I still don’t get why apple chooses to devalue their brand so much for so little additional revenue. They’re a luxury goods brand, their whole revenue model is based on the appearance of quality.
I think for luxury brands advertising is even more important. Because they need to justify the inflated value of their brand.
Consider a Ferrari or a Rolex. It's not as much value for money as a cheap car or watch. There's some workmanship sure but most of the increased cost is just perceived value. People buy them because they are expensive, so they can show they have money. That only works if everyone knows it is expensive and the product has a good name.
Cheap stuff sells anyway because people need it and it is the best value for money.
Apple enlisted Hermes to try and convince watch people that they understand luxury. The leather wrist strap costs as much as a new Apple Watch. As another noted here, premium vs luxury can be quite a step.
They make great hardware. They used to make great devices - but a great device needs the whole user experience to be great. Ad-ridden UI does not make for a great device. Doesn’t matter if it’s first or 3rd party ads.
It’s a great shame. Apple used to be the design standard to aspire to. Now it seems to have embraced enshitification. All because the market needs that share price to keep growing. And lacking leadership good enough to find another way.
They are in business to make money. Brand value and quality are far more nebulous as indicators of value than, say, "We got Brand X to pay us $Y for an ad campaign that will sit in Keynote for the next Z days and will book that revenue on the quarterly results".
The days of leaving revenue opportunities unexploited for some high-minded set of principles or intangibles are over. Line must go up, and population growth in many major markets is flat. When you can't sell to more customers, you have to squeeze the revenue out of the opportunities you do have.
Maybe unpopular take but ... this isn't just any ad. It's a link to another related product in the ecosystem. Discoverability has always been difficult and there are so many features that remain largely unknown to users because of it.
The title makes it seem like I can purchase an ad and have some kind of ill-fitting content jumping around the screen, trying really hard for my attention. Instead I see an upgrade path from what is free and widely available to a potentially better product. I see this with open source projects too.
Pretty sure most people commenting here didn't even look at the post to see it's Apple promoting their own related product to their customers, not a third-party ad
Ads are Ads, people hate to see them whatever they are advertising. Especially when they already paid a lot of money to join the ecosystem, upselling to paid customers feels cheap.
Yes they could, they would, and you know it. They'd be serving you malware, they'd look even worse, they'd be for scams, they'd sell all the data they harvest from you to 1000 other companies, etc.
If you work at OpenAI, congrats on getting people to subscribe in the first place. The marketing is working, OpenAI customers think they're safe from ads!
This is all very bad timing. Given that I can use AI to create completely alternative software stacks, it is the wrong time for proprietary software providers to start pissing off and exploiting all their users.
I could make a full macOS clone. I could fix all the little warts that bother me and break out of the walled garden where I want to. Then I can port it to whatever hardware I like.
> Given that I can use AI to create completely alternative software stacks
No you can't. Someone can certainly burn a gorillion tokens to make a 3rd rate clone of Adobe suite that get's posted to HN as pre-alpha that fuels 1000 comments like this though.
I wonder how long will it be until people use ai to start reverse engineering all Apples APIs and protocols so that they can make 3rd party open source apps which can use the fruity ecosystem from outside the wall.
> I could make a full macOS clone. I could fix all the little warts that bother me and break out of the walled garden where I want to. Then I can port it to whatever hardware I like.
It's ever so slightly disingenuous to call this "showing ads": It appears to be letting you know about a paid DLC for the app you are running not "this space is for sale".
That said, I don't think it's even a slippery slope from here to "this space for sale".
they've been showing ads for years. literally every year i get an ad for the new version of the os. heck sometimes they show popups advertising security updates. apple has no shame.
Another new annoyance: the Settings app has 2 red notification icons because Apple is trying to sell me extended AppleCare. Apparently no way to turn off these notifications.
It's been doing this for years now to try to get me sign into iCloud. I finally gave up and signed into the free version, then disabled every single service.
Apple has always been ultra-narcissistic, pushing designs and features that make their designers feel smart but actively hurt customers and decrease the utility of their products. Now they're even losing that. They ran out of good ideas shortly after Jobs died. Now they've run out of bad ideas and they're speed-running enshittification.
Apple has one of the most valuable brands in the world. Why do they want to associate it with this tasteless nickel-and-diming? If nothing else, surely this is bad for business over the long term. Gain a few low-value subscriptions, lose a few high-value hardware purchases.
Yeah same here. I decided to use 5/6 year old trash PCs running Debian. They work absolutely fine. I think I’m actually more productive and certainly less distracted and less broke.
My entire desktop setup was bought with the cash left over from selling my 10th gen iPad. And I got a Xeon E 2276G, 32Gb of ECC RAM and 1TB enterprise SSD for that.
I still don’t get why apple chooses to devalue their brand so much for so little additional revenue. They’re a luxury goods brand, their whole revenue model is based on the appearance of quality.
I think for luxury brands advertising is even more important. Because they need to justify the inflated value of their brand.
Consider a Ferrari or a Rolex. It's not as much value for money as a cheap car or watch. There's some workmanship sure but most of the increased cost is just perceived value. People buy them because they are expensive, so they can show they have money. That only works if everyone knows it is expensive and the product has a good name.
Cheap stuff sells anyway because people need it and it is the best value for money.
They're a premium brand, not a luxury brand. That's an important distinction.
Dell, HP, etc. all have premium products as well as their economy ones. Apple just doesn't do cheap and economy products.
When that gold plated Apple Watch came out, you could feel the discomfort. That's luxury brand territory.
Even the most expensive Apple Watch isn't in that "luxury" category anymore.
Somebody listened to the Acquired episode on LVMH!
Apple enlisted Hermes to try and convince watch people that they understand luxury. The leather wrist strap costs as much as a new Apple Watch. As another noted here, premium vs luxury can be quite a step.
> They’re a luxury goods brand
How so? Just about any major manufacturer has hardware in the same price range.
>They’re a luxury goods brand,
Or maybe they aren't. They make great devices. I use them. I don't think of them as a luxury though.
Even if they’re not:
> They make great devices
They make great hardware. They used to make great devices - but a great device needs the whole user experience to be great. Ad-ridden UI does not make for a great device. Doesn’t matter if it’s first or 3rd party ads.
It’s a great shame. Apple used to be the design standard to aspire to. Now it seems to have embraced enshitification. All because the market needs that share price to keep growing. And lacking leadership good enough to find another way.
They are in business to make money. Brand value and quality are far more nebulous as indicators of value than, say, "We got Brand X to pay us $Y for an ad campaign that will sit in Keynote for the next Z days and will book that revenue on the quarterly results".
The days of leaving revenue opportunities unexploited for some high-minded set of principles or intangibles are over. Line must go up, and population growth in many major markets is flat. When you can't sell to more customers, you have to squeeze the revenue out of the opportunities you do have.
Maybe unpopular take but ... this isn't just any ad. It's a link to another related product in the ecosystem. Discoverability has always been difficult and there are so many features that remain largely unknown to users because of it.
The title makes it seem like I can purchase an ad and have some kind of ill-fitting content jumping around the screen, trying really hard for my attention. Instead I see an upgrade path from what is free and widely available to a potentially better product. I see this with open source projects too.
My iPhone showed me an ad for apple pay (the nfc radio, not the credit card), which I regularly use.
Today, I started carrying cash, and switched back to using the NFC chips in my credit cards.
My iPhone 13 mini will probably be my last iOS device. Tap to pay was hard to setup in grapheneos the last time I checked.
I guess I won’t miss it after all.
Last I checked, no ads in iA Presenter:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50090557
I have been exiting the Apple ecosystem for the last year. Feeling vindicated. It’s turning into the trash heap they were once proud not to be.
Pretty sure most people commenting here didn't even look at the post to see it's Apple promoting their own related product to their customers, not a third-party ad
Oh we’re well aware. There’s nothing cheaper than upsell nags when you spent what you did already.
How much did you pay for keynote?
An unwanted distraction is an unwanted distraction.
Ads are Ads, people hate to see them whatever they are advertising. Especially when they already paid a lot of money to join the ecosystem, upselling to paid customers feels cheap.
Nobody uses that to excuse Microsoft showing OneDrive ads.
Apple's own cross-promotions are so ugly and ham-fisted that I'm not sure third parties could do worse: https://www.pcmag.com/news/how-to-ditch-unsolicited-f1-ads-n...
Yes they could, they would, and you know it. They'd be serving you malware, they'd look even worse, they'd be for scams, they'd sell all the data they harvest from you to 1000 other companies, etc.
Does that make any difference at all? When Windows does it, people pop a fuse, but Apple gets a pass?
Pffffff..
I looked, and I'm infuriated.
This is exactly the sort of thing that Apple avoided when it had strong management from Jobs. Now...
They are only ads when other apps do it, when apple does it they are "Enhanced UI Recommendations".
Are we too sensitive? It's their own product
I don’t like OneDrive ads from the same reason. They are still ads in a product that should be ads free.
If you also agree that people were too sensitive dragging Microsoft then yah, we are getting too sensitive
Apple is just as bad as Microsoft in this regard. They just won't leave their users alone.
You've got to be kidding? Microsoft has literal third party ads in the OS...
Really? I havent seen them. Not saying they dont exist, but they havent been shoved down my throat.
They are literally in the start menu.
ok, but I cant see them. They arent in mine, so maybe they arent ubiquitous?
https://www.pcmag.com/news/microsoft-pushes-start-menu-ads-t...
why would you lie about such an easy to check fact?
If you work at OpenAI, I want to let you know I cancelled my ChatGPT subscription today because you won't stop pestering me with upgrade offers/ads.
Go do that to your free users, not the ones paying your salary.
If you work at OpenAI, congrats on getting people to subscribe in the first place. The marketing is working, OpenAI customers think they're safe from ads!
This is all very bad timing. Given that I can use AI to create completely alternative software stacks, it is the wrong time for proprietary software providers to start pissing off and exploiting all their users.
I could make a full macOS clone. I could fix all the little warts that bother me and break out of the walled garden where I want to. Then I can port it to whatever hardware I like.
> Given that I can use AI to create completely alternative software stacks
No you can't. Someone can certainly burn a gorillion tokens to make a 3rd rate clone of Adobe suite that get's posted to HN as pre-alpha that fuels 1000 comments like this though.
I wonder how long will it be until people use ai to start reverse engineering all Apples APIs and protocols so that they can make 3rd party open source apps which can use the fruity ecosystem from outside the wall.
> I could make a full macOS clone
With like a million bucks worth of tokens? Sure.
> Then I can port it to whatever hardware I like.
I think you're missing a point here.
> I could make a full macOS clone. I could fix all the little warts that bother me and break out of the walled garden where I want to. Then I can port it to whatever hardware I like.
You could.
You very, very, very likely will not.
They know this and act accordingly.
Linux + thousands of developers with AI agents is going to show otherwise this next decade. I think. I hope?
Linux has millions of man-hours worth of code. Did it help Linux become a mainstream consumer platform?
Apple stopped caring about quality quite a few years ago but those decisions are only hitting us now. The next few years are going to be very stupid.
If we are lucky, Apple can right the ship in time. I wouldn't hold me my breath though.
I miss Steve Jobs.
Just before they release their first smart home device with a screen.
I wonder whats coming?
Prominent screen in the kitchen used as recipe stand showing ingredients etc.? The possibilities are endless, and I think we're going to love it.
It's ever so slightly disingenuous to call this "showing ads": It appears to be letting you know about a paid DLC for the app you are running not "this space is for sale".
That said, I don't think it's even a slippery slope from here to "this space for sale".
So, an ad for DLC is not an ad?
I remember seeing this back in January
I still use the old version of Keynote for this reason.
they've been showing ads for years. literally every year i get an ad for the new version of the os. heck sometimes they show popups advertising security updates. apple has no shame.
Another new annoyance: the Settings app has 2 red notification icons because Apple is trying to sell me extended AppleCare. Apparently no way to turn off these notifications.
I thought you could click on it, press no/cancel, and it would disappear.
As of this morning, that does not work for me.
It's been doing this for years now to try to get me sign into iCloud. I finally gave up and signed into the free version, then disabled every single service.
ha there is one way
Apple published the instructions more than 40 years ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQRR-HC_G60
From the title I imagined 3rd party ads, not an upsell for some feature of the app/platform.
Who tf uses keynote anyway lol
Apple has always been ultra-narcissistic, pushing designs and features that make their designers feel smart but actively hurt customers and decrease the utility of their products. Now they're even losing that. They ran out of good ideas shortly after Jobs died. Now they've run out of bad ideas and they're speed-running enshittification.
Don't like it? Vibe code your own Apple® Keynote® software.
Apple has one of the most valuable brands in the world. Why do they want to associate it with this tasteless nickel-and-diming? If nothing else, surely this is bad for business over the long term. Gain a few low-value subscriptions, lose a few high-value hardware purchases.
Time to vibe code an OG Keynote clome...
Apparently I made the jump to Linux just in time. They are just your run-of-the-mill enshittifying Rent® Seeking© Optimizer™ now.
Yeah same here. I decided to use 5/6 year old trash PCs running Debian. They work absolutely fine. I think I’m actually more productive and certainly less distracted and less broke.
My entire desktop setup was bought with the cash left over from selling my 10th gen iPad. And I got a Xeon E 2276G, 32Gb of ECC RAM and 1TB enterprise SSD for that.
I’d like to switch to Linux, but I can't find a sufficiently functional alternative to Keynote, which I need every day for my work. It’s a shame.
Well, given that AI can now decompile and port software... :)
I still feel like iPhones are good devices, but yeah apple is going down hill.
I also get a lot of life out of MacBooks, they have been pretty reliable for me.