Apple Defends Its Ads for Third-Party Apps, Says It Regularly Communicates With Developers and Has Been Running Them for Five Years

[Wildkraut]

LOL when Apple starts defending, it must be true!

Their long term plan is to "Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish".
Apple want to takeover Google's and Facebook's. & Co. Ad Business by spreading privacy crap, and by wearing a fake white privacy vest, just to do the same or worse later.
Apple is cleverly and slowly extending its tentacles into the third-party Ad Business, and most people don't even notice.

E.g. Private Relay is mainly just another instrument to partly control the web later by black and white listing domains, and anti-competitively kill businesses and competition with a snap.

 

[rgeneral]

Forbes has always been this way. it is only way for them to get clicks these days.

 

[Mockletoy]

Forbes “investigation” - their usual click n bait…

The same Forbes who runs “articles” every day with headlines like “WHY YOU NEED TO DELETE GOOGLE CHROME RIGHT NOW!” And if you actually go read it it’s some inane crap nobody cares about.

Didn’t take long for Apple to respond. Looks like Forbes got duped by bad info.

They didn’t get duped, they just have no problem running this kind of BS to generate clicks — ironic when the story is about alleged online advertising chicanery.

 

[Mockletoy]

Forbes has always been this way. it is only way for them to get clicks these days.

I blacklisted them from my Google news feed a while back because literally every tech “article” from them was some over-the-top sensationalist garbage with a silly clickbait headline. Total trash.

 

[robantonelli]

Do macrumors and 9to5 really not know that Forbes is generally negative towards Apple - it’s ok to scrutinize the largest company in the world but many of their writers are blatantly biased or almost always uses click bait type titles to make everything seem like the planet exploded… stop reporting on them. Because it makes your reporting look click-baity and very amateur.

 

[mikethemartian]

Have any of the specific developers named in the article either confirmed or denied the story?

 

[LeeW]

Is this really a bad thing? Apple paying to promote your app? Sure they make money but that translates to the developer making more money.

 

[Analog Kid]

There is significant fraction of the economy driven by the "Apple is evil, click here if you agree" industry.

 

[gigatoaster]

Yeah Forbes in BS and click bait but anyone surprised by how immediate the answer from Apple is?

 

[mikethemartian]

I'm not sure about anyone else, but I would be thrilled if Apple wanted to spend their advertising dollars to help grow my app.

It's them properly using the money they're making on their 30%, and a great example of good distribution.

What about them using part of the 30% cut you pay to promote your main competitor’s apps?

 

[thawk9455]

As others have mentioned, this is basically every article Forbes puts out now. Pretty sure the following are in a dropdown somewhere for their headlines to save time...

Apple Users Watch Out For XXX
Apple Caught XXX
Major Apple Issue XXX

I actively ignore EVERYTHING from Forbes now because I realized I've only ever seen one article that wasn't, "the sky is falling" when it relates to Apple.

 

[thawk9455]

What about them using part of the 30% cut you pay to promote your main competitor’s apps?

How is that any different than somewhere like Walmart or a grocery store using their proceeds from a product to produce their ads, which may, or may not, include one product over another?

Seems like this is basically just how business works...

 

[Mojohanna32]

Hmmmm… so I wonder why any company would contract Apple to run a segment of their ad campaign(s) knowing they'll be giving away 30% of that. As always the truth is certainly between Apple's "they asked us to" and the other end of "we didn't ask Apple to do anything".

All I know is when ad campaigns the other way around run the logos of both companies are taking part in full view. Why wouldn't Apple want their association to be known with their "partners" ads?

Because they aren't paying for the add and the dollars it may generate, even at the 30% commission are dollars they currently don't have. In addition, this fee may be a less expensive means of customer acquisition than if they were to run the ad campaign on their own.
Put more simply, the developer decides which route gives the greater return on the investment.

 

[ApostolisApo]

--

 

[Kierkegaarden]

Forbes “investigation” - their usual click n bait…

No kidding — Forbes is sensationalist trash — why anyone would take them seriously is beyond me.

So a company operates a store and decides to advertise products that it distributes from that store — in what universe is this considered unethical? Certainly not ours, because every business operates this way.

 

[Soba]

In the late 2000s right around the genesis of the App Store, I worked for a small game studio. We were thrilled when Apple featured our app in the "What We're Playing" section at the top level of the games app listings because our sales absolutely exploded. They didn't inform us and it wasn't even an ad; it was an informal list assembled by the App Store staff.

We made more money. So did Apple. The buyers were happy to have something they wanted and did not previously even know existed. This is how commerce works. Stores promote their products and no one is hurt by this.

We're getting close to Black Friday here in the US; almost every store that is open for business publishes ads online, on TV, in printed newspaper circulars, and by direct mail to advertise what will be on sale that day. Store advertising also occurs nonstop, year-round, in a less concentrated way.

I didn't think I'd have to state something so obvious, but stores advertise the products they have for sale. In other news, the sky is blue.

 

[Lionel Messi]

Telecom operators run huge billboard ads every year promoting iPhone 13 / 13 Pro on highways in my country. These cost over $1m.

 

[dwaite]

Periodic reminder that the Forbes of yesteryear is long gone, and this Forbes is basically a blogging platform.

 

[Deguello]

”On the contrary, the company says that it regularly engages in conversation with developers about the ads it places and many developers express their appreciation for this support.”

And if some developers don’t express support or consent and, in fact, ask Apple to stop, then it isn’t an overt mischaracterization in those cases.

 

[_Spinn_]

Alright so this isn't nearly as shady as Forbes made it out to seem.

 

[McKodiak]

Isn't this the whole point of the existence of a company?

Absolutely.

 

[dwaite]

Hmmmm… so I wonder why any company would contract Apple to run a segment of their ad campaign(s) knowing they'll be giving away 30% of that. As always the truth is certainly between Apple's "they asked us to" and the other end of "we didn't ask Apple to do anything".

Marketing. Customer acquisition is _expensive_. Apple considers their 30% to actually be about the App Store being an avenue for customer acquisition and customer sales.

This was also why when companies started moving to subscriptions for more predictable revenue model, why Apple did as well. And, why Apple takes a larger cut for the first year (customer acquisition, again).

All I know is when ad campaigns the other way around run the logos of both companies are taking part in full view. Why wouldn't Apple want their association to be known with their "partners" ads?

Apple's ad for HBO (pictured in the Forbes article) clearly labels it as an ad to get the HBOMax app in the App Store. It doesn't mischaracterize it as a HBO-run ad campaign.

HBO is not necessarily marketing Apple in HBO-run ads - nor are they marketing Google Play, Hulu, Vizio... or Xfinity, Time Warner Cable, Verizon, etc.

_All_ of these companies take a cut for customer acquisition for HBO. The idea that HBO even _can_ sell their product via a direct customer relationship is a very recent change.

 

[Ceed]

Relax everyone, Apple has spoken, they admitted to no wrongdoing, we can believe them unquestioningly. Everyone else is suspicious though.

 

[crimlarks]

Forbes used to have good business articles. Probably over a decade ago. Now they're nothing but clickbait.

 

[visualseed]

What about them using part of the 30% cut you pay to promote your main competitor’s apps?

You think retail stores don't make house brands or advertise competitor’s products with their profits? I noticed my local grocery store doesn't advertise every single SKU they sell in the paper every week, but I can bet you the company that makes the can of beans I bought today was happy to have their products on the shelf.