Apple

Apple explores stuffing more ads into your iPhone apps

We hate everything about this.

by
Joe Rice-Jones
August 15, 2022

Image: KnowTechie

Apple is exploring in-app advertising inside its first-party iOS apps for the iPhone and other devices. Apple is already testing it in the Maps app, where users could theoretically see ads when searching for restaurants and more.

That news comes courtesy of Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman, in his weekly Power On newsletter. He thinks Apple is going to expand its in-app advertising to include the Maps app, and also the Podcasts and Books apps, as well.

The App Store is also going to get more ads, in both the Today tab and app download pages, according to earlier reporting from The Verge.

Apple TV Plus could also get advertising, or a fully ad-supported lower-priced tier to bump up subscriber counts.

That’s perhaps not surprising. The other major mobile operating system, Android, is full of advertising from search pages to the Play Store and beyond.

Samsung, which is the best-known manufacturer of Android devices, had in-app ads in multiple of its own branded apps.

The thing that is surprising is that Apple has made lots of noise about limiting advertising tracking on its devices.

Starting in iOS 14.5, the App Tracking Transparency (ATT) system drastically reduced ad revenue from third-party advertisers, like Facebook.

The changes in the ATT system favor Apple’s own advertising, increasing its share of the sponsored slots in the App Store. This favoring is under investigation in Germany, to find out if it falls foul of the country’s competition laws.

An Apple-commissioned study done by the Marketing Division at Columbia Business School concluded that it was unlikely that Apple had significant financial benefits from the introduction of the ATT system on iPhones.

The thing is, do you trust a company-sponsored study that concludes the company was telling the truth? Seems like a financial incentive to me.

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