Is Apple Turning iOS into Adware?

Originally published at: https://tidbits.com/2020/02/20/is-apple-turning-ios-into-adware/

Apple’s services business is growing by leaps and bounds, but is Apple’s relentless push to sell services with non-stop ads hurting its core products? (Short answer: Yes, it is.)

Sadly Apple has been eroding across all product lines. Software has gone from “It just works” to “It usually works, but isn’t the stock price wonderfully high?”

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Yes, I do find Apple’s ads promoting their services to be very annoying. I’m particularly aggravated by the extremely annoying messages attempting to shove News+ down my throat thay aggressively populate the original no frills Apple News with. But Apple is not selling information to third parties or cross referencing with location data, prior purchases with outside companies, or giving third parties the opportunity to buy advertising. They are not even producing or serving prerolls or pop-up ads. Apple is promoting its own services, which is nothing resembling adware.

The News app has become unusable due to the intrusive messages (ads) and numerous links to subscriber-only news websites. There is only a 50% chance that I am able to instantly read a link that I click on.
Even the insidious Google News is a better experience.

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I find the aggressiveness of the their push annoying. In some cases after every update I have to again say, no, I don’t want this or that service. My answer to all that is simple and I’m sure exactly the opposite of what Apple marketing wants. I shut off as many of their notifications as I can, I opt out of all and any mailings, and I refuse to use their paid services such as Music, News, TV+, iCloud storage etc.

I’ll get interested when your features convince me, but as long as you send marketers my way I’ll assume that’s because you consider your features alone aren’t cutting the mustard.

I fully agree they have almost destroyed the effectiveness of their News app with their push on the wonder of subscribing to paid News. There is this constant barrage of ads that are not needed nor wanted. Particularly irritating to me is the constant reminder that I am missing the true meaning of life by not upgrading to Catalina (on my old computer??) or I need to upgrade to the latest iOS 3.1.1.1.1.1. which I will do when I wish to. Why does such a good company think we don’t know what goodies they are offering and are paternalistic enough to think we can’t decide for ourselves. THANK you for raising this concern - are you listening Apple???

11 posts were split to a new topic: macOS and iOS update “nagging”

Noted… I think the article would have been more accurate if it was titled:
“Is Apple Turning iOS into Promoware?”

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