Apple expands App Store ads from the Search tab and Search results to the App Store's Today homepage and individual app pages
ads on individual app pages—shows lawmakers and regulators must press ahead Mike Peterson / AppleInsider : Apple testing new App Store ad placements very soon Nick Heer / Pixel Envy : Apple Adding Ads to App Store Today View and Individual App Listings Evan Selleck / iDownloadBlog.com : Apple is expanding ads in the App Store Tweets: Mark Gurman / @markgurman : Interesting: Apple announced expanded ad placement in the App Store. But only via the three relevant Apple-only news sites, at a random embargo time on a Friday (11:11 AM), the day after saying ad sales are dipping due to the economy. https://twitter.com/... Casey Liss / @caseyliss : 1) this is gross 2) it's spam 3) I was just listening to Apple Music an hour ago, on this device. 👎🏻 × ∞ [ad for Apple Music on Lock Screen] Sebastiaan de With / @sdw : controversial opinion: Apple shouldn't get into the ad business. Pushing ads in their platform opposes to their goals and core values, and will only erode user trust. Are the relatively minor profits worth the price of bad experiences and lost goodwill? https://twitter.com/... Jeff Johnson / @lapcatsoftware : “This means that developers will now be able to place ads on the product pages for other apps.” Holy shit this is ghoulish https://twitter.com/... Paul Haddad / @tapbot_paul : Coming next year “Download Ads” instead of downloading the app you want, the App Store will randomly download the highest bidding app. https://9to5mac.com/... https://twitter.com/... Tim Sweeney / @timsweeneyepic : They front-run searches for your trademarked app name, and place ad results above the result for your app. But now, there's more: Apple will litter your own app page with ads for competing apps. And keep all the ad money for themselves. Apple must be stopped. Dare Obasanjo / @carnage4life : Apple really pulled off “Nice ads business you have there, it'd be a shame if something happened to it” then hijacked the app install ads business of all the major social apps. Best part is all of the media who parroted their PR talking points on privacy. https://www.theverge.com/... @sarthakgh : Ah yes our privacy savant had to kill the ecosystem so that they can start doing the same things, less competently, after relabelling all the concepts to get glowing press coverage https://twitter.com/... Eren Bali / @erenbali : It's a tough capital market. Everybody has to do something to stay alive. https://twitter.com/... Packy McCormick / @packym : What Apple has done to the abs market is sick and anticompetitive and I will NOT support it. Sent from my iPhone. Please excuse any typos. https://twitter.com/... Tim Sweeney / @timsweeneyepic : You worked hard to build a great app. You registered a trademark. You signed up to Apple demands for 30% of your revenue as the sole way to reach iOS users. How does Apple reward you? https://9to5mac.com/... Dave Rupert / @davatron5000 : Damn. Is Apple out of money? https://twitter.com/... Sami Fathi / @samifathi_ : It's quite the comparison when you look at the App Store ads that are literally one per-page product page/Today tab compared to the ads on the Play Store. https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... Kyle Russell / @kylebrussell : Apple ecosystem as they decimate FB and small businesses 😈🫡 Apple ecosystem as Cupertino makes the App Store even more viciously competitive 😳🤯😱 https://twitter.com/... Max Weinbach / @maxwinebach : @SamiFathi_ @Apple i think you mean to say it'll let apple make more money by shoving ads on the app store, like google Francisco Tolmasky / @tolmasky : As a *user*, I hate this. Remember when a selling point of the @AppStore was that it wasn't the ad-infested web? Turns out Apple only had a problem with *other people's ads*. More and more the @AppStore feels like Google's ad-filled search results page, minus the relevant results https://twitter.com/... Dare Obasanjo / @carnage4life : Tim Cook trying to decide what iOS app to Sherlock next. https://twitter.com/... Laura Norkin / @inlauraswords : I know this happens in physical stores with, say, shelf signage and branded displays. But it's still wild to me that a place made to get money in exchange for goods is also collecting money in exchange for suggesting you buy those goods. https://twitter.com/... @chrismessina : @CaseyNewton ATT is such an antitrust masterstroke — the advertising equivalent of an EMP granting Apple a free pass to the heart of advertising's Matrix lair. https://twitter.com/... Quinn Nelson / @snazzyq : Remember when you could search in the App Store and the app you were looking for would actually show up as the first result? @seyitaylor : I hate this so much because Apple neither has the inventory nor the expertise nor the utility for any of this. How much ad inventory is there on the App Store? SMH. They demolished an entire city to build a teeny itsy bitty house and they're going to be like “please clap”. https://twitter.com/... Casey Newton / @caseynewton : Facebook ads had to die so that Apple ads could live https://twitter.com/... @jonyiveparody : “And we think customers are going to love it!” #courage https://twitter.com/... Marcin Krzyzanowski / @krzyzanowskim : that has to happen when you don't pay enough cut from your AppStore sales! the platform has to be sustainable. ads. ads everywhere. https://9to5mac.com/... Benjamin Mayo / @bzamayo : Ads on the Today page I assumed would happen at some point. Whatever. Ads on the product page of another app? That's pretty icky (it is buried right at the bottom, but even so). https://9to5mac.com/... Chance Miller / @chancehmiller : at least now we know what tomorrow's @atpfm episode will be about https://twitter.com/... Adam Nash / @adamnash : @pt ... was just commenting on this. Apple succeeded in framing this around privacy, and Facebook didn't get people to see the real impact of this change on small businesses & startups. Unfortunately, I'm not sure Apple factored in how bad this might be for mobile app distribution. Parker / @pt : That's gotta be what, $100B+ of small businesses revenue? Anybody got a good methodology for estimating this? Definitely hilarious however big it is tho. https://twitter.com/... Robert Evans / @iwriteok : i hope Facebook collapses and everyone there loses their job. I hope Mark Zuckerberg walks into the sea and is never seen again. burn you fuckers. Robert Evans / @iwriteok : this is honestly the coolest thing I've learned in a long time. As a former Cracked employee it's nice to see Facebook's profits get nuked because some other company flipped a switch https://twitter.com/... Parker / @pt : @adamnash Personally I just see it as an abject failure of tech journalism that Apple is fucking small businesses while the FTC tries to prevent them from even competing with future Apple products and the public is happy about all of it. I don't think we can credit Apple, they got lucky. @vectorpoem : tapping “Ask App not to Track” is a bit like turning off motion smoothing on your non-tech-savvy parents' TV, except it's helping to slowly murder one of the worst companies on the planet. everyone do their part! https://twitter.com/... Glenn Fleishman / @glennf : Weird how Facebook revealed its entire business is built on the non-consensual use of private information. https://twitter.com/... Marco Arment / @marcoarment : 4) Are commas illegal in California, or is Apple's customer-spamming team just losing their ability to write? https://twitter.com/... @can : @pt @adamnash How should have Apple framed the question that'd be more honest? Open for your suggestions. Also, it's not like they were punching down. Facebooks bread and butter is ads and they couldn't get anyone to care because they are morally corrupt and people don't believe Zuck.
Context & Ripple Effects
Apple's tighter iOS ad-tracking rules had already been linked to developers leaning more heavily on in-app purchases and subscriptions, while a 2022 review identified Apple as an emerging force beyond the Google-Meta ad duopoly. The new inventory makes that advertising ambition visible inside Apple's own software marketplace.
The move also sharpens a longstanding complaint that the App Store's position as the only distribution route for iOS users gives Apple unusual control over discovery. Developers and commentators now characterize ads on editorial and product surfaces as anticompetitive and spammy.
First-order effects
- Apple gains additional App Store inventory beyond search, placing paid promotion on the Today homepage and individual app pages.
- Developers face sponsored placements alongside editorial discovery and app listings, including on pages where users are evaluating competing apps.
Second-order effects
- App marketers must weigh Apple’s new placements against other mobile-ad channels at a time when Meta is encouraging advertisers to test video ads on TikTok as they adapt to Reels.
- Apple’s control of both App Store distribution and its ad surfaces strengthens its ability to monetize developer acquisition budgets, a concern reinforced by the earlier shift in developer monetization after tracking limits.
Third-order effects
- If Apple continues adding advertising surfaces, mobile app discovery may become more dependent on platform-run paid placement rather than solely search ranking or editorial featuring.
- The expansion adds force to scrutiny of the App Store’s gatekeeper role: the same operator that controls iOS distribution is increasingly selling visibility within it.
The trend: Mobile-platform owners are turning first-party discovery surfaces into advertising businesses as privacy changes weaken the utility of cross-app targeting.