192 pointsby ewoodrich6 months ago30 comments
  • ShakataGaNai6 months ago
    This annoyed me. Any app that pushes me adverts gets its push notifications turned off. Sure, I'd love to know my package status Amazon, but you send me some advert of something stupid every 3 hours (it feels like)... so no, you don't get notifications.

    I get enough advertising in my life, without it constantly assaulting me every time I check my watch or phone lock screen. So no Apple Wallet, you do not get to keep your notification privileges.

    • lambdasquirrel6 months ago
      Yeah this is not what I pay the Apple premium for.
      • mrguyorama6 months ago
        Do you not remember the time they force downloaded a U2 album to everyone's phone?

        What do you pay the apple tax for?

        • wkat42426 months ago
          That U2 album still screws me today. I have two homepods and often they misunderstand me and think I'm asking them to play a song. I hate it when they play music. So I tried to delete all my music from my Apple account. Ok. But this U2 album keeps coming back no matter what I try. And I don't even like U2 :(
          • nojs6 months ago
            Yeah, it’s basically the “I accidentally bumped my ear buds” track
        • mingus886 months ago
          Serious answers?

          Vertical integration of hardware/firmware/OS/Software/services from a big tech firm that isn’t making their margins from selling my personal data and actually delivers industry leading privacy features

          Pushing ads through the Wallet is pretty gauche though. Nobody’s perfect

          • bigyabai6 months ago
            Vertical integration I can understand. Give a man money, and he'll pay for convenience. But this?

            > actually delivers industry leading privacy features

            You can't prove that to save your life. You can hope that Apple delivers industry-leading privacy features... but there is no iOS Open Source Project for you to audit. Apple sues security researchers, the most cutting-edge iOS vulnerability engineers make six figures working for NSO Group. You aren't trusted with an open bootloader to try using other phone ROMs, not that anything would stop it from working. You aren't given a way to roll back updates if Apple makes a controversial change to their security model. Apple won't even give you alternatives to features they admit are backdoored[0].

            It's entirely a system of trust. If you don't trust Apple unconditionally, the magic of their products starts to collapse. It's not a new trend either, people in this thread are right to call back to the "gracious" free U2 album. Or further back to the coinage of "Reality Distortion Field" itself.

            > Nobody’s perfect

            You say that like there's no way to fix this. As though you live in an alternate reality where it's somehow impossible to write software that respects the user, or legislate guidelines that enforces fair competition.

            [0] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/12/apple-admits-to-...

            • mingus886 months ago
              Read up on private compute cloud, the transparency log and published binaries, the VRE, use of oHTTP proxies …

              And then come back and tell me that there is anyone else going through such hoops (at not charge) to make sure they know nothing about you and you don’t need to trust them for the system to work

              • bigyabai6 months ago
                Gladly. There are cheaper products from competing companies going through more hoops to make sure you have cellular privacy and don't need to trust the OEM for the system to work.

                Whitepapers are whitepapers. Apple had Push Notification whitepapers that insisted the data was private, look how that turned out. I don't care about their third-party auditors, I want transparency and I don't care who calls me crazy for it.

                • HenryBemis6 months ago
                  It's not "the third party auditors", it is the scope of the audits that I don't trust. They pick the control "how long do you bake the chicken in the oven", and the report title cab be "enforcing harse conditions and conditions of stress in operations". And later some PR asshole will say "see the audit report summary? no failures to ourfite-proof processes!!!"
                • latexr6 months ago
                  > Apple had Push Notification whitepapers that insisted the data was private, look how that turned out.

                  How did it turn out? Could you expand on or link to what you’re talking about?

      • TiredOfLife6 months ago
        Apple settings have been littered with ads for years.
      • monero-xmr6 months ago
        Have you tried to use Windows lately? I have one for a media PC. It's so insanely terrible, the ads, the popups, the nags, the dark patterns. Microsoft has given up on personal desktops, just milking the elderly with scams. Terrible
        • paxys6 months ago
          What does that have to do with Apple?
          • idle_zealot6 months ago
            More just the state of the world. Apple doesn't need to be squeaky clean to justify a premium price tag. It only needs to be better enough that discerning customers pick it over the outrageously awful alternatives. Market forces at work, racing to the bottom of tolerability.
            • fsflover6 months ago
              Did you maybe hear about the third option, apart from the duopoly?
              • idle_zealot6 months ago
                For a variety of reasons that I confess to not understanding, Linux doesn't seem to be an acceptable alternative for most people. I'm very glad it exists for my own use, though.
              • cosmicgadget6 months ago
                Well considering the article is about a mobile device...
                • fsflover6 months ago
                  GNU/Linux phones exist. Sent from my Librem 5.
                  • cosmicgadget6 months ago
                    Seemed like this thread was referring to the Apple/Windows duopoly while the post was about a mobile OS.
        • mgh26 months ago
          The benefits outweigh the costs for them, not for Apple though: slightly related - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44369227
        • tw6000406 months ago
          //Have you tried to use Windows lately?

          I haven't. When I read that I was wondering if you were going to say it got better and is good now or something. Oh well. Good to know. Thanks for the info.

        • latexr6 months ago
          The fact that another companies does it worse in no way excuses that Apple does it at all.
        • animatethrow6 months ago
          You can quickly disable all the Windows start menu ads using either gpedit.msc or regedit. On Linux Ubuntu there's a least one Ubuntu Pro terminal ad I remember having to disable, so no OS is immune from this. As a long time user of Linux, Mac, and Windows, Windows involves the fewest time concerning hassles to tweak a system to be perfectly comfortable and distraction free. With Linux I have spent way too much time solving hardware issues like a laptop not waking from sleep or a bluetooth device freezing Gnome or NVidia drivers not playing nice with Wayland, etc. Linux has been way too slow to support HDR monitor output for YouTube. Mac has way too many issues with third party hardware. If you use a non-Apple mouse with a Macbook the scroll wheel direction will be wrong until you research and install a third party scroll reverser utility. I also remember having a lot of trouble figuring out what third party software I had to install to disable mouse acceleration on the Mac (Steelseries Exactmouse was one older solution). Last I used a Mac the Night Shift feature didn't work with non-Apple monitors so I had to research and install the third party Flux solution, but I recall that had some bugs and its own privacy concerns.... Meanwhile, Windows works great with all my non-Microsoft hardware because that's the nature of its open ecosystem. Windows 11 now also does proper desktop color management like the Mac has had for ages.
          • Gud6 months ago
            During my almost 25 years of usage of FreeBSD I don’t recall one instance of this happening. Same for OpenBSD.

            So it would appear some operating systems are in fact immune to this.

            • animatethrow6 months ago
              Yes, I concede these niche operating systems won't show me ads. But can I play an HDR YouTube video in a web browser on my HDR display using FreeBSD or OpenBSD? No. One can't even do this with Linux yet as far as I know, though Firefox on Linux recently in the past few months now has experimental HDR support (haven't tried it yet).
              • Gud6 months ago
                Did you try yt-dlp?
                • animatethrow6 months ago
                  Sure, but that's a fair bit of extra time and friction to watch an HDR video versus just clicking the play button on Windows or Mac and being done with it. It's also nice on Windows how every Steam game launches and runs without a "missing libfoo.so" error like you get for a number of games on Linux, though I'm glad Linux support continues to improve and look forward to switching back to Linux from Windows when there are sufficiently few issues I have to research how to work around and fix.
                  • alsetmusic6 months ago
                    I only watch YouTube videos that I download first to avoid ads. It seems far more inconvenient to watch in the browser.
          • wkat42426 months ago
            > You can quickly disable all the Windows start menu ads using either gpedit.msc or regedit.

            Yes, we can. The other 99% of users can't, it sounds like Chinese to them.

          • yjftsjthsd-h6 months ago
            > On Linux Ubuntu there's a least one Ubuntu Pro terminal ad I remember having to disable, so no OS is immune from this.

            Debian is a thing. Perhaps no commercial OS?

            • pabs36 months ago
              Debian still has ads in Firefox like everyone else, and also privacy issues of various kinds and severities.

              https://wiki.debian.org/PrivacyIssues

            • animatethrow6 months ago
              I can disable the Ubuntu terminal ad in seconds, whereas the last time I tried to install Debian I gave up after several hours of dealing with getting the correct proprietary firmware blobs, etc., that the Ubuntu installer mostly handles for me. But ultimately Ubuntu doesn't have as effortless of desktop hardware support for gaming laptops/PCs as Windows does.
              • yjftsjthsd-h6 months ago
                I am willing to entertain the possibility that commercial OSs have advantages. But the claim was "no OS is immune from this", while only pointing at a specific subset of OSs to support that claim and ignoring a wide selection of options that very much do appear immune to ads infesting the experience.

                Also, you must not have tried Debian very recently, since as of https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2022/10/msg00... it also includes firmware by default.

    • m4636 months ago
      But that's the thing... what if some critical notification regarding your money is suppressed?

      I turned off emergency alerts when they had that trump alert, and now they seem to have added "test alerts" as an option.

      I suspect crying wolf just leads to people dying because they turned off emergency alerts.

      • Marsymars6 months ago
        > I turned off emergency alerts when they had that trump alert, and now they seem to have added "test alerts" as an option.

        You can’t actually disable presidential level alerts unless you have a jailbroken/rooted phone.

        I know because in Canada they send every alert at that priority level and none of them have can be disabled. (Though phones customized to the Canadian locale have “Presidential” removed from the front-end nomenclature.)

      • ShakataGaNai6 months ago
        You're not wrong, but also there is a big difference between "apple wallet" and "emergency alerts". There is nothing life or death coming from apple wallet.

        Also also, Apple (and basically all devs) have instrumentation to tell them if people are disabling notifications. So if enough people disable notifications for Apple Wallet, I promise you someone in corporate will notice.

    • SOLAR_FIELDS6 months ago
      The funny thing is, this is actually against ToS (or at least was at some point, I'm not sure if it still is). Apple just blatantly lets companies walk all over it if they are big enough. Doordash and Uber are two huge examples beyond Amazon.
      • yreg6 months ago
        App Review Guidelines

        > 4.5.4

        > Push Notifications must not be required for the app to function, and should not be used to send sensitive personal or confidential information. Push Notifications should not be used for promotions or direct marketing purposes unless customers have explicitly opted in to receive them via consent language displayed in your app’s UI, and you provide a method in your app for a user to opt out from receiving such messages. Abuse of these services may result in revocation of your privileges.

        To be honest I would like to see Apple be more strict with this stuff in App Review. It's frustrating what some of the big apps get away with.

      • Marsymars6 months ago
        I’ve had Uber notifications disabled, but using it last week noticed that it now plays ads in the UI when showing where my car’s at - so I’m done with Uber and going back to taxis.
      • ShakataGaNai6 months ago
        You're 100% right. It's still against the TOS. But enough money (For Apple) will make the fruit ignore a lot of things. Sadly, this has always been the way of corporations.
  • calmbonsai6 months ago
    Bad move Apple. You're really showing your finance desperation with this property with all of the ridiculous "F1" media buys. It makes you look weak. Even Brad Pitt with the, very convenient, "AA confession" timing is so gauche.

    I don't care what the app is. The split second it starts using notifications to send unsolicited marketing, it's notification privileges are revoked and I seriously consider deleting it. And I run very few apps to begin with.

    "It's better in the app" is, usually, just "better for the publisher" and, rarely, for the user. Use the web unless there's no other option or the app affordances (e.g. real-time navigation, health monitoring) are too valuable.

    • bydo6 months ago
      We really need more granular notification settings already. I want to to know when my Lyft is arriving. I want to know when my food's been delivered. I don't want to know that I can get 10% off something for the next hour.

      Apparently in the new beta the Wallet app actually does let you disable promotional notifications, so that's a start. Now do every other app.

      • afavour6 months ago
        They tried to fix this in Android, having apps create separate channels that users can enable and disable at will. Then no app makers used them because there's no real incentive to do so. Sigh.
        • mtrovo6 months ago
          Is that true? I think all the apps that I had to partially enable notifications I managed to do so. To the point that I started to wonder if Google is requiring it as part of the app review process
          • progbits6 months ago
            They are used but they definitely don't enforce strict separation (which of course doesn't scale, but they could at least penalize apps that get reported by users for violating it). In most apps there is one notification channel that has both the important stuff you want and some marketing garbage.
        • tasn6 months ago
          Long time Android user, and it works great. Not sure why your experience is so different, but I'm very happy with the notification channels experience.
      • pwdisswordfishz6 months ago
        This is just going to encourage advertisers to misuse the "urgent" channel you did not block to deliver advertisements you would rather block.
        • idle_zealot6 months ago
          And that'll get your dev account terminated. Enforcing correct use of user-empowering platform features is one of the handful of good arguments for centralized app distribution.
          • MichaelZuo6 months ago
            Enforced by who?

            The same company that decided to put F1 Movie ads in Apple Wallet?

            • idle_zealot6 months ago
              Sure. Ad rules for thee, and not for me seems like the sort of self-serving decision they might make.
      • calmbonsai6 months ago
        Amen. Every app already has my email and I'm happy to be "marketed to" there so long as I can one-click unsubscribe from them.

        I stopped using the Instacart app as it just keeps piling on more and more "offer overlays" that I have to click-away. At least with the web, I can remove them with preemptive HTML parsing and just "view the essentials" to get the job done.

    • microtonal6 months ago
      It's really annoying that most web pages/apps are constantly shoving 'use the app' buttons in your face. Of course, they can often be blocked, but it's somewhat infuriating.
  • mrcwinn6 months ago
    Don't worry, Apple just cares so hard about customers. This F1 ad is good for us.
    • Mistletoe6 months ago
      I will go to the F1 movie playing this sweet U2 song that came on my phone.
    • wronglebowski6 months ago
      The line must go up, forever. No matter the cost.
      • m4636 months ago
        I don't think forever...

        There has got to be a "laffer curve" for "attention tax" revenue.

    • jajuuka6 months ago
      "The ad is there to protect your privacy. We really care about your privacy. We promise."
    • ASalazarMX6 months ago
      Consider it another emotionally engaging experience.
    • OsrsNeedsf2P6 months ago
      Apple wouldn't have placed the ad if they didn't do the analysis to determine (most) users wouldn't mind. This isn't some intern adding it as a summer project; these decisions go through large rounds of discussions at any FAANG company.
      • magicalist6 months ago
        > they didn't do the analysis to determine (most) users wouldn't mind.

        Wouldn't mind enough, to be clear.

        And I think you're giving too much magical credit to FAANGs, they measure things the same way as everyone else. It could very well be that this was a relatively innocuous test to see how much users would mind more in the future.

      • wkat42426 months ago
        > these decisions go through large rounds of discussions at any FAANG company.

        "We figure we can fill up to 80% of the user's field of view with ads before inducing seizures" was a very apt description of such discussions (Ready Player One the movie)

      • gommm6 months ago
        They pushed the U2 album a few years ago and had that blow over their face when they realized that people actually did mind. And when it comes to doing the analysis, how do they determine that users don't mind? Focus groups?
  • lordleft6 months ago
    I just saw this today and was shocked; I have disabled notifications for many apps because they sent an errant ad in-between more necessary messages.

    I personally would love it if Apple would allow for some kind of filtering of 'offers' vs substantive notifications across iOS, but this gives me less hope of that ever happening.

    • KMnO46 months ago
      Ugh, I’ve been wanting this forever.

      I DON’T want Uber Eats to tell me I should order pizza tonight.

      I do want to know when the delivery driver is outside.

      • joshstrange6 months ago
        This 100%. Hell, give me a way to write code to filter notifications and I'll do it myself.

        I get so frustrated by apps that I need notifications on for but I don't want marketing BS, unfortunately there is no middle ground.

        On top of filtering Apple should force app developers to segment their push notifications and allow users to block different types. This would be completely in line with Apple's _stated_ priorities and a great thing to advertise (I can imagine the commercials for it already).

        • krackers6 months ago
          I think you can do this on Android (or at least you used to be able to with Tasker when rooted, since it has [used to have] the ability to read notifications and dismiss notifications)
      • WorldMaker6 months ago
        Some of the Uber competitors use Live Activities for when the delivery driver is on the way/outside, so you can bin their other notifications into a Notification Summary.

        I really appreciate Notification Summaries and the distinction of Live Activities and "Time Sensitive" notifications as "can break out of summaries". Unfortunately each app has to opt in to using these other two things for their non-promotional stuff, and also can lie and mark their promotional stuff as "Time Sensitive" (I'm looking at you LinkedIn, which for me is now banned from all notifications forever, you misused them too much and I don't need you).

      • tensor6 months ago
        Yeah I turned off all uber app notifications. It's pretty annoying as now I don't know when the food has come or when the driver is here, but the amount of ads I will tolerate is exactly zero.
      • jallmann6 months ago
        Uber is blatantly abusing push notifications for marketing, it is so bad ... for smaller apps this would be an App Store ToS violation and grounds for removal. The double standard with larger apps is very upsetting.
    • eliaspro6 months ago
      On Android, notifications can use different channels/categories.

      What is immediately worth a one-star review of an App for me (including the corresponding comment with the reasons), when it uses it "Important" channel to send me some ad or other stupid notification like "Please rate me".

      • rconti6 months ago
        One thing I've noticed on iOS is that often app updates seem to reset my preferences. Not every update, of course, but I notice notifications months/years after I am 100% positive I disabled that category previously.
      • WorldMaker6 months ago
        iOS has different channels in Live Activities and "Time Sensitive" notifications. Live Activities are hard to miss because have very different style of UI (meant for active ongoing things like "current sporting event" and "pizza delivery tracker"), but most users don't notice "Time Sensitive" to take advantage of them until they turn on Notification Summaries. (Notification Summaries collect most notifications into a once-every-so-often, as you choose to schedule it, "newspaper", but Live Activities and "Time Sensitive" still show up immediately.)

        Abusing "Time Sensitive" is also a "time to give a bad review" case for me, too.

    • dabbz6 months ago
      yea... I want to disable notifications but I don't want to miss my Apple Card payment notifications. Now my thought is to cancel my Apple Card so I can disable notifications and not miss anything. Notification ads are the modern day popup.
    • AdamN6 months ago
      I don't want the filter. An app sends me a notification like that, all notifications are banned.
      • kimos6 months ago
        The point is for apps where notifications at part of the core functionality. Uber, but also the app for your car or home alarm or baby monitor or whatever.
        • AdamN6 months ago
          Uber?? I think I've turned off notifications for that. Baby monitor I'd prefer radio - is an iPhone really reliable enough??? Car/home alarms I guess make sense but it always seems odd to me that people have this stuff and then cheap locks, cheap doors, and all sorts of security gaps which should be fixed before that final 1% of security one might get from a home alarm app.
    • 6 months ago
      undefined
  • SirMaster6 months ago
    In iOS 26 you can turn off notifications about promotions and offers in the wallet app.

    https://preview.redd.it/swgszo2ptw8f1.jpeg?width=1206&format...

    • tomComb6 months ago
      That does make it better, but it’s getting so tiring, trying to find those settings for all the different apps, and figuring out whether you can adjust them without losing something you really want.

      And what’s worse is that the companies always seem to find a way to reset it to what they want quite frequently. One of their tricks is to reorganize permissions frequently so the ones that allow their spam to get through are always new

      • microflash6 months ago
        Maybe it is time for Apple Intelligence to automatically ignore promotional notifications from apps...but why would Apple do that may be actually helpful?
    • NelsonMinar6 months ago
      Is this a new thing in iOS? In Android we've had the ability to choose which kinds of notifications an app can send us for years now.

      It doesn't work very well though. The list of notification types is per-app, many apps just have one catch-all category. And many others don't separate ads from others, presumably to force you into seeing the ads. It's also a huge PITA to manage notification types for 100+ apps.

    • AJ0076 months ago
      You can, for now.
      • matthewmacleod6 months ago
        Given that it is currently now, that is all that matters.
        • fsflover6 months ago
          If you're investing your time into unreliable tools that may betray you in the future, it might be reasonable to reconsider.
        • bigyabai6 months ago
          ...all that matters now, that is. Maybe Apple changes their mind, it's not like you get to roll back the update.
        • oehpr6 months ago
          ...

          help me understand that position.

          • bigyabai6 months ago
            "Surely Apple won't react the same way if I'm angry enough over it in the future" is my guess. But we're talking about logic so thin that you could floss your teeth with it.
    • swat5356 months ago
      > turn off notifications about promotions and offers in the wallet app.

      Is it me, or is Apple is taking a page out of Microsoft's playbook here? It's ironic how every company seems to be converging now.

      Eventually, they will all become Oracle.

  • recursivedoubts6 months ago
    if you want a vision of the future, winston, imagine watching a unskippable ad before your smartlock allows you into your house... forever
    • xnorswap6 months ago
      But you'll have the "freedom" to "choose" to pay a premium to get an ad-free version of the lock.
      • thrill6 months ago
        If you pay it in monthly installments then your social^h^h^h^h^h^h credit score will be impacted.
      • happymellon6 months ago
        *Premium version may also contain ads.
    • kps6 months ago
      The door refused to open. It said, “Five cents, please.”

      He searched his pockets. No more coins; nothing. “I'll pay you tomorrow,” he told the door. Again it remained locked tight. “What I pay you,” he informed it, “is in the nature of a gratuity; I don't have to pay you.”

      “I think otherwise,” the door said. “Look in the purchase contract you signed when you bought this conapt.”

      … he found the contract. Sure enough; payment to his door for opening and shutting constituted a mandatory fee. Not a tip.

      “You discover I'm right,” the door said. It sounded smug.

      From the drawer beside the sink Joe Chip got a stainless steel knife; with it he began systematically to unscrew the bolt assembly of his apt’s money-gulping door.

      Ubik, Philip K Dick, 1969

      Apple read Ubik and took the lesson to build everything with proprietary screw heads.

    • cosmicgadget6 months ago
      Can I just get a boot to the face instead?
    • BitwiseFool6 months ago
      You can simply disable these by paying for the monthly SmartHome One™ Plus subscription.
      • JadeNB6 months ago
        Oh, sorry, due to agreements with providers, SmartHome One™ Plus still requires a limited number of curated ads in certain markets.
        • qwerpy6 months ago
          Apple News and the Stocks app do exactly this. It's happy to clutter up your news feed with subscriber-only articles, despite knowing that you don't have a subscription. Predictably there's no option to not show subscriber-only articles. So there was a workaround: you can block individual news providers, so you can block all of the subscriber-only ones.

          But now when you block one, it says "If you block XYZ, News will stop showing stories from this channel, except when selected by the Apple News editors".

          Ridiculous. If I go to the trouble of blocking a site, that means I don't want to see anything from them, ever.

  • rchaud6 months ago
    "I did not pay $1000+ to be advertised to" says one of the tweets.

    It doesn't matter what you paid. The whole point of a software "ecosystem" is to drop the user into a food chain, with "shareholder value" as the apex predator. Paying more doesn't buy you better protection. Channeling your purchases through their payments system just makes you a fatter target.

  • nottorp6 months ago
    So... if iPhones are ad supported now, it means they're going to be free right? Riiiight?
    • add-sub-mul-div6 months ago
      Apple has sold its customers' traffic to Google for tens of billions of dollars, I don't think there's a connection between this and the price of the hardware.
    • OsrsNeedsf2P6 months ago
      To be fair, iPhones have been a really good deal for a while now.
  • iw7tdb2kqo96 months ago
    I bought a Xiaomi phone (poco) for the first time in my life. I am furious about system app showing Ad.

    If I want to change wallpaper, ringtone, it will show full page Ads. Even file manager app shows Ads. Wallpaper and ringtone apps are pure garbage.

    • verytrivial6 months ago
      Thanks. That's a perma-ban for that company from me.
    • Fluorescence6 months ago
      I have zero tolerance for ads but have happily used a Poco for years. IMHO you only buy one knowing you won't use some of the default apps. Choose alternatives and you never see a Xiaomi ad. It's a minor nuisance to get amazing bang for buck.

      You'll probably prefer your choice because you can cater to your taste e.g. dual pane or whatever. I think I use one called File Manager from fdroid but there is more than one with that name. I probably use termux more. No app can beat a terminal and scripts! I don't touch wallpapers/ringtones.

      I do boil with fury at ads in Google Pay though. Anyone know a fix?

      • rchaud6 months ago
        The fix is to not use an app for making payments. Say what you will about Visa/MC but they can't show ads on the piece of plastic I tap to make payments. And they pay me $500 in cash back annually for the privilege of seeing what I'm buying.
  • ryao6 months ago
    The stocks application containing Apple News+ content has been a source of annoyance too. I had been initially reacted by reporting the Apple News+ content. Then Apple removed the report option for it.
    • martian6 months ago
      Also annoyed by this. One small thing to help: if you long press on the Stocks widget, you can edit to hide the "Stories".
      • ryao6 months ago
        If you search the titles online, you can read the Apple News+ articles for free at places like msn, which makes it strange that they try to paywall them in the Stocks application. :/
    • qwerpy6 months ago
      I was just complaining about this in my previous comment. You can block entire "channels" e.g. WSJ and others, who serve News+ content. But now Apple weasels out of it by telling you "Fine we'll block stories from here, unless our editors decide to feature a story, in which case you'll still see it".

      Really disappointing to see Apple go this way. Now our only choices are devices with adware or expensive devices with mild (but worsening) adware.

  • AJ0076 months ago
    Apple has lost the Google deal and the ability to force apps to pay them 30% of sales. Both were ultra high margin. Apple is going to replace that lost revenue by filling the iPhone up with ads.
    • oehpr6 months ago
      So, hypothetically here, say Apple was still extracting extortionate rents: Why wouldn't they just choose to make more money with ads?
  • animatethrow6 months ago
    At least with Windows one can 100% disable start menu ads using either gpedit or regedit. A major reason I switched from iOS to Android are the much more powerful adblocking options for browsers (Brave, Firefox, etc.). On Android I can use F-Droid and Aurora Store and install a bunch of Google Play Store apps without a Google account. I can use a proper terminal with a real filesystem and git.
    • seec6 months ago
      Yep, those are the things (among others) I wish I could have on my iPhone. I'll eventually switch but I need to choose a replacement for the Apple Watch and find a way to migrate/convert all the health data.

      It feels so bad to have to leave, there are still some nice apps that I really like on iOS and have no true equivalent on Android.

    • cadamsdotcom6 months ago
      I’m getting close to switching after over 16 years as a happy iPhone user.. what downsides have you faced in the switch?
      • animatethrow6 months ago
        Only downside is no blue bubbles texting family, ha ha. Seriously, the switch was easy. My Samsung phone included a migration app that transferred over all photos and other important stuff from my old iPhone. I love the Samsung S-Pen, something you can't get on iPhone.
        • latexr6 months ago
          Samsung is doing considerably worse than showing ads in notifications.

          https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44358999

          • animatethrow6 months ago
            One can choose to have neither a Samsung Account nor a Google Account on a Samsung phone, as I have done, and use F-Droid and Aurora Store as I mentioned in a parent comment. The linked video shows that all the settings needed to disable the bad behavior are already included on the device with a nice UI. Meanwhile with an iPhone one is stuck with the App Store and Apple can and has remotely deleted apps. Apple has deleted data tethering apps. Apple has deleted the VPN apps of Chinese users. Apple also is trying to memory hole that time it was going to scan one's private photos on one's own phone. It's very clear iPhone users do not have the final say over who ultimately controls their devices.
            • latexr6 months ago
              Your response didn’t make a lot of sense to me, so I rechecked and realised I provided the wrong link above. I haven’t watched that video, I miscopied when searching HN. I meant to share another post.

              https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44334167

  • joshstrange6 months ago
    Welcome to the most ignored (even by Apple) App Store guideline [0]

    > 4.5.4 Push Notifications must not be required for the app to function, and should not be used to send sensitive personal or confidential information. Push Notifications should not be used for promotions or direct marketing purposes unless customers have explicitly opted in to receive them via consent language displayed in your app’s UI, and you provide a method in your app for a user to opt out from receiving such messages. Abuse of these services may result in revocation of your privileges.

    Specifically:

    > Push Notifications should not be used for promotions or direct marketing purposes unless customers have explicitly opted in to receive them via consent language displayed in your app’s UI, and you provide a method in your app for a user to opt out from receiving such messages.

    Literally NO apps follow this rule but Apple doesn't care, it's really annoying since they randomly pull out one of these guidelines to smack you with during app review but it's completely unclear which ones are actually enforced until you get hit with one. Even then, enforcement is uneven (understatement of the century).

    [0] https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/

  • Apocryphon6 months ago
    Not only is this annoying, it's tacky. Jobs is lionized too much but this is the sort of thing I doubt that he'd ever approve.
    • orangepanda6 months ago
      U2, Brutus?

      -- Steve Jobs, probably

      • kikokikokiko6 months ago
        This quip shouldn't be as good as it is. It will be a great adition to the corpus of LLM humorous dad jokes.
  • meindnoch6 months ago
    Remember that undeletable U2 album?
  • instagib6 months ago
    Notifications off. Movie must be bad if they have to push advertising this hard.
    • jajuuka6 months ago
      Well it's a movie they spent an insane amount of money on and racing movies (especially on something places like the US don't even follow) aren't huge box office hits. It was a colossal mistake to keep making that movie but Apple is bound to make the most money they can back on it. There is a reason they opened WWDC with an ad for it.
      • iAMkenough6 months ago
        I wonder if Formula One is planning to license the special cameras Apple built for their cars.
  • butlike6 months ago
    I'm the guy the ad worked on and was considering buying tickets this way (partially cause I was considering seeing the movie anyways). That being said, it's annoying AF. Notifications should be for 'HEY! you deemed this important enough to drop everything and be alerted.' Timers, banking, travel, changes in itineraries, etc.
  • somanyphotons6 months ago
    I'm sick of all the ads in the Apple Wallet app, and in the Setting app.

    If I want ads I'll watch a superbowl replay.

  • claw-el6 months ago
    This is like Apple promoting Apple fitness in the ‘Settings’ app. Apple is facing a challenge of balancing their desire to grow their non-device revenue and maintaining the satisfaction of their devices customers.
  • 6 months ago
    undefined
  • firefax6 months ago
    This is the phone equivalent of those screens on gas pumps that blare ads.

    Unlike a gas station, it's much harder to switch phones :/

  • danielscrubs6 months ago
    What did Steve Jobs say? Your mobile should be respected as much as a diary?

    And then we got a pencil pusher.

  • more_corn6 months ago
    I can think of no better way to destroy customer trust.
  • kotaKat6 months ago
    It's almost as if Apple wants to do literally everything except make hardware and software these days.

    Apple, you're a computer company, not a media production firm. Cut the stupid shit with TV+.

  • bitpush6 months ago
    The important takeaway for me is that Apple Wallet has ads? I guess enshittification comes for the best of them.

    UPDATE: Ugh, just saw that this isnt even an ad inside the app. This was a fucking push notification. ew.

    • jasonlotito6 months ago
      It was also inside the app. At the top.
  • delfinom6 months ago
    Hahahahahaha

    -- Android user

  • taylodl6 months ago
    Did everyone get this? I just opened my wallet and there's no F1 ad there.
    • subjectsigma6 months ago
      I didn’t get a notification but I did see a banner at the top. It honestly took me a second to realize it was an ad. I think that’s actually worse because people won’t have as negative of a reaction to it, and they should.
  • jgrahamc6 months ago
    I mean, at least they didn't give us a free U2 album. I used that event as the starting point for a talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvjb1H_j8D8
  • p_ing6 months ago
    'Upset' is too strong of a word, but perhaps 'why is Apple pushing ads in my OS when /r/apple said they didn't do that?'.
    • nixosbestos6 months ago
      I mean, forget reddit, look where are are... I regularly have people insist that Android is more full of ads than iOS. Given that I never, ever, see ads outside of sponsored spots in Play Store, fine-grained notification permissions+channels and given I have real uBlock Origin...

      anyway, there's a reason I told myself to stop participating in any of this discourse.

      • jajuuka6 months ago
        Marketing a hell of a drug. You can have Apple advertise Apple One in settings and people don't bat an eye. Ad for M365 in the Start Menu though and it's "start menu now showing ads" articles all over. It's all a part of OS tribal warfare to turn consumers into free marketing and advocates.
        • latexr6 months ago
          > You can have Apple advertise Apple One in settings and people don't bat an eye.

          That’s not true at all. The same people complaining about this push notification complain just as much about those Settings ads.

      • cma6 months ago
        All Apple devices with a store have ads, sponsored listings putting what you didn't search for at the top, even Apple TV which most people say they like because it doesn't have ads.
      • 6 months ago
        undefined
      • nixosbestos6 months ago
        [flagged]
  • OsrsNeedsf2P6 months ago
    Another Apple hit piece. Android OEMs do this nonstop, Apple has one push notification and it's HN front page?
    • qwerpy6 months ago
      Yes because many of us pay the Apple premium specifically to avoid buying devices from an ad company.
    • 123yawaworht4566 months ago
      Android OEMs don't have triple digit markups