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Apple Pauses Gambling Ads in App Store Pages After Developers Complain [Updated]

Anyone remember in 2009-2013 when you could just go scroll through the app store and discover interesting apps? We had a solid 4 years there where almost every app you downloaded was good, had little to no ads, and if it cost money, it was 99¢ or maybe $3 at most. Then came the in app purchases, the subscriptions, the ads that pop up every 30 seconds or after every level, the ads in the app store that made it virtually impossible to just scroll through and find apps. Now this. I definitely feel insulted as someone who has spent many thousand dollars on Apple hardware and software. When will it be enough? I understand that everything nowadays is littered with annoying ads. I guess I expected more from Apple as someone who was an early ios user. What’s next, ads on homescreen and lockscreen widgets?
 
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So much outrage here! Will people here stand up and translate their faux outrage into action; ie abandon their Apple products and purchase competitor products?

Of course not. That would require a wee bit of guts and energy to stand up and actually follow through, supporting their principles.

Much easier to have a good whine and call it a day.
 
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Me thinks more and more people are waking up to the fact that Tim Cook is a garbage leader for Apple at this point.

Good.
 
aPple nErd said:
Anyone remember in 2009-2013 when you could just go scroll through the app store and discover interesting apps? We had a solid 4 years there where almost every app you downloaded was good, had little to no ads, and if it cost money, it was 99¢ or maybe $3 at most. Then came the in app purchases, the subscriptions, the ads that pop up every 30 seconds or after every level, the ads in the app store that made it virtually impossible to just scroll through and find apps. Now this. I definitely feel insulted as someone who has spent many thousand dollars on Apple hardware and software. When will it be enough? I understand that everything nowadays is littered with annoying ads. I guess I expected more from Apple as someone who was an early ios user. What’s next, ads on homescreen and lockscreen widgets?
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To be fair, ads and micro transactions and subscriptions in apps are the developers fault. If only they’d work for nothing.
 
citysnaps said:
So much outrage here! Will people here stand up and translate their faux outrage into action; ie abandon their Apple products and purchase competitor products?

Of course not. That would require a wee bit of guts and energy to stand up and actually follow through, supporting their principles.

Much easier to have a good whine and call it a day.
Click to expand...
The trouble is your can’t purchase competitor products as they are either just as bad, or worse.
 
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aPple nErd said:
Anyone remember in 2009-2013 when you could just go scroll through the app store and discover interesting apps? We had a solid 4 years there where almost every app you downloaded was good, had little to no ads, and if it cost money, it was 99¢ or maybe $3 at most. Then came the in app purchases, the subscriptions, the ads that pop up every 30 seconds or after every level, the ads in the app store that made it virtually impossible to just scroll through and find apps. Now this. I definitely feel insulted as someone who has spent many thousand dollars on Apple hardware and software. When will it be enough? I understand that everything nowadays is littered with annoying ads. I guess I expected more from Apple as someone who was an early ios user. What’s next, ads on homescreen and lockscreen widgets?
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By prioritizing only money, all of the products have floundered and they will continue to do so. It will only keep getting worse. Tim Cook has no compass on how to lead Apple outside of maximizing profits and revenue for shareholders, by any means necessary.
 
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mrochester said:
The trouble is your can’t purchase competitor products as they are either just as bad, or worse.
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This is truly a problem, and an extremely frustrating one. While Apple used to be an oasis in the desert, that is no longer the case. One might say they’re ripe for disruption, but the landscape for a new competitor stepping in is grim.

So I still have been buying Apple gear, but as little as possible. I used to upgrade when I didn’t need to just to have the latest and greatest; I only upgrade the phone on a regular basis now as I value the pictures coming out of the camera too much, and that’s one of the few areas still seeing consistent improvement year over year. Every other product has to break before I’ll think of handing Tim Cook’s Apple another dollar at this point.

There’s nothing about the Apple experience worth paying a premium for outside the cameras anymore. The software is garbage and the hardware changes are most often wildly incremental.

Also, please, please send more feedback, people.
 
Apple is filled with bright people, but who thought putting all those ads on the App Store app (which most users use from time to time) was a good idea?
 
Score of other channels and touchpoints you can be served a gambling ad. Might as well throw away your TV's, disconnect your internet, smash your phones and never leave the house.

The best solution would be to survey app developers and add opt-out prefs for ad choices.
 
Maclver said:
Just get rid of ads in the App Store. I for one won’t buy any app that is advertised in the App Store as an “ad”.
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I ignore anything that's advertised to me on any platform like it's the plague. I'll definitely never buy or download an App that's advertised to me, especially if it's totally unrelated to the app catergory I'm searching for..
 
mrochester said:
Actually, Tim Cook is an exceptional leader for Apple. He has overseen an enormous increase in revenue and profit, which is the measure of success for a CEO.
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How you do it matters. All of the compromises made to maximize that revenue and profit will come back around, and I believe we’re seeing the beginning of that period reckoning.
 
mrochester said:
The trouble is your can’t purchase competitor products as they are either just as bad, or worse.
Click to expand...

We often find difficult choices to make as adults. Does having a good juvenile whine on a public forum solve any problems? Of course not.
 
AgentElliot007 said:
How you do it matters. All of the compromises made to maximize that revenue and profit will come back around, and I believe we’re seeing the beginning of that period reckoning.
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I don’t think we are. Competitors are not permitted to exist because of android. You cannot compete with an advertising supported product that costs nothing, so we never get a disrupter entering the market to shake both google and apple off their respective perches.
 
Gambling apps are illegal or have strong legal limitations in many countries. One should not get adds for that on any other App Store than Gambling stores.
 
GAMBLING! OMG! Noooo.

I love the phony ethics that seep out from time to time. All the people clutching their pearls and yelling "WON'T SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN" are the same people putting money on the Iggles game this weekend.


First they made booze illegal, and they figured out that didn't work, then they figured out making gambling illegal doesn't work, so they made that legal. Next thing is pot. Maybe prostitution.

When the government and corporations see how much money is being Hoovered out of people's pockets by making these things legal, they change their tune fast.

FTR, I don't drink, smoke, gamble, do drugs, or patronize prostitutes. I don't look at pron.

The only thing that interests me is the Jazz Cabbage. I never tried it, and I can't drink anymore because I destroyed my liver with that business. But, I have to give random urines for my job. So no dice.

But such a brew haha over gambling ads? Sheesh, anyone watch a baseball game lately? Even the morning news has a segment on the "point spread" of the game. I don't even understand how it works. Which is one of the reasons I avoid it. I'm broke enough.
 
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geartau said:
"developers complain"

well there's a shocker.
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What if it were YOUR CHILD being exposed to those gambling ads? You know, those really shiny ones that force a child's attention directly to it via being there? And then your child downloads it and suddenly you're $10,000 in the hole? (This is also known as, "Why I don't EVER link a card to a Google/Apple/Microsoft account")

This happened before in apps designed for children. VERY scantilly clad women were in ads for children's apps! Bunches of 1-star reviews later and detailed descriptions as to WHY...well, those ads disappeared.
 
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RamGuy said:
To be fair to Timothy Cook, I have a really hard time believing he can do much if anything about this. And I'm not entirely sure Steve Jobs would be able to either. This is the problem with growing into a massive company as Apple has over the years. It's much easier to stay on top of things and be in control when you have a smaller and tighter company at hand.
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That's not true. Look at Costco.

The problem really isn't that Apple is pushing ads. The problem is that they are pushing gambling ads while claiming they care about your well-being and privacy.
 
citysnaps said:
So much outrage here! Will people here stand up and translate their faux outrage into action; ie abandon their Apple products and purchase competitor products?
Click to expand...

That would only be sensible when over all the alternative products where better. One can criticize aspects of a product, even when it is all in all the best available product for the intended use.
 
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