just not rational.by terminalshort
1/20/2026 at 1:01:25 PM
> It's shocking that Apple hasn't done this trick yet when everyone else started doing it years ago.Is it a coincidence that they started exploring this once they've been forbidden from collecting the "Apple Tax"? This is exactly why I've been arguing against preventing Apple from collecting money from developers: the laws of capitalism will force them to collect money somewhere else, and putting ads in their app store is the obvious next step.
by gwd
1/19/2026 at 9:49:15 PM
It's not a trick; it's the closest they can get away with lying with plausible deniability.To sell you ads that are mostly lies already.
by BiteCode_dev
1/19/2026 at 5:52:27 PM
[dead]by anthem2025
1/20/2026 at 11:47:01 AM
> Now it's a lot harder to quickly notice what's an ad and what isn't.Everything in the app store is an ad - all the content is produced to get people to download Apps. It's just that some is 'promoted'.
I'd be interested in hearing from any HN readers that use the App store to actually discover apps - don't people do Web/Reddit searches to see what people are using and rate and then search by name? Even an LLM can provide an overview of what's available and summarise features, drawbacks, and reviews.
by helsinkiandrew