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Comment by Marsymars | Hacker News Reader

In my day-to-day usage, ads in the core user interface in iOS are worse than in Windows.

Windows ads can be disabled pretty easily.

iOS App Store ads cannot be disabled at all and are often for utter trash.

The Microsoft Store is entirely optional, and app installs/updates can be entirely handled via winget/chocolatey (or installs in some other form). The iOS App Store cannot be avoided for installing apps or for manually updating apps, and its ads are more akin to forced ads in the Windows Update settings pane.

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...ads in the core user interface in iOS...

Where are you seeing ads in the main UI?

I occasionally see a small ad near the top of "Settings", usually for an Apple service. I don't recall ads on the home page or lock screen, or in the main Apple apps I use (Camera, Photos, Files, Health, Fitness, Watch).

See my reply to other child comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35615479

The only time you get those notifications is generally when you install a new os version and they want to tell you about a new feature. That feature might be 'hey we launched apple news that you can pay for'. The only other time is when you are close to your apple cloud limit it will tell you that you can subscribe to more space.

Well on my work Mac I'm not signed into iCloud, and there's a permanent red notification dot, just as prominent as if I had an important system update waiting, begging me to create an account.

> ads in the core user interface in iOS

I have never seen any ads anywhere in iOS. I'm utterly confused by this comment?

I consider the App Store in iOS part of the core user interface. (As mentioned in my top-level comment, apps can't be installed or manually updated without using the App Store.)

See https://www.macrumors.com/2022/10/22/apple-announces-more-ap...

That seems a bit unreasonable

1. The App Store is not a "core UI element";

2. Even if it was, it's reasonable to see ads in a _store_. It's somewhere you go specifically in order to buy things and see companies' offerings. It's in the name -- a store. Like others have pointed out, no other portions of the OOB experience have ads.

Those points are both matters of opinion, with which I do not agree.

(The first one doesn't particularly matter, because I'm forced to use the iOS App Store regardless of how you classify it, the second of which I forcefully disagree with - I am opposed to any ads that I cannot opt out of seeing. I don't go to the store to see ads, I go to download exactly the apps I want, and to update apps I already have installed - in both of those situations ads are unavoidable.)

(And other portions of the OOB experience do have ads - as noted in my link, both the News and Stock apps, although I don't use either. And apparently soon the Maps app if it doesn't have ads already.)

So in your opinion seeing an advertisement for an app on an app store is much worse than seeing an ad in your app launcher UI that you click on every time you go to launch an app?

Devoid of additional context, the latter would be worse, but in this context, I cannot avoid the former while using iOS, while I pretty easily avoid the latter while using Windows. (At least, to date. I don't run preview/insider builds of Windows.)

Maybe there's some MDM that can be practically used to manage personal/household iOS app installs without the App Store? Happy to take suggestions there.

You don’t get to change the definition of words just because it fits your argument better. App Store is not the core user interface , it’s a separate app. There’s no reason to go into the iOS App Store unless you want to install something new. Updates are installed automatically so you never need to see those ads. Core user interface would be things like the Home Screen, Settings icon, etc. (and yes, the badges in Settings do qualify as ads and that would have been a stronger argument). You could also argue about all the fake apps in the store, etc., but again that’s not part of the core OS, which is the topic here.

There are certainly things to complain about on iOS, but in this case you’re just inventing a non-issue.

I find this response kind of puzzling. I'm telling you about my subjective use of iOS. As far as I'm concerned, the App Store is a core part of iOS. iOS isn't a useful OS without the App Store. I can't install apps or manually update them without seeing ads. It's not really a matter of definitions, it's simply a matter of how I use iOS.

I've prefaced all my comments on this subject by pointing out that I'm describing my experience. And in my experience, despite my best effort to avoid ads, I'm forced to see more (and lower quality) ads on iOS than I am on Windows.

It completely makes sense to find ads for apps in the App Store.

I don't see ads in F-droid, so clearly it doesn't make that much sense.

Sure, it makes sense. They’re still intrusive, unavoidable, unwanted, and make the experience worse.

It would also “make sense” for “sudo apt install firefox” to show me an Google-sponsored ad to instead consider Chrome.

This topic is not about ads in app stores, it’s about ads in unavoidable interfaces that you must interact with on a daily basis, like the Start Menu, security icons, explorer windows, etc. the App Store in iOS can easily be moved into a folder and never looked at again unless you want to install a new app.

Nobody is saying the App Store ads aren’t annoying, but I am saying that it’s nowhere near the same level of intrusiveness as these Windows changes, because you can easily avoid the App Store, and when you do open it you know what to expect.

I understand what this topic is about; the App Store is an unavoidable interface that I have to regularly interact with.

I would love it if Apple provided an alternate method to install and update apps on iOS that didn’t involve the App Store.

The relative intrusiveness of start menu ads is, for me, much lower than the App Store ads, as the start menu ads (and its connectivity to the web in general) can easily be toggled off.

I think most users of both would disagree with you.

I mean, that’s basically just a judgement call of how many users leave their start menu ads enabled. Obviously if you leave them enabled you’re going to find them more intrusive than App Store ads, and if you disable them you’re going to find them less intrusive than App Store ads.

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