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Posted by MC995 12 hours ago

Apple has added persistent 'ads' to iOS, and it's driving users crazy(www.techradar.com)
632 points | 462 commentspage 7
emacdona 11 hours ago|
Thank goodness... I thought I was the only one complaining. Ever since Apple started putting ads in the App store, I started referring to them as an "ad company". Every time I search for, say, "Signal" and see the first result be a "promoted" link to "Whatsapp", my blood boils.

F*k any company that shows me ads on the hardware/software that I bought from them. ESPECIALLY if they were once NOT an ad company... and then transitioned to one.

I'm fine seeing ads if they were part of the original deal -- for example, the ad subsidized Amazon Kindles. But nothing is safe or sacred anymore. I am all but certain that if you paid for a Kindle with no-ads (ie: you paid the premium), you can be 100% sure that you will eventually see ads!

All contracts, all privacy policies, all terms of use... come with a clause to the effect of "we can change this whenever we want and by using it, you consent!"

Mark my word: very soon, every commercial OS will use shady TOS to train their AI models on every byte you have on your hard drive. ZERO privacy. And if Linux becomes popular enough, you can be certain that the ad companies will start financing open source projects so that they can pressure them to exfiltrate data.

I remember when I was young, there was an organization, Nielsen Media Research [1], that would seek a statistically significant number of volunteers whose television viewing habits they could monitor. They existed because it was ILLEGAL for cable companies to monitor and collect data about what you watched.

Others have said it, and I'll repeat it: this is NOT a problem that can be fixed with technology. People need to get pissed off and write their legislators, and those legislators need to grow a backbone.

In the meantime, the ad industry lobbyists will be spending tons of money to (1) convince legislators otherwise and (2) keep the masses ignorant of the scale of the surveillance apparatus they have created.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nielsen_Media_Research

wolfi1 11 hours ago||
so let me get this straight you pay more than 1500 bucks for a phone and then you get ads delivered to said phone?
teekert 12 hours ago||
I went to Apple to de-Google, 5 years in and I just went to GrapheneOS to de-Apple (and re-Google just a bit too much for comfort but ok).

The Appstore is a cesspool, and now these "ads".

Why does it always happen? I bought Hue Lighting some years ago. It was all lean and nice, and now when open the app I almost always get an ad for some new light they want to sell me. So dirty, so cheap. Is it all just a race to the bottom? I just avoid the app and use Home Assistant now (when there is no button, because I also avoid using my Phone to control the house).

I'm on my Linux laptop now, being productive. It's so clean. Really still love it as much as ever, thanx for staying the same, and clean, and respecting me. I forgive you the horrible battery time ;)

Lio 7 hours ago||
I like to buy music. I usually buy from iTunes but I hate that they keep pestering me for rent for their subscription service.

The latest think I've noticed is that iTunes now advertises at one price but actually bills me at a higher price (79p in iTunes, £1 on my credit card).

If Apple behaves like every other manufacturer it will stop being worth the premium.

tonymet 5 hours ago||
Apple has loads of hostile behaviors like this. For example, tracking users for their own marketing, but showing unsettling dialogs about "allow third party tracking" instead of "customization".

They're a hyper competitive (and often anti-competitive) company , and kudos to them, but it's odd that the community hardly criticizes apple to the degree MS , Facebook or Amazon for the same practices

imagetic 11 hours ago||
A true Microsoft-like moment for Apple.
hmokiguess 12 hours ago||
The one I have is also lying to me, it says: "Activate iCloud Storage - An iCloud storage upgrade is ready to be used with your Apple Account "account@icloud.com". Continue"

I then click "Continue" and it's an upsell decoy, pay to upgrade.

I'm sorry but that message to me reads like I have been granted an upgrade not that I have been blessed with the opportunity to spend my money on more juice.

Really disappointed at this one, I like and use Apple, but this is off brand and has a really bad taste.

nottorp 10 hours ago|
I suppose you haven't seen the messages that come when you accidentally turn on photos in icloud and then run out of space and try to turn it off?

They somehow manage to threaten you that they'll delete your local photos...

hmokiguess 9 hours ago||
Well, the thing that confuses me is that I am not running out of space I have a 2TB iCloud plan already and it has plenty of room.
uhx 11 hours ago||
its funny reading an article like this and seeing 5 ads across it
gverrilla 7 hours ago||
In a few years, Apple will be indistinguishable from Microsoft when it comes to dark patterns, and all the mystique/enchantment will have faded away completely. That's just the works of the """free market""".
CamperBob2 5 hours ago|
It's not a """free market""" when a company is able to use a government-granted and -enforced monopoly to keep people locked into the company's proprietary app store.
Razengan 7 hours ago|
We really need to tackle the cancerous nature of "advertising" as a problem at the civilization level.
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