This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
One of the reasons that the App Store purportedly exists is to provide quality software rather than malware and spam.
I guess that goes out of the window as soon as money appears.
You can literally type the name of an app and the first three results are, if you’re lucky, competitors. More often than not they’re pure junk.
And that assumes you’re searching for an app that’s not trash… ugh.
To be more technical correct, all ideals go out of the window the moment a shareholder pushes a little.
Apple has been one of the wealthiest countries for years, they don't need money, they can’t be doing this just for money.
They are doing it, to get more money yes, but only in order to make the angle of a line go up so they can sell a comfortable illusion to the people keeping them in charge of the available unimaginable mass of wealth already there.
I know you meant "companies", but at this point, it might as well be on the scale of a country
Now up the challenge: In App Store, find a simple app that is not a "solution", "ecosystem" nor a "lifestyle", does not have ads, and does not require a subscription for basic functionality.
(Years ago, I tried about 10 RSS readers, News Reader was what I finally found, way down the list)
I understand the economics are challenging but it’s been a race to the bottom. There were and still are some really high quality apps, but so many trash!
there’s a difference between malware and junk. ios is pretty much malware free. and i’m not sure you want apple deciding what is “junk” and what isn’t.
Facebook app set up a local server on the iOS device that received pings when a browser loaded their tracking pixels.
I feel like that behaviour falls under my definition of spyware. I know it’s not as malicious as it could be, but still.
sure, there are gray areas, and apple does keep them somewhat in check. but also if you're willingly installing facebook you should know that your privacy is already heavily compromised.
Currently, there is a single ad spot at the top of search results in the App Store. For example, if you search for “Facebook,” you might see an ad at the top of the results for TikTok. This is because TikTok is targeting specific search terms and has won the auction for that placement.
A second app 'winning search results' in an app store is the stupidest fucking thing I have ever heard. Like ordering something in a restaurant and always being offered something else instead.
"I'll have the onion soup."
"Would you like Campbell's tomato soup?"
Every single time.
The auction part is the best though, because you can now have it done by AI....run by the ad company. So competing companies both buy the ad companies' AI to battle to win the auction for the ad companies' space. They're dipping at both ends and in the middle, which is a nice place to be
"Is Pepsi okay?"
Restaurants offering a substitution because they don't have something isn't really comparable.
This is more like being offered something other than what you ordered off the menu every single time even though they have what you ordered.
I imagined it as being offered in place of the onion soup from your comment.
"I'll have the onion soup."
"Is Pepsi okay?"
"Uh no. Can I get the clam chowder?"
"Is Pepsi okay?"
"What? No, no Pepsi. I'll just have a French dip with au jus."
"Is Pepsi okay?"
Why?
It’s already a cesspool.
I love my iPhone, I’ve been using them for like 12 years (I loved Android but switched when physical keyboards stopped exiting cuz I liked iOS’s keyboard a lot, then fell in love with most of the rest of the OS and how long I could keep my phone for before replacing.)
The one thing I absolute hate is the App Store. It’s insane. It’s so counter to the rest of Apple’s “simple stuff that works” … “ethos”. I use VERY few apps, I only have a couple installed on my phone. Say I want one, though. I open the App Store right now. Main page it dumps me on: 75% of the screen is a Tinder ad (I’ve never used a dating app and I’ve been with my partner for 15 years.) The rest of the screen space below that is a Google Gemini ad (I don’t use any Google products or services anymore, wtf Apple?)
I click on the “Games” tab below and it’s an EXTREMELY busy, loud, colorful assault on my senses. Absolutely not! The “Apps” tab isn’t any better, huge ads take up 50% of the screen and below that, GET TIKTOK AND TINDER. Uhhhh no, never.
Okay, let’s go to search. Click, and it gives me a search box at the bottom with some suggested apps and games I might like. I can appreciate that Apple’s data collection is allegedly a lot lighter than other companies, because none of the suggested shit is anything I would ever touch in my life. Let’s download one of the very few games I have on my phone: Ascension, a deck building game. I type “ascension game” and the first result is an AD FOR A WEIRD MEDICAL APP THAT DOESN’T SAY ASCENSION ANYWHERE AND HAS 70 REVIEWS WHYYYYY?!
An absolute mess compared to the mostly great layouts of their other programs on the iPhone. I do not love the latest iPhoto UI change but I can deal with that. The App Store is fucked.
I agree with everything you've said here. The App Store is an absolute abomination, even when you search for the exact name of the app you're looking for it's several pages down in the results. The App Store is as bad as Google Search now, nothing but ads and garbage, and now they want to make it even worse? I honestly don't even see how they can add more ads, like physically how? The App Store landing pages and search results are nothing but ads already.
I decided to also try, there’s at least one ad on every screen.
And searching shows basically a full screen ad
Yes, but they're magical and revolutionary ads. You've never seen ads like these before.
Why are we paying a premium price for an ad ridden product ?
Crazy how much companies are shitting all over themselves to try and scrape more money together when, in all likelihood, it'll have the opposite effect.
That's for the next CEO to worry about.
What about fedoucheary responsibility?
Oh no, I think I spelled it wrong.
These days I keep forgetting the App Store is a thing. That’s how important apps are to me anymore. Also, fuck apple for being the tacky soulless corporate monster that it always used to make fun of.
I guess they're not taking their big cut on app revenue to offer a good neutral platform.
How can they justify 100|300/year + 30% if not with a moderated neutral platform?
Someday they will make it so the first result isn't always an ad and then we'll have to start looking at it again.
So is this what the tech bros wanted when they said locked in walled gardens where more secure?
Is there a better alternative app search platform that has curated reviews and is community driven, or have bots destroyed everything nice on the internet?
AppRaven is quite nice
I like to look up app recommendations and also just dig deep into the app store.
I found a lot of cool software and apps that are paid once and have forever.
Compared to the podcasts apps that will literally attempt to kill you with video ads while driving.
Apparently according to that one app review.
Oh boy how exciting!
Damn. Between Ios26 bugs, liquid UI, and now this, it looks like Apple is speedrunning losing me as a customer.
Only Ads? Not IA powered Ads with an agent managing the apps for you? Oh boy Apple really lost the IA race
